The Sasquatch Mystery

come.”
    “Thanks, Trix. I was kind of hoping he could, too.”
    At the mention of a boy’s name, Hallie’s brothers glanced at each other, but they did not tease. Trixie liked that. In their shoes, Mart would have recited the entire balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet.
    Knut shifted weight and stared upward at the sky-scraping pines. After a while he said, “Stars, hide your fires.” His tone was as conversational as if he had said, “Please pass the butter.”
    “Jeepers,” breathed Trixie, “did you make that up?”
    “Nope,” Knut answered good-naturedly.
    “Shakespeare beat him to it,” Jim guessed.
    “Nothing wrong with quoting a little Shakespeare,” said Hallie, staring proudly at Knut.
    At thirteen, Hallie Belden was beautiful. Her bones were long and fragile-looking. Her braided, smooth hair was as dark as Brian’s. She had eyes the color of ripe blackberries and brows that would never need tweezers. Trixie had no trouble imagining Hallie as a rajah’s daughter in floating silks, but there she sat—in well-worn blue jeans, an old plaid shirt, and scuffed boots. Trixie doubted that she would ever be able to overcome a niggle-naggle of jealousy. She herself weighed a few more pounds than any of the other girls, and she wasn’t as tall. It was hard to think of herself as pretty, when each time she faced Mart she saw herself—sandy curls, round blue eyes, and freckles. Mart was many things, but he wasn’t pretty!
    Something Brian said made Hallie laugh. The deep, gurgling chuckle caused others to smile with her. She clapped her hands, then made a welcoming gesture that included the Bob-Whites and Miss Trask. “I’m so glad you’re here that I’m just bustin’ buttons trying to think what to share with you first!”
    “Something edible?” Mart suggested helpfully. Cap looked astounded. “Wasn’t that you who just ate three hot dogs in buns?” he asked.
    Mart tried to sound deeply wounded. “My own cousin, mine host, actually counts the morsels with which I barely maintain this emaciated body!”
    “You’re about as emaciated as a hippo,” Trixie snorted.
    “Well, I’m just a little dry,” Mart said hastily. “There’s some watermelon in the creek that I just know—”
    Knut started to rise but Hallie motioned her brother to sit down. “Later,” she promised. “We’ll have the melon later.”
    “We will if we beat that porcupine to it,” Cap said.
    “What porcupine?” Di squealed.
    “Ssh!” Cap warned.
    In the silence that fell, Trixie could hear the grumbling and chittering of a porcupine. She heard other sounds, too. A whistle and a snort.
    “There’s a deer close by,” Knut whispered. “Something startled it.”
    “What’s that bawling sound?” Trixie whispered back.
    “Bear cub,” Knut told her.
    “That means its mother is hanging around, too?” Trixie asked, edging even closer to Knut.
    “Or soon will be,” Knut said.
    There was another sound.
    Cap seemed to float up into a sitting position. His brown eyes became as alert as those of a fox. Not a sound betrayed his own presence, but Trixie caught an exchange of glances between Cap and Knut.
    A twig snapped. Again the bear cub squalled. To Trixie, that woods baby sounded scared.
    The camp had been set up in a parklike glade beside Champion Creek where it tumbled down
    a steep, narrow gulch. Sounds were Tunneled to the campground as if through a megaphone: a series of grunts, barks, and wails... a sharp whistle... a coaxing suka , suka. Then, after a breathless wait, a long, drawn-out agoouummm.
    “It’s going away,” Knut said.
    “What was it?” asked Jim. “What animals do you have around here?”
    Knut didn’t seem to hear the first question. “Oh, the usual,” he said. “Cougar, deer, elk, brown bear, skunk, whistling marmot.”
    “I thought a marmot was a kind of rodent,” Trixie ventured.
    “It is,” Cap said.
    “Well, that was an awfully big sound,” Trixie declared.
    “Maybe it was an awfully big rat,” said Di nervously.
    “Maybe,” Cap said. He snapped a dry stick. The sound echoed like a gunshot.
    Immediately the surrounding forest became so quiet that Trixie could hear the burble of water that swirled around large, white rocks in the dim half-light beyond the circle of firelight. No matter how hard she looked, she could see nothing but black-dark beyond those stones. Suddenly it seemed very important that she know exactly where she was at that very moment, where