The Sasquatch Mystery

had found in the pack rats’ nest this time. “Di’s barrette.”
    Di wrinkled her nose with distaste. “I’ll never wear it again!”
    “Suit yourself,” Hallie said. “I’m real glad to find the button off my jacket. Buttons are hard to match.” Into her pocket, with the barrette, went the button. “Now, all I need is thread and a needle.”
    “We found something, too,” Trixie said. She held out the tweezers, while Honey showed the spoon. “Aren’t these wacky?”
    “What’s so wacky about finding this stuff?” Hallie scoffed. “You’re in gold country, and those are prospector’s tools. There’s been a sniper at work.”
    “The station wagon!” Trixie reminded Hallie. “That’s right—there were mining tools in that old wagon,” said Hallie. “I wonder if these things can possibly have anything to do with Cap’s disappearance.”
    “I’d say yes if it wasn’t a sasquatch that attacked Cap,” said Knut. “What need would it have for gold?”
    “I don’t know,” Hallie flung back, “but the nugget bag is empty, isn’t it? The pack rat ran across one nugget and the locket, but he didn’t hoard Tank’s gold. I poked around in every treasure room in that rat mansion. There wasn’t an extra flake!”
    Mart picked up the tweezers. “If that’s a sniper’s tool, you’ll have to show me how to use it. I haven’t a clue.”
    Knut sat on one heel. “Here’s what sniping’s like,” he said. “You pick out a crack in the bedrock. It’s all filled up with silt, sand, small gravel, grass roots, rotten leaves, bugs—stuff like that. You take your screwdriver, and you loosen all this goop. Then you scoop it up with a spoon and dump it in your gold pan. If you don’t have a gold pan, a frying pan will work.”
    “There’s a gold pan in the station wagon,” Trixie put in.
    Knut’s dark eyes sharpened with interest. “Chances are the guy’s been sniping long enough to have all the tools.” He went on, “If you can’t reach the bottom of the crack, you break open the rock with your pick. You put everything you find in the pan, even plants. Sometimes those little tiny hair roots are twisted around a flake of gold.
    “When your pan is a little more than half full, you pour in water and shake the mess around and around. Gold is heavy, so it goes to the bottom. This is called panning. You keep putting in more water and draining off trash, till you have just black sand and minerals left. If you’re lucky enough to have a nugget, you pick it out with tweezers.
    “Usually you dry the stuff, blow out the sand, and use your magnet, till all you have left is gold dust. Then you take a stiff paper to scoop your gold into your jar—and there you are, ready to go sniping again.”
    While he talked, Knut moved his hands as if he dug for gold. Trixie could see that Knut was truly his father’s son, a mining man.
    “Is that what Tank does?” she asked.
    “No, not anymore,” said Hallie. “He’s a hard-rock miner.”
    Knut jerked a thumb toward the head of the canyon. “Tank found gold in an outcrop up there on the mountain. He staked his claim and has his own one-man operation. He doesn’t snipe.”
    It was a silent and sober group that set about the evening chores. Knut stayed by the fire to make his own version of a hunter’s stew. He simply opened cans of meat, vegetables, and gravy, heated the mixture in a huge pot, and served the food piping hot in cereal bowls.
    Hallie toyed with her food.
    “You’re refusing to eat because you know what’s really in it,” Mart accused.
    “I’m worried about Tank,” she confessed.
    “So am I,” Knut agreed. “If Cap doesn’t come in tonight, or if we don’t find him tomorrow, we’ll go check on Tank. I just hate to take out six or seven hours before Ron comes.”
    “Ron?” Trixie asked.
    “Oh, Trixie,” Hallie said impatiently, “we told you about Gloria’s brother. He’s coming to help look for Cap.”
    “Oh, yes, of course,” Trixie said. She didn’t want to say that she hadn’t been concentrating because she sensed the presence of somebody or something , just out of sight in the stretching shadows of early evening.
    Thunk.
    A rock whizzed out of the forest, hit the plastic glass Mart held, and splashed his drink in a sticky circle. He demanded angrily, “What’s going on? Come on, you guys, cut it out!”
    “Count noses, fella,” Knut said quietly. “We’re all right here.”
    Honey had lifted a