The Sasquatch Mystery

another camper.”
    “Somebody who’s already pulled out,” Knut agreed.
    Trixie didn’t have brothers of her own for nothing. Knut and Cap were building an explanation out of thin air. They didn’t know any more than she did what had caused that fetid odor.
    Hallie held her nose and declared, “They’d better change recipes.”
    “Or their good neighbor policy,” Brian said with a hollow laugh.
    “Why would anybody want to trap a bee?” Di asked. “I thought they were good for making honey and leaving it in trees for bears to eat.” Knut’s surprised chuckle broke the tension. “That’s one way to look at it, Di, but when you’re trying to clean fish or cook, yellow jackets can get pretty pesky. Woodsmen get some protection when they hang a fine-meshed wire basket several feet away from where they’re working. They smear stale fish—usually just the heads—with cooking fat and anything else they can find that will turn rancid in the sun. They put the mess in the basket and let nature take its course. Yellow jackets are scavengers. They go for the rotten food and leave the fishermen in peace.”
    Di wrinkled her nose with distaste.
    Cap’s brown ponytail swung as he quit his prowling and sat beside her. “Never mind,” he said. “We’ll take care of it in the morning.”
    The wind changed and soon it was possible to breathe freely. Still, Trixie sensed restlessness in the forest. A great owl swooped low through the clearing. Coyotes argued, came to some agreement, and moved on. Once she thought she heard that cranky bear cub.
    Trixie agreed with the theory that nothing was in the woods at night that wasn’t there in broad daylight. But that was more comforting when she was in the Wheeler game preserve, way back home on the Hudson River. This was the vast Joe country in Idaho. Who knew what might be watching every move she made? Hugging herself, Trixie hunched toward the fire.
    “Are you cold?” Knut asked. “Shall I bring an extra sweater? Our temperature drops pretty low after sundown.”
    “No, thanks, Knut,” Trixie answered quickly. “I just thought about home and a—a goose walked over my grave!”
    “How appropriate!” Mart exclaimed. “It has come often to my attention that warm-blooded vertebrate animals characterized by oviparous generation and covered by an epidermal growth are prone to gather in companies. Therefore, a web-footed anserine fowl would seek out its kind, namely one Beatrix Belden, aged fourteen, familiarly known as Trixie, the co-president of this otherwise intelligent band of youth called the Bob-Whites of the Glen.” Mart’s swooping right hand included Di, Jim, Honey, Brian, and Trixie.
    His sister stopped hugging herself. “Heaven— with help from the dictionary—only knows, but I do believe you’re insulting me!”
    Jim Frayne sprawled comfortably at Trixie’s right. “If he is, he really got carried away and labeled all of us geese, himself included. That is, unless Mart has recently resigned from the Bob-Whites. As the other co-president, I’d be happy to entertain a motion that his resignation be accepted without further ado!”
    “I second the motion!” Hallie whooped. She waved a hand, which Mart promptly captured and pulled down.
    Where Mart Belden was concerned, Di Lynch would listen to no criticism. “You can’t do that, Hallie,” she objected prettily. “Nobody made a motion for you to second.”
    “I’ll be glad to oblige,” Brian put in.
    Mart smote his brow. “Betrayed first by my own tongue and then by my brother’s.”
    Hallie clapped her hands and grinned as she told her own brothers, “See? I told you it was fun being a Bob-White!”
    “We’re not members,” Knut said.
    “You are now,” Jim said. “All in favor of accepting Hallie, Cap, and Knut as honorary new members, say ‘aye.’ ”
    “Aye!” shouted the visiting New Yorkers. “Now what do we do?” Cap asked. “Wear feathers in our hair?”
    “Be serious!” Trixie begged. “It’s—well, it’s an honor to belong to the Bob-Whites of the Glen. We’re pledged to help each other or anybody else in need, and we’re semi-secret—we don’t go around bragging about the good deeds we do.”
    “Our signal is the bob-white call,” added Honey, “and we use it only when we really need help.” She pursed her lips and gave the bob, bob-white call in a clear, sweet whistle.
    “That’s better than fleep, fleeoweep .” Softly Cap whistled the