The secret of the Mansion

been Honey," she said quickly. "She went to get the horses, I guess."
    At that moment, Honey appeared, riding Strawberry and leading Lady. "You don’t have to come back to the stable with me, Trixie," she said. "Ji—’"
    Trixie held up a warning finger. Honey flushed. "I hear that if a dog is mad, it always runs across country in a straight line," she finished. "So we don’t have to worry about its coming back."
    "Well, that’s good." Trixie took Bobby by the hand. "You’ve got to go home for your lunch now," she told him firmly. "See you later, Honey."
    For once Bobby was too tired and hungry to argue. Obediently, he let Trixie take him home and trotted right upstairs to wash his face and hands.
    "I’ve been invited to a picnic lunch by Honey Wheeler," Trixie told her mother. "May I go if I come back afterward and take care of Bobby when he wakes up from his nap?"
    "All right," Mrs. Belden agreed. "I’m glad you’ve found a new friend. Bobby said you went riding through the woods. Your shirt looks as though you’d had a spill. Did you?"
    Trixie nodded, grinning. "It’s not as easy as I thought it would be, Moms, but Regan—that’s the man who takes care of the Wheelers’ horses—said he’d give me lessons. He also said he was sure I’d learn fast."
    "I’m sure you will, too." Mrs. Belden smiled. "But try not to break any bones in the process."
    Trixie raced up the hill through the wooded path that led up from the vegetable garden to the Wheeler estate. She met Honey coming around the lake from the opposite direction. She was carrying a large napkin-covered basket.
    "I’ve got a whole roasted chicken and a quart of milk," she called out, "and a dozen buttered rolls, besides a lemon meringue pie." She giggled. "I told
    Miss Trask you had an enormous appetite."
    "I have." Trixie took one handle of the basket and peeked under the snowy white napkin. "Boy, Jim’ll be glad to see all this, won’t he?"
    As the girls entered the woods, Honey moved closer to Trixie. "Ooh," she murmured, "it’s much more scary walking through here than it is riding." The trail was thickly carpeted with pine needles, and overhead heavy branches of the trees shaded them from the noon sun.
    Honey jumped as a chipmunk appeared from nowhere and scurried across the path. "Regan told me there were foxes and skunks in these woods," she said with a little shiver. "Do you think one of them will attack us, Trixie?"
    Golly, she is nervous, Trixie thought. She said out loud, "Of course they won’t, silly. Wild animals never attack humans unless we attack them first."
    "How about that game hen?" Honey demanded with a nervous laugh.
    "That was different," Trixie told her. "She thought we were after her eggs." She sniffed the air. I smell a skunk right now. Or a fox. Oh," she finished as they came around a bend in the trail, "there s a skunk now. Isn’t he cute?"
    The little black and white animal stood smugly in the middle of the path, several yards ahead of them.
    "Cute?" Honey cringed. "It’s a horrible, smelly creature, and it’ll squirt that awful stuff all over us."
    "Skunks aren’t really smelly at all," Trixie told her. "They’re very clean little animals, and the Indians in Canada think skunk meat is delicious to eat. Mart had a pet skunk once till Dad discovered it in the chicken coop calmly eating the eggs." She laughed. "They carry that fluid in two little sacs under their tails, and when they jump around that’s the time to run. Reddy didn’t run fast enough once, and it was days before Mother’d let him inside the house."
    "Oh, Trixie, please let’s go back," Honey begged. "I’m more afraid of skunks than anything else in the woods."
    "Well," Trixie said, "we’re perfectly safe unless we come too close. I’m going to throw this stone at him and see if that won’t make him move."
    Honey let the basket slip to the ground and got ready to run. The skunk, completely ignoring die pebble that bounced beside it, unconcernedly rooted through the leaves for a bug. The second stone landed on its back. The little animal stood perfectly still, as though considering the matter carefully, then, after a moment, ambled slowly across the path and into the woods.
    "See?" Trixie demanded triumphantly.
    "Yes," Honey said doubtfully. "But did you ever hear of a mad skunk?"
    "Of course not," Trixie cried in derision. "Where did you ever get such a dopey idea?"
    "From Jim," Honey told her in a low voice. "He said he hoped that the