The secret of the Mansion

to tell me you girls broke into the house? Didn’t you know you were breaking the law?"
    Trixie flushed. "We only went inside to lock up the place," she said quickly. "Honey saw a face at a window earlier, and I thought we ought to make sure it wasn’t a tramp or someone from the village who knew Mr. Frayne was in the hospital. You see, there was supposed to be half a million dollars hidden in the house and I—"
    "And what if it had been a tramp or a thief?" Mr. Rainsford interrupted sternly. "An ugly fellow who might have done something unpleasant to prevent you from reporting him to the police?" He frowned. "It was very wrong of you and an extremely dangerous thing for you to have done. Why, even I, Mr. Frayne s attorney, wouldn’t have entered the house without first obtaining a search warrant."
    Trixie stared shamefacedly down at her shoes. "We didn’t mean to do anything wrong," Honey broke in. "We just didn’t think."
    Trixie grinned ruefully. "It’s a bad habit I have-acting before I think."
    Mr. Rainsford relented and smiled then. "I’m sure you meant well and that you’ll never do anything like that again. Now, please, go on with your story. Your tramp turned out to be Jim?"
    Trixie nodded and quickly told him everything that had happened, beginning with why Jim had run away from his stepfather.
    When she had finished, Mr. Rainsford said slowly, "I suspected something like that. Actually, Jim has nothing to worry about from Jones. I’ve gathered enough evidence from neighbors on the farms outside Albany to prove to a judge that Jim’s stepfather is not a competent guardian. As soon as we locate him, I’ll take the matter to court and have another guardian appointed."
    Trixie let out a sigh of relief, and Honey looked as though she were going to dance up and down with happiness. Mr. Rainsford smiled at them. "Jim sounds like a great lad. I’d like to adopt him myself. Will you two help me find him?"
    "Of course we will," Trixie and Honey cried together, and Trixie added, "We’ve got some clues, Mr. Rainsford. He told us he was going to apply for a job at one of those three big boys’ camps upstate."
    "Well, that makes it easy, then," the lawyer told them. "And when we do find him, there’s half a million dollars in trust waiting for him."
    "Golly," Honey gasped. "Then Jim really is a missing heir, after all, and old Mr. Frayne wasn’t a crazy miser."
    "Not exactly," Mr. Rainsford explained. "Mr. Frayne got a bit queer after his wife’s sudden death. He took all of his money out of banks and turned over the rest of his estate to me. He formed a trust for his great-nephew, but I was not to inform Jim of this trust until after his uncle’s death." He frowned. "I wish that boy had got in touch with me before he ran off again. I’d better get right on the phone and start calling those boys’ camps."
    "Oh, don’t do that," Trixie begged. "You don’t know Jim. He’s as stubborn as a mule. If he got the least bit suspicious that somebody was looking for him, he’d think it was Jonesy; and then he’d disappear for good. If he got a job on a cattle boat that was sailing right away, it might be years and years before we could locate him."
    Mr. Rainsford looked at her sharply. "Well, what do you suggest, then? He’s not going to have an easy time getting a job at one of those camps without written permission from his parents or guardian. If we don’t act quickly, he may ship aboard a cattle boat, anyway. We may be too late already."
    "Well go and look for him, ourselves," Trixie cried. "Honey and I. He wouldn’t worry at all if he heard two girls were trying to trace him. He’d know it was us and he trusts us, you see."
    "But," Mr. Rainsford objected, "you two can’t go wandering around the state all by yourselves."
    "It’s a perfectly wonderful idea," Honey broke in enthusiastically. "We’ll go in our trailer. Daddy’s got an enormous one which we almost never use, because Mother won’t travel any way except by plane. It’s really a darling little house on wheels. Oh, we’ll have a wonderful time, won’t we, Trixie?"
    Mr. Rainsford’s heavy gray eyebrows shot up questioningly. "All by yourselves?" he repeated and shook his head at them.
    Honey’s flushed face grew even redder. "Oh, nol Miss Trask, my governess, will go with us. She’s a perfectly marvelous driver. Daddy is always saying that he feels safer with Miss Trask behind the wheel than he does when Regan’s driving.