The Black Jacket Mystery Page 13

  Through the recital, old Mr. Maypenny stared at her, doubtfully at first, then with growing excitement. He interrupted her as she was telling about hearing a step up in the attic of the cabin the night before.

  “That’s it! I knew I heard a strange voice while I was lying there! I thought I was dreamin’ it, on account of the bump I got on my head, but I guess it was real.”

  “What did you hear?” Trixie asked eagerly.

  The gamekeeper thought it over. “Kind of an argument, it seemed like. I was pretty dizzy, and part of the time I guess I was out, but every now an then I’d come to and hear the voices, Dan’s and somebody else’s.”

  “Did you hear what they were saying?” she asked, her blue eyes sparkling with the excitement of the mystery.

  “Not much,” he admitted. “I recollect that the other one was laughing and poking fun at Dan—” He shook his head. “Seems like he was calling him yeller’ in a mean kind of voice, and I heard Dan say, ‘I won’t do it.’ ”

  Trixie waited for him to go on, and when he didn’t, she urged, “What else, Mr. Maypenny?” The old man shrugged his shoulders. “That’s about all I remember. Drifted off again, about that time.”

  Trixie was disappointed. Then she began her maybe-ing.

  “Maybe he wanted to make Dan run away, and Dan didn’t want to go. Maybe the other one had a gun and just made him come along!” She was building up the scene in her mind. “Maybe they struggled, and he knocked Dan out—pow! And then he dragged Dan away with him—”

  “And maybe it didn’t happen that way at all,” he interrupted wearily. “All I know is, when Regan gets back from the city, I’m giving him the books and things the young one left behind him, and then I’m washing my hands of the whole thing. And nobody can blame me!” He touched the bandage again and winced at the touch. “I guess we all expected too much of a wild kid. He’s better off in reform school.”

  Trixie felt sad. Dan and she hadn’t hit it off well, but maybe, as Jim had told the Bob-Whites a couple of times, people don’t feel very friendly to others after being arrested and all. “Jim’s told us how awful it is not to have a good home and people around who care about what becomes of you,” she told Mr. Maypenny gravely. “He always says he was just lucky he didn’t get in with the wrong bunch himself and get into trouble. I guess Dan wasn’t so lucky.”

  “Guess not, young one. And you better be getting back to the lake and starting for home. Sun’s low and you oughtn’t to be out in the woods in the dark.”

  “I’m on my way right now,” Trixie assured him. “But first, here’s some crab-apple jelly from Moms. I’ll tell Brian your head is just fine,” she called to the old man as she swung into Susie’s saddle and headed the young mare back toward the lake. “Hope you like the jelly. Moms makes oodles of it every fall, and she’s won heaps of blue ribbons for it at the county fair.”

  “Tell her I’m much obliged,” he called after her as she rode down the trail.

  She was surprised, as she rode down the hill to the lake, to find that the boys had finished work on all the rows of plank seats they had been building and were nowhere in sight.

  They had stamped out the fire before they left, and there was a cold wind blowing in heavy gusts across the ice. But there was a beautiful sunset, with scurrying pink and crimson clouds, and the ice looked so inviting that she took her skates out of her saddlebag and put them on to try it.

  It was fun skating around in a pink glow as if she were on a vast stage in a colored spotlight. She sped around the edge of the lake and then out into the middle and did a fancy twirl, a leap, and a spectacular finish that ended in a bow to her imaginary audience in the empty rows of benches.

  But as she glided off the ice, something moved among the trees a hundred feet away and caught her eye. She stopped to stare, half blinded by the level rays of the red ball of sun. She saw two figures hurrying away over the hill. One was short and the other was somewhat taller. And they both were wearing black leather jackets and caps.

  Now she knew. Dan the runaway was not alone. He was with the other one whose voice Mr. Maypenny had heard, and whose black jacket she had seen and touched on the back of the chair in the Maypenny cabin!

  They had been watching her while she skated. Her face flushed as she thought how silly she must have seemed to them as she took a bow before the imaginary audience. It was most annoying.

  She removed her skates, frowning all the time, and plunked them back into the saddlebag. “Come on, Susie, let’s go home. The free show’s over!” She mounted and turned Susie’s nose in the direction of the homeward trail.

  The red sun had dipped below the hills, and the twilight shadows were deep all around. Strange noises came from the woods nearby. She knew they were only natural forest sounds, but at that spooky time of night, she was jumpy and expected every minute that Dan Mangan and his unknown friend would reappear. And she didn’t want to meet them.

  She urged the little mare on down the trail, but Susie was being stubborn. She would go only so fast, and her ears twitched nervously at every small sound.

  Suddenly something small and furry darted across the path almost at Susie’s feet. After it came another shape, this one unmistakably a fox. It disappeared into the brush and rocks as Susie, neighing with fright, reared and dropped Trixie out of the saddle.

  She landed in a drift of deep snow beside the path and scrambled to her feet in time to see Susie running back up the path the way they had just come.

  “Susie! Whoa, girl! Whoa!” she called out and ran after her along the darkening trail as fast as she could.

  But the nervous young mare veered off the trail and crashed through the bushes in a wild, crosscountry run, her reins flying loose behind her.

  And in a couple of minutes she had disappeared into the depths of the wild bit of forest that they called the labyrinth because it had no regular trails and was still as wild as it had been when the first settlers came to the valley long years ago.

  Double Danger! • 18

  TRIXIE WENT as fast as she could along the dark trail, calling, “Whoa, Susie!” in tones that grew weaker and weaker as she became more breathless. There was no sight or sound of the runaway mare now. She had disappeared in the blackness of the deep woods.

  Trixie stumbled to the side of the trail and sank onto the nearest flat boulder. She didn’t even look to see if she was sitting on a rock or a pile of snow, she was so tired and hopeless.

  The trees met over her head, and the sky was a dull gray, all the more depressing when she realized that in a very few minutes it would be dark, scary night.

  She hadn’t the slightest idea where she was. The moon wouldn’t be rising for a long time yet, and only a faint glow in what must have been the west gave her an idea of where home would be if she could ever get there.

  It was awfully quiet in the deep woods. Even the crack of a twig as some little kangaroo mouse hopped through the underbrush sounded loud and menacing. Trixie stood up and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hallo! Hallo!” she called. But the only answer she got was an echo of her own voice, followed by a myriad of small sounds from the scampering citizens of the woods whom she had disturbed.

  “Well, that’s that,” she thought, swallowing hard. “I guess I’d better stay right here. I’m sure when they miss me at home, they’ll come out and look for me. Maybe Susie is there already. She’s always hungry for her supper, so I guess she’ll run home as straight as she can!”

  It was a comforting thought and kept her cheerful for at least two minutes, while she was picturing to herself how she would meet her rescuers. She would be tired but, oh, awfully brave! She would smile and say, “You needn’t have worried about me. I could have found my way home easily in the morning. The dark? Oh, I don’t mind the dark. I know there’s nothing to hurt me—” And even Mart would say, “Trix, you’re a brave girl!”

  But when she had pictured that unlikely scene, a sudden gust of biting wind through the top
s of the tall trees made a weird screeching noise, and she covered her face with her hands and cowered down on the rock.

  Then, just as she was thinking about that weird noise, she heard a new sound that was even more scary, like a child calling, “Mommy! Mommy!” in a wailing cry.

  It wasn’t like the yowl of the catamount she and Honey had heard. It was more human. And as she stood rigidly listening, she heard it again. “Mommy! I want Mommy!” it sobbed in an all-too-familiar voice.

  Bobby!she thought, horrified. But it cant be! She looked all around at the darkness as the cries went on.

  “Bobby! Where are you, darling? It’s Trixie! Bobby, answer me right away! Where are you?”

  “Trixie?” The voice faltered. “Is ’at you, Trixie?”

  “Coming, Bobby! Just sing out real loud, so I can tell where you are! That’s my lamb!” Trixie called cheerfully. She had caught an inkling of which direction the last call had come from, and she hurried toward it.

  There was a steep hill, and a yawning hole showed itself as she came around a group of rocks. The voice was coming from the cavelike hole. “Trixie? Don’t go away!” There was a hysterical note in the small voice now.

  Trixie plunged recklessly into the hole. “Bobby! Here I am! Come on out and say hello!”

  But he answered, with a sob, “I c-can’t! It’s holding me!”

  She was well inside the cave now and groping about, hoping to contact her small brother. “I’m stuck!” The voice came surprisingly from below, and Trixie realized with a shock that she had almost stumbled into a deep hole.

  Somewhere down that hole, Bobby was “stuck.” She felt panic, but she knew she couldn’t give way to it without terrifying Bobby as well. She forced herself to keep her voice calm, as she called down to him, “It’s all right, honey. I’ll come down and get you right away.”

  “Hurry up, Trixie,” Bobby’s voice came crossly. “I’m hungry, and it’s dark down here, and the rock is holding my legs.”

  “Coming right now!” she assured him with make-believe cheerfulness. Then she let herself over the edge of the hole in the floor of the cave. “I’m climbing down. Look out below!” She made herself laugh to cheer him.

  Now she was at the bottom of the hole, and she felt around in the darkness for Bobby. Instead of the curly head she expected to touch, she found only another and much narrower opening than the one in the floor of the cave through which she had let herself down. And Bobby’s voice, now a little thin and tired, complained from inside that hole, “I’m gettin’ sleepy, Trixie. Please pull me out!”

  She knelt on the soft dirt floor and reached into the hole. It was rock-lined and seemed too narrow for her to enter, but by stretching as far as she could reach into the hole, she could touch Bobby’s hand as it reached out to meet hers.

  She reached in as far as she could and took his small wrist in a firm grip. “Okay, skipper, here we go I I’ll pull and you wiggle this way, and we’ll get you out in a second! Hang onto my wrist now!”

  “Awright,” he answered. And when she pulled at his arm, she heard him grunt and felt his fingers dig into her wrist. He was trying hard. Then suddenly his wrist went limp, and his fingers let go. “The rock won’t let me go,” he complained with a sob. “It’s holding me!”

  “Bobby,” she said, trying to keep the fear out of her voice, “does it hurt a lot when you try to get away?”

  “No.” Bobby’s voice sounded weary now. “I feel fine, but I’m hungry an’ you better pull me out, right now.”

  A cold chill ran through her. If he didn’t feel any pain, it could mean the rock had injured his spine. Pulling and tugging at him could only make the damage worse.

  Somehow, somewhere she would have to find help! But where? She was lost. She hadn’t the slightest idea which direction to go to find anyone. But she had to try.

  “Bobby, honey,” she said, patting the small hand that now lay limp, outstretched, “your silly old Trixie has to go find Jim and Mart and Brian, so they can move that mean old rock that’s holding you. Will you stay real quiet for a little while? Maybe you’d better put your head down now and rest till I get back.” She tried to sound cheerful and unworried.

  There was a little pause, and she heard the sound of a yawn. Then, “Awright, but when you pull me out, will you help me find the kitty? It was a nice big one, and it runned when I tried to catch it, and I thought it was in the cave, and I fell in the hole, and—” The voice had grown fainter. Now it stopped.

  “Gleepsl” Trixie said to herself. “I better find somebody in a hurry. I hope he stays asleep.”

  She wriggled clear of the narrow opening beyond which he was trapped and stood up in the hole in the cave floor. It wasn’t as easy to get out of it as it had been to drop down into it, but she managed, in her desperation, to claw her way up into the cave and stumble out into the starlit night.

  “If I only knew which way to go!” she thought, staring all around her despairingly. The wind was starting to blow now, and overhead big masses of clouds tumbled through the sky. She slapped her arms across her chest to warm herself a little. But her teeth chattered as much from a very real fear as they did from the cold, the fear that before help could come for Bobby, he could freeze down there under the chilly earth.

  Two large tears rolled down her cheeks, but she dashed them away angrily. “Trixie Belden! Crying isn’t going to help any. Think of something! Think!” But her mind seemed to be numbed.

  Then, as for the umpteenth time she turned slowly, searching the darkness for some sign of where she was, she saw against the inky darkness the flickering of a distant campfire. The bushes that had stood between her and the welcome sight were being whipped about by the wind, or she wouldn’t have caught even that small glimpse of the little fire.

  She cupped her hands around her mouth and halloed, but even as she was doing it, she knew it was useless. The wind was carrying the sound away.

  There was no choice. She had to get to that campfire and bring help for Bobby. She took a few steps, almost sobbing with relief.

  But she came to a sudden stop before she had gone two yards. How would she get back to this dark place? She could see no landmarks to remember, and the trees around looked like a thousand other trees in the labyrinth. Suppose she went to the campfire for help and couldn’t get back to Bobby again. It was too big a risk.

  She couldn’t just stay there. There had to be an answer! She tried to think carefully.

  Suddenly it came to her. Her white wool sweater! Aunt Alicia knitted it on big wooden needles so it would be fashionably bulky. It would unravel easily.

  She pulled it off over her head and tore apart the big stitches of the bottom border. Once she had found the right stitch to pull, the rest was easy. The sweater unraveled with miraculous speed.

  She tied the end of the white wool to the bush that grew beside the cave entrance and started toward the distant fire, letting the sweater unravel as she went.

  In and out, down ravines and up again, between trees and around rocks, Trixie went grimly on. When the woolen yarn gave out at a knot, she tied it again and went on, and always there was an unbroken string of white between her and the cave.

  Then, at last, she came to the final barrier of wind-tossed bushes and shoved her way through to stand on the edge of the clearing where, only a hundred feet away, the small fire burned brightly and there was a smell of cooking meat on the air.

  She stumbled forward with a word of greeting on her lips, almost hysterical with relief. But before the two who sat beside the fire could glance her way, she stopped dead, the greeting unspoken.

  The two at the fire were runaway Dan Mangan and another boy in a black jacket. While she stood rooted to the spot, staring unhappily at them, the other boy rose and went to the fire to help himself to whatever it was they were cooking.

  He was tall, and she saw by the firelight that he was dark and sharp-faced and seemed a few years older than Dan.

  Would they he
lp her rescue Bobby? Or would they refuse and sneer at her for her helplessness? Dan might still be angry and hurt at the way she had acted toward him. “But if I tell him I know he didn’t steal our temper money and didn’t hurt Mr. Maypenny, then I’d have to say I thought it was the other one with him who had done it! And he’d refuse to help Bobby or let Dan help!”

  Rescue • 10

  TRIXIE CROUCHED in the darkness and watched the two figures at the campfire. She was blue with cold, and the thought of Bobby trapped in the hole in the mountain was making her desperate. But what could she expect from them?

  She could see that they were quarreling. The tall, broad-shouldered boy stood over Dan Mangan and said something angrily. She could see Dan look startled and sullen, but he shook his head as if he were refusing something.

  Now the tall one was picking up a canvas knapsack and slinging it over his shoulder. He was getting ready to leave. But Dan just sat where he was, staring at him and shaking his head.

  Trixie darted to the shelter of a pile of granite rocks only ten or twelve feet from the two boys. The moment that the tall boy left, she intended to rush to Dan Mangan and ask him to help rescue Bobby.

  The wind carried their voices to her as she crouched there, shivering.

  “A guy can change his mind about things, can’t he?” Dan protested defiantly.

  “Yeah, if he’s too yeller to take a chance!” the tall one sneered. “Your letter said there’d be good pick-in’s at the Wheeler joint and you’d show me the ropes so we could get in an’ out again without any trouble. Now you’re backin’ down!”

  Dan was on his feet now, and seemed a little uncertain. “But, Luke! They’re not like I thought they were. They’re real regular, and so’s old man Maypenny.”

  “You’re just yeller,” Luke insisted with a sneer. “You’ve got it soft here, and your real friends don’t mean a thing to you anymore. I oughta give you a beatin’!”

  Trixie could see that Dan was afraid of the bigger boy. He stepped back a little as if he were expecting Luke to start hitting him at any moment.