The Happy Valley Mystery

by Campbell, Julie

  Jim reached under the seat, opened a watertight compartment, and pulled out a bucket and a big can.

  “Start bailing!” he called when he had recovered his breath. “Take turns! Were almost level with the water!”

  All three bailed. It didn’t take long to reduce the water load to practically nothing.

  “But were floating backward!” Trixie called frantically as she stopped bailing and looked up.

  They were, indeed. Jim had forgotten, in his eagerness to ease the load of water in the boat, that the backwash could carry them toward the river.

  “Grab the oar!” he called, and he seized the one on his side. “Pull hard!” he ordered them. “Pull! Trixie, what’s the matter with you? Are you paralyzed?”

  “I’m not,” Trixie answered. “But I just thought of something.”

  “Forget it. Think about that red barn up there ahead —pull for it, Trixie! Come on!”

  “I can’t,” Trixie said.

  “Why not? Are you sick?”

  “No, but, Jim, thieves or no thieves, those two men back there are human beings. They’ll die just like all those drowned chickens and that cow, and we can’t let that happen to them. We have to go back there after them.”

  Jim threw back his head and laughed. The sound was so strange that Trixie and Honey were speechless. Had Jim, in his desperate worry, completely lost his mind?

  “How do you suppose you saw them so well through your binoculars?” Jim asked Trixie. “They’re on a rocky point, well above the water.”

  “Then why didn’t we try to get over where they are?” Trixie asked reasonably.

  “Because they would have taken our boat and let us do the waiting, while they escaped,” Jim said. “Start rowing, Trixie.”

  “If... well, if you’re sure they’ll be safe,” Trixie said. “We couldn’t just leave them.”

  “They’re a lot safer than we are, Trix, and a lot more comfortable,” he added. “Aren’t you freezing?”

  “I just never thought about it,” Honey said, “did you, Trixie? But I am cold, aren’t you?”

  “I just keep my eyes on that red barn,” Trixie said.

  “If we reach there safely, then I’ll take time to be cold. Anyway, this little fellow is so warm. You hold him for a while, Honey. He’s like an electric pad. And, Jim—”

  “Yes?”

  “If those men are safe, and the road out is all covered with water, it won’t be hard for Sheriff Brown to arrest | them when we tell him about them, will it?”

  “I guess you’re right, Trix,” Jim said. “I just hope we get a chance to tell him. Right now we have to pull hard for that barn. It’s beginning to get dark, but, thank , goodness, we’re getting nearer to the shore—barn, I mean. There isn’t any shore, as far as I can see.”

  “Over there,” Honey said, holding her hand to her eyes and pointing, “snagged against that old tree. It looks like the carcass of a drowned sheep. Isn’t this flood terrible?”

  Trixie looked in the direction Honey pointed. “It is terrible,” she said. “Something strange, though. That sheep has been shorn, and it isn’t shearing season yet. Why, don’t you know, that’s just what those thieves have been doing: stealing Uncle Andrew’s sheep, shearing them to get the wool—it was in that truck—then selling the carcasses to some of the lockers around here.”

  “Well,” Honey said, “you weren’t so far wrong, after all, Trixie, when you said that lamb we ate at the barbecue at Rivervale was stolen. I just hope that principal has a chance to eat his words—talking to Ned the way he did!”

  “Please—please!” Jim said. “Row! Keep your eyes on that barn. We’re gaining on it!”

  The girls obeyed. They were almost completely exhausted when they edged near enough to the barn for Trixie to catch the top of a door that protruded from the water.

  “Hold on tight!” Jim told her. “I’ll pull the boat alongside it. We can stand on top of that door you’re holding and crawl in the haymow window. There, Honey, it’s on your side—steady! Step out!”

  “I can’t,” Honey wailed. “I just can’t. I’m scared to death!”

  “I’ll do it, Jim,” Trixie said. “Sit down in the boat, Honey. There’s nothing to it.”

  Trixie, never relaxing her hold on the top of the barn door, pulled herself to the top of it, swung herself up on the sill of the haymow window, miraculously open, and climbed through. Then she reached down, took the puppy Honey held up to her, put it through the window, and reached back to help Honey, who, a little ashamed and more confident now, climbed up and into the relative safety of the haymow.

  “You come in now, Jim,” Trixie called down.

  “I’ve got to try to fasten this boat some way before I leave it,” Jim said. “We might need it.”

  “There’s a chain with a rope at each end of it under the seat where I was sitting,” Trixie said. “It’s what Ben used to fasten the boat on top of his car.”

  “I saw it,” Jim answered. “But what good is it? What can I fasten it to?”

  “If you reach down into the water below the top of this door,” Trixie answered, “you’ll find some kind of a latch or bolt. I felt it with my foot when I was climbing up here. Maybe there’s a hasp on it, and you can tie the rope there.”

  “I’ll try,” Jim said. “Sure thing, here it is—and it’s better than a hasp—there’s a staple the latch fits over. There I” he said and reached down, threaded the rope through the staple, pulled it tight, knotted it, passed the oars up through the mow window to Trixie, and, breathing heavily, joined the girls, safe in the haymow of the old red barn.

  “Back there,” Honey said, “I never thought we’d make it. I remembered all sorts of things—like how good my parents are to me. I wish—”

  “Don’t you dare say it, Honey Wheeler,” Trixie said. “I wish the same thing, though,” she admitted. “Moms and Dad, Bobby—”

  “And Sleepyside,” Jim said. “Gosh, we’d never be in this fix in Sleepyside. Trixie, I want you to know right now how thankful I am to you for helping me get away from my stepfather and for helping me find my new family.”

  “Trixie, you’ve helped so many people,” Honey said. “Not any more than you have, Honey,” Trixie said. “I only wish I could think of a way now to get us out of this barn and safely back to Happy Valley Farm. Nobody will ever think of looking for us here.”

  “Nobody knew we were even going to try to go to Walnut Woods,” Honey said worriedly.

  “It won’t take Mart and Brian long to think of it,” Jim said. “They know their sister, and they’ll start looking for us.”

  “Will they ever look for us way out here in all this water?” Honey asked. “Will they even find our bodies?”

  “You give me the creeps,” Trixie said. “You can think of the most terrible things sometimes. Honey Wheeler, I’m ashamed of you!”

  “I’m ashamed of me, too,” Honey said. “Mart and Brian are your brothers, and you know them better than I do. You know if they’ll think of looking for us way out here.”

  “If there’s one thing I’m sure about with Mart,” said Trixie, “it’s his ability to read my mind. He’ll know, somehow, that I persuaded you two to go to Walnut Woods with me. Because it’s so near the time for us to go back to Sleepyside, Mart’ll know that I’d never give up till I tried again.”

  “Isn’t that the truth?” Jim said.

  “I’m just as sure of this, too,” Trixie told them. “Somebody is going to find us and save us.”

  Jim got up from the bale of hay where they were sitting and walked to the mow window. What he saw made him turn, trying to conceal his fright, to the girls.

  “They’d better work fast,” he said. "Were going to have to get out of this haymow.”

  Trixie hurried to the window, looked once, then said, “The water’s up. It’s higher-quite a little higher— since we climbed in here.”

  “Yes. The boat’s underwater, too,” Jim said. “What do we do no
w? I thought we’d be safe here. I guess we should have stayed in the boat.” Dejected, he sat down on a bale of hay and put his head in his hands.

  “We’re not licked yet,” Trixie said. “This isn’t the highest place in the barn. There’s still the roof.”

  “And no way to get to it,” Jim said.

  “I’m not so sure. Keep your chin up! You’ve been the one to see us through this far.”

  “I know when I’m linked,” Jim said. “We’ll just have to hope that the water doesn’t come up here. We can still take to the rafters.”

  “No,” Trixie said, “that isn’t good enough. There must be some way that window closes. If there’s a shutter of some kind. Or maybe a sliding window!” Trixie felt around outside the mow window as she talked. “There isn’t anything out here,” she said, “except some sort of a track, as though a sliding window is supposed to travel on it.

  “Try to find the window,” Honey said.

  “We don’t need the window!” Trixie said. “Jim, if you stand on this track—”

  “Yes,” Jim said, “and I pull myself up on that, stand on it, climb up there—”

  “And hold on to the eaves to help us up,” Trixie said.

  “I’ll never be able to do it,” Honey said, looking up at the roof.

  “I’ll go after Jim,” Trixie said hastily. “It’ll work, Jim. Out you go!”

  Jim climbed through the window, wrapped his hands around the iron bar above him, pulled himself up, stood on the bar, found a secure hold on the eaves, then slowly climbed to the roof.

  Once he slipped and almost went into the water, then recovered himself and tried again.

  Later, Trixie, safe on the roof, almost lost her hold when she and Jim were lifting Honey.

  Those were the things they didn’t dare to think about as the three of them, and the small puppy under Trixie’s arm, sprawled in precarious safety on the roof of the barn.

  No Place to Go • 17

  GRADUALLY THE TRIO realized that, for the moment, at least, they were safe, and they looked around. The ascent of the roof from the eaves was gradual, growing , less steep as it reached the apex. There an old-fashioned cupola perched.

  The light had almost faded from the sky. Carefully bracing her feet against the eaves, Trixie sat up.

  “I can just barely see Sand Hill,” she said. “I don’t believe there’s any water over it yet.”

  “Can you see any sign of life anywhere—any automobile lights or anything?” Honey asked. She was too frightened to change her position.

  Jim took the puppy from Trixie and settled him in the curve of his own arm. His feet braced against the eaves, he surveyed the area around them. “There are cars coming and going on Army Post Road,” he said. “Not a thing heading this way. I guess everyone has been warned about the flood.”

  “I’m pretty sure I can tell where Happy Valley Farm is,” Trixie said. “The lights in the house and the floodlight in the yard seem to have been turned on. Ned’s house, across the road, is a blaze of light.”

  “By this time they must surely know something has happened to us,” Honey said. “Trixie, will we ever—”

  “Don’t say it,” Trixie said. “Look how high and dry we are.”

  “High enough in the air, I hope,” Jim said, “but far from dry. I can still wring water from my clothes. It’s a good thing the rain stopped.”

  “And a good thing we all have our jackets,” Trixie said, “though I almost took mine off when we fell in the water.”

  “That was a horrible time,” Honey said, shaking with cold and fright.

  “It was,” Trixie said. “But it all came out all right, thanks to Jim.”

  “And a certain pretty keen girl called Trixie Belden,” Jim added. “Sis,” he said to Honey, “please don’t be frightened anymore. It’s only a question of time till somebody comes after us.”

  “How?” Honey asked.

  “Motorboat,” Jim said.

  “Did you see any in Trixie’s uncle’s yard?” Honey asked despairingly.

  “No, but I saw plenty of them over on Waterworks Lake. They were still covered up and in dock for the winter.”

  “That doesn’t do us much good here, a mile or more away,” Honey said realistically. “You can t float a boat , down Sand Hill.”

  “What’s the matter with you, Honey?” Jim asked. “You’re always such a good sport. How did those boats get out to the lake in the first place? Trailers, of course. There’s always a way.”

  “There aren’t any motorboats out there hunting for us now, are there, Trixie?” Honey asked. “Do you see any lights—you know—shining on the water?”

  “Not yet,” Trixie answered. “But we will!”

  It had grown quite dark now. Stars filled the sky, and a wan moon at the edge of the horizon tried vainly to lighten the night.

  There was no sound of life near them—nothing but the rush of the current in the river, far too near for comfort, and the swishing and swooshing of dislodged trees as they floated into the backwash.

  Suddenly the barn shook as though from an earthquake.

  Jim and Trixie quickly sprawled on the roof. “What was that?” Honey cried, her voice shaking. “Something hit the side of the barn, I guess,” Jim said. “A chicken house or smokehouse or something that the flood carried away.”

  “Do you think it knocked the barn loose?” Honey asked anxiously.

  “I doubt it, Sis,” Jim said. “It’s anchored on concrete a foot thick. It’s an old barn, remember, and well built. Anyway,” he went on, “we’re still on top of it.”

  “Jim,” Trixie said, not listening to anything that was being said, “isn’t there some way we can signal? So when they do start to look for us down here in the flooded district, we can give them some indication of where we are?”

  “We can yell like the dickens,” Jim said. “I was just going to do that.”

  “And we could wave my flashlight,” Honey said, pulling it from deep in her pocket.

  “For gosh sakes, Honey, where have you been keeping that?” Jim asked. “How did it survive your dunking in the river?”

  “I forgot I had it,” Honey said, ashamed. “It was buttoned into my pocket. Anyway, it was light until a little while ago. Shall I wave it around?”

  “Sure thing,” Jim said. “And I’ll yell!”

  So Honey waved and Jim yelled, and after a little while Trixie and Honey yelled. Then the puppy started to howl. He howled so vigorously that he slipped from Jim’s arm and slid slowly down the roof toward the rushing torrent.

  Jim made a lunge for the little fellow and caught him just as he struck the eaves.

  “Thank goodness you got him,” Honey cried. “I’d have died if we’d lost him now. Stop crying!” she told the puppy, who, more frightened than ever, yipped at the top of his voice.

  “What’s the matter now, Jim?” Trixie asked as she caught sight of Jim’s face, grim in the dim light of the moon.

  “We have to climb higher,” he said. “Start climbing. Trix, you lead the way.”

  “What is it, Jim? Did the barn cave in when that thing hit?” Honey asked, trying to scramble after Trixie.

  “No,” Jim said, “it didn’t, but—well, I might as well tell you. The rain may have stopped, but the river is still rising. It’s up to the eaves now. Climb! We have to make it to the ridge of the roof. Get going! Faster!”

  It was harder for Jim to climb, because he held the puppy in one hand. Slowly, though, they made progress. Twice Honey slipped, and Jim stopped her with the elbow of the arm that held the little dog. “Take hold of Trixie’s hand!” he ordered.

  “Here!” Trixie called. “I’ve fastened my scarf to my arm. Hold on to it, Honey. There, do you have it?”

  “Yes, Trixie,” Honey said faintly.

  “Then hold tight!”

  Arduously, feeling their way, the three Bob-Whites continued to climb.

  “Say,” Trixie called when she could see over the rid
ge of the roof, “it isn’t bad at all up here. The roof sort of flattens out. It’s really wonderful, Honey. It’s a lot better than down there on the slant. Climb, now! You’re doing fine! There!” She gave a final tug to her scarf, and Honey landed beside her.

  “Why didn’t we do this before?” Jim asked, surveying the wide flat space.

  “For the good reason that it’s a silly roof,” Trixie answered. “It’s all slant on this side and a big flat space on the other side. We couldn’t know that.”

  “It’s almost like the sun deck at our house,” Honey said, sighing with the first sense of security she had felt since they reached the barn.

  The puppy, sensing a relaxation of the tension that had kept him quivering, wiggled out of Jim’s arm and started chasing his tail!

  The Bob-Whites laughed, and the puppy, encouraged by their amusement, circled wider, almost fell off, and had to be rescued again.

  “I know just the place for you,” Jim said. “We have enough to think about, without having to save your life every five minutes. In you go!” He dropped the struggling puppy into the cage of the cupola.

  “He’s safe there,” Trixie said.

  “But what a dreadful noise!” Honey said. “Hush, little puppy! Hush! It’s all for your own good.”

  “Let him howl!” Trixie said. “It’ll save our voices. Jim is so hoarse he can only whisper. We’d better start signaling again, though, Honey, with your flashlight.

  “Don’t you see any sign of a boat?” Honey asked anxiously.

  “Not a thing, Sis,” Jim said. “Keep your chin up!”

  “The first thing they probably did when we didn’t get back to Ned’s,” Trixie said, “was to go and look for us in Valley Park.”

  “Or the airport,” Honey said. “No, probably the first thing they did was to get mad at us for not going back to the party.”

  “You’re probably right, Honey,” Jim agreed, ‘Taut that’s all over now. It’s about time they started out on the water route.”

  “Maybe the police won’t let anyone on the water,” Honey said.

  “Maybe not,” Jim said, “but the police themselves will come out and hunt for us. There are probably a lot of other people marooned.”