“I’ll make sure she doesn’t get too much fresh air, Miss Trask,” said Honey.
As soon as Jack and Miss Trask had gone, Trixie pushed away her pie and hurried Honey outside. Before they could get far, Honey grabbed Trixie’s arm. “Okay, Trixie, I know you well enough to know you didn’t have a sudden urge for fresh air. What’s going on?”
“All the electricity to the lodge must be controlled by a breaker switch,” Trixie told her. “Breaker switches are usually located on the outside of buildings.”
“Trixie, you’re so smart,” her friend said admiringly. “But what does this have to do with us?”
“Well, wouldn’t it be easy for a ‘ghost’ to cause a power outage by throwing a switch? If we can find the breaker switch, maybe we can find some clues.”
“How are we going to find the breaker switch?” Honey objected. “This candle isn’t giving off very much light.”
“I wish we could go back to the suite for a flashlight,” fretted Trixie. “But if we did, Miss Trask would never let us come back outside again.”
“You’re right about that,” said a voice behind the two girls.
They both jumped, and Trixie whirled around. “Oh, Mart,” she gasped, “don’t you know any better than to sneak up on people? Especially when the lights are all out? And there’s talk of a ghost?”
“Not only did I not buy your story about ‘digesting dinner for a while,’ ” retorted her brother, “but I don’t think Miss Trask bought your fabrication about needing fresh air after a full day on the slopes. That’s probably why she asked me to bring you these flashlights.”
Trixie gave him a grateful smile.
The three of them had no trouble finding the breaker box on the west side of the main building. The switch had definitely been turned off, Trixie noticed, immediately using her flashlight to look for footprints. The walkway around the lodge was blurred with indistinguishable footprints, and none of them veered over to the breaker switch. However, anyone could have reached the breaker switch from the path.
Trixie kicked at the snow in disappointment. “No clues here.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure,” said Mart, pointing his flashlight.
Trixie’s eyes followed the beam. There, on top of the breaker box, was a neatly folded piece of paper. On the outside, written in red block letters, was her name.
She grabbed it and nervously unfolded it. Honey and Mart crowded close to her and directed their lights toward the paper, illuminating its message:
YOUR LIFE IS IN DANGER
T.L.M.
Trixie quickly crumpled the note up.
“Oh, Trixie,” Honey wailed.
“This is carrying a practical joke a little too far,” Mart burst out. “Besides, if your life’s ‘in danger,’ what about mine? 1 was the one caught in the avalanche today!”
“Yipes, Mart,” said Trixie, startled, “you don’t think that—that this note is connected with the avalanche, do you?”
“Of course not. I’m sure that this note is from the same joker who broke into our room the first night. And I don’t think we should mention this to Miss Trask, in case she takes it too seriously and gets worried unnecessarily. This note is simply a prank, Mart decided. “My inundation with snow was just an unfortunate accident of nature.”
Just then they heard Pat coming around the corner, saying, “I thought it might be the generator. It seems to go out regularly., I didn’t even think about the switch box, Eric.”
“Come on,” Trixie whispered, “let’s get out of here before we have to explain this note to Pat and Eric.
Leaving Pat and Eric to take care of getting the lights back on, they raced back to their suite, where the others were just putting out the fire and getting ready for bed. Trixie was only too glad to go right
to bed and avoid talking with anyone.
She was exhausted, but even after she could hear Di and Honey’s even breathing, she could not seem to will herself to sleep. The ghostly figure she had seen, Eric, the missing watch and quarters, the mess their room had been, the avalanche, the cabin in the woods, and the note addressed to her—all churned through her mind, making sleep impossible.
She became worried that her tossing and turning would wake up Di and Honey, so she slid out of bed, put on her bathrobe, and stepped out onto the balcony as quietly as she could.
By the light of the moon and its reflection on the snow, Trixie could see the outline of the mountains against the sky. She took deep breaths of the cleansing mountain air.
Gradually she became aware of voices and figures somewhere out in the woods around the lodge. The first voice she recognized immediately as Eric’s.
“I just wish you had told me sooner, that’s all,” he was saying.
“Hush, keep your voice down. Someone might hear,” replied a voice Trixie had never heard before.
“I want to help. I want to do anything I can,” Eric was pleading.
“Well, the money’s good, no need to worry about that. If you want to search the woods, you can.”
“Of course I want to!” Eric answered, his voice raised a little.
“Hush!”
“Okay, okay!”
“Just remember—stay away from the police,” the stranger warned. Then he added, “I’ll let you know how things are going.”
Straining her eyes, Trixie saw one of the figures move out of the clump of woods and disappear around the corner of the lodge. She couldn’t make out what happened to the second figure.
She’d been too intent on catching what was said to realize she’d been eavesdropping. Now that the conversation was over, she felt a twinge of guilt. Still, she thought excitedly, I’m onto something. And whatever it is, is causing someone to try to scare us away from the lodge. But what does it all mean?
Long after Trixie returned to bed, the puzzling words of the two moonlit figures tumbled in her brain, until finally she fell into a troubled sleep.
Mr. Moonshine ● 9
A DISTURBING DREAM jolted Trixie awake the next morning, and she was the first one up. Gently she nudged Honey awake and beckoned her into the living room. The cloudy, damp day prompted them to get a fire going, and soon they were huddling in front of the warmth, Trixie relating the conversation she’d overheard to Honey.
“Trixie, how strange!” Honey bubbled over. “You’re right—something’s going on. But what?”
“I’ve been up half the night, and I still don’t have any idea. But you know what? I think Eric’s our ghost.”
Someone could have told him we’re detectives,” Honey reasoned. “He could be afraid we’ll discover what he’s really doing, so he’s trying to scare us away.”
“Or maybe he’s playing these practical jokes to keep us occupied chasing a ghost, while he goes merrily on his way stealing watches and quarters and whatever else he can get,” Trixie conjectured.
“You’ve got it, Trixie! Eric and the guy he was talking with are part of a burglary ring!”
“ ‘The money’s good’ could mean that they’ll make a lot of money doing it,” said Trixie with growing confidence. But what about the ‘search the woods’ part?”
“Jeepers, I don’t have any idea. That part’s really mystifying.”
“Listen,” urged Trixie, “let’s go back and explore that cabin we saw in the woods, I didn’t mention this before, but I’m pretty sure I saw smoke coming out the chimney, and, you know, even Mart said something about the cabin’s being a perfect hiding place.” “But Eric said it was rotten and abandoned,” Honey objected.
“That’s exactly why I want to explore it! After what I heard last night, I’m not going to trust what Eric says for a minute. Come on, let’s wake up the others. I want to get to that cabin as soon as possible.”
Much to their surprise and delight, the Bob-Whites found it easier to make the climb through the woods above the chair lift that morning. They showed better control of their skis, and their muscles were getting accustomed to
the rigors of mountain sports. The day was turning out to be another perfect sunny one. Trixie waited until they were all resting at the top of the ridge before announcing her intention to go back to the cabin.
“No way,” said Brian sternly. “Mr. Wheeler hired us to explore all the area around here, not to try to solve some mystery.”
“Explore the area—that’s just what I want to do, Brian. Only I want to explore over there,” said Trixie, pointing down the hidden trail. Although she felt she just had to investigate that cabin, she knew Brian was right about their responsibility to Mr. Wheeler. They did have a job to do, and they’d given their word to Mr. Wheeler that they would do a good one, too.
Tactful Honey came up with a solution. “Why don’t we split up, and Trixie and I go back to the cabin, while the rest of you explore in another direction?” she suggested. “We have to make the best use of our week here, and we really should check out any possibility of emergency shelter for lost skiers.”
“You have a point,” Jim conceded. “And I know Trixie will make us miserable until she gets back to that cabin. I’ll go with you so you don’t get lost or something.”
“Don’t bother,” said Trixie defiantly. “We can take care of ourselves. We won’t get lost, but if, by some remote chance, we do, we have our survival kits and know how to use them. Come on, Honey.”
As they skied off down the hidden trail, Honey said wistfully, “I wouldn’t have minded if Jim had come along, Trixie. He’s been a big help to us more than once.”
“Oh, I know,” answered Trixie, biting her lip. “I’ve just got to learn to control my temper.”
“Do you think there’s any easier way to get to that cabin besides climbing up that steep gully?” asked Honey, without much hope.
“I’ve been thinking about that,” replied Trixie. “That gully looked to me like it’s probably just a trench with a beginning and an end. I remember seeing a smaller path that forked off to the right down the trail a bit. Maybe it leads to the other side of that trench and to the cabin.”
Sure enough, before too long they caught sight of the cabin on their side of the gully. They skied for a while until they reached a large pine tree. Triumphantly, Trixie pointed out the smoke wisping out of the chimney. She could even see ski tracks leading to the door of the old structure.
“Now what?” asked Honey, starting to tremble a bit. “Someone is obviously there. Maybe someone is even living there!”
“Now we just go knock on the door,” decided Trixie, showing far more courage than she felt. She skied up to the front door and rapped boldly on it before Honey could protest.
The door was thrown open by a spry old man with a shock of long white hair. A stern frown lined his face, and his red bulky knit sweater made his cold blue eyes seem even colder. His obvious displeasure made Trixie uneasy.
“Who are you,” he demanded, towering over her, “and what are you doing here?”
Trixie gulped. Not until that very moment did it dawn on her that she’d prepared absolutely nothing to say. She had acted again without thinking things through.
Nervous though she was, Honey managed to come to the rescue. “I—I’m Honey Wheeler, and this is Trixie Belden,” she stammered, “and we’re out skiing, and, well, we wondered if we might have a drink of water.”
This request seemed to enrage the old man even more than their presence did. He grabbed a ski pole and brandished it at the girls.
“This is private property,” he hissed, “and I don’t ever—I mean ever—want to see you here again. Now, beat it!” The door slammed in their faces.
Trixie and Honey were too stunned to do anything but obey. After herringboning as rapidly as they could back up the gully, they skied until they were well out of sight of the cabin before stopping under a tree to rest.
“Was I glad when you asked for a drink!” exclaimed Trixie gratefully. “I couldn’t think of a thing to say, except to ask him who he was and what he was doing there.”
Honey had to giggle. “I don’t think that would have gone over very well, Trixie.”
Trixie smiled sheepishly and got a small can of orange juice out of her knapsack. “Well, at least we’ve solved the mystery of the long-haired ‘ghost’ that people have seen. There really is an old man living in the mountains. So that’s who I saw the first night on our way here. What a grouch!”
“That must be why Eric told us to stay away,” Honey speculated. “He knew we’d disturb him and make him angry.”
Trixie seized Honey’s arm. “Gleeps, Honey! That’s the voice! I’m sure of it!”
“Huh? What voice?”
“The one Eric was talking with last night!”
“Are you sure, Trixie? This seems like an odd place for someone to live who’s in a burglary ring. So far from anywhere.”
“I’m positive,” said her friend, finishing up her juice quickly. “Something funny is going on in that cabin. Listen, if you lived in the mountains this far away from people, wouldn’t it be because you loved the mountains?”
“I suppose so.”
“Then—would you keep all the curtains shut on such a beautiful day?”
“You’re kidding! They were shut?”
“They sure were, and did you notice that funny smell?”
“Yes, now that you mention it. What was it?” asked Honey.
Trixie frowned, her forehead wrinkled in thought. “It smelled just like the alcohol we used in biology.”
“Alcohol! Trixie, do you suppose he’s—oh, you know... someone who makes liquor illegally—a moonshiner, that’s it! Maybe he has a still in there!
“I’ll bet they have quite a little business going here,’ Trixie crowed. “The money in it would be good; they’d want to stay away from the police; and the woods would be the perfect center of operations!”
“And they certainly wouldn’t appreciate us skiing around investigating the area. Nor would they want it sold as a natural resort area,” added Honey, helping to put more pieces of the puzzle together.
“Come on, Honey, let’s go tell the others about our new friend, Mr. Moonshine!”
By the time they got back to the lodge, the sky had clouded up again, and they were starving. Racing over to the restaurant, they found the others already finishing their lunch.
“Hey, where have you two been for so long?” queried Mart, looking up from his soup. “We thought you’d be back before this. Miss Trask was worried.”
“Oh, dear, I didn’t want to worry anyone on this trip, least of all Miss Trask,” said Trixie. “She’s such a good sport about everything.”
“We assured her that you two are regular woodsmen and can take care of yourselves,” said Brian, scraping the bottom of his bowl.
Trixie threw him a grateful look, then said, “Come on, Honey, let’s get some of that soup.”
“Wait a minute, Trix,” Jim broke in. “There’s more. Miss Trask was jumpy after the avalanche yesterday, and she wants us all to ski together from now on.” Honey nodded. “Where is she? I guess we’d better tell her we’re back.”
“She’s in reading to Rosie,” Di said. “Katie was telling us how Rosie always pretends to go to sleep but gets up and causes all kinds of mischief instead. Miss Trask offered to try to read her to sleep.”
“Rosie sounds like Bobby,” remarked Trixie.
“Go ahead and get some lunch,” Di said. “I’ll go tell Miss Trask you’re back.”
“One more thing, Trixie,” said Brian. “Mart told us about the note you got last night.”
“We’re not trying to scare you,” added Jim, “but do us a favor and don't go anywhere alone. Okay?”
“You two are being silly,” Trixie began. Then she noticed their frowns and gave in. “Okay, if it’ll make you happy.”
After Di returned, Trixie and Honey told the group about the conversation that Trixie had overheard and described their encounter with the old man.
“Now we’re getting some answers,” said Ji
m. “You know, I’ve never been fully convinced that anything more than a few practical jokes was (going on. But it sure sounds like your Mr. Moonshine and Eric are up to something more serious if they’re so worried about staying away from the police.”
“I don’t know about the making liquor part, though,” said Brian. “It could be just for himself, for medicinal purposes. It’s not very likely he’d haul it out to sell. It would weigh far too much to carry, and there are no roads out there.”
“He could put it on sleds and haul it to the nearest road,” Trixie insisted. “You should have smelled his cabin, Brian. The place just reeked of alcohol. Maybe Eric helps him.”
“You know what?” Di put in. “Eric’s been gone all day. First thing this morning, he asked Pat for the day off, and instead of going to town, he took off into the mountains on skis. He isn’t back yet.”
“He’s searching the woods,” breathed Trixie. “Just like he was talking about last night!”
“Searching for what?” Mart objected, getting ready to attack Trixie’s reasoning. Before he could continue, Linda and Wanda came over to join them.
“Hey, did you know it’s raining outside?” asked Wanda.
Mart glanced up from the conversation they’d all been so intent on and commented, “So it is. Well, what a vicissitudinous day!”
“No, Mart, it’s just rain,” argued Di.
Amid the laughter, Brian grumbled, “That’s going to spoil skiing for the rest of the day.”
“Probably,” Wanda agreed. “Pat and Katie told us there won’t be many people left here in another hour, so that we could have the evening off if we like. We were wondering if you might like to go into town for dinner. We could give you a small tour first, and then take you to one of our favorite restaurants.” Their invitation met with an enthusiastic acceptance from the Bob-Whites.
“What should we wear?” Di asked immediately. “We’re going to the Purple Turnip,” said Linda. “Wear something casual. Pants are fine.”
“Whew!” said Jim, pretending to wipe the sweat from his brow.
The Mystery at Mead's Mountain Page 8
