Free The Red Trailer Mystery by Julie Campbell Page B

effort at all. “Nothing to it,” he grinned as he joined the girls on the rock. “Before you stands the world’s greatest swimmer. I shouldn’t have entered an amateur race. It was like taking candy from a baby. As you no doubt noted, Sid here, was outclassed from the beginning.”
    Sid had been such a close second that everyone laughed, and Ben pretended to sulk. Sid hoisted himself up on the rock beside Trixie. “I’ll bet you could beat boastful Ben with your arm in a sling,” he said.
    Trixie shook her head. “I couldn’t, but Honey could. She’s marvelous.”
    Honey flushed. “I’m not at all.”
    Ben scrambled to his feet. “Dare you to challenge me. Double dare you.” He pulled his cousin down to the starting point on the edge of the quarry.
    “Ready, on your mark, get set,
go!
” Sid shouted and they were off.
    Trixie had not really been sure that Honey could beat Ben, but she did, by a whole yard, and the quarry resounded with the boys’ loud cheers. Red-faced and embarrassed, Honey let Ben help her out of the water and before she could get her balance, he pushed her in again. That was a signal for everybody to drag Ben into the quarry and duck him over and over again. At last it was over and Ben, spluttering good-naturedly, held up Honey’s arm and gasped, “The winnah!”
    The dinner bell rang, and they raced away to change into dry clothes. Honey and Trixie sat on each side of Mr. Ditmar at the long table in the ranch house and had several helpings of the hunter’s stew.
    “Maybe you proved girls are the best swimmers,” Ben teased, “but it looks as though boys are the best cooks.”
    “I won’t argue that point,” Trixie admitted with a laugh as she passed her plate for more of the savory meat and vegetables. “But I
would
like to know how you did it. Most stews are awful.”
    “First you take an onion,” Ben said, his eyes twinkling, “and after that you weep and weep.”
    “Not if you peel it under water.” Mrs. Ditmar smiled. “But Ben will never learn.”
    “By the way,” Mr. Ditmar said to Trixie, “you’re not the only people who’ve stopped at the ranch today asking for missing persons. A man came to the back door early this morning wanting to know if we’d seen his little girl.”
    Trixie stared across the table at Honey. “Was he driving a red trailer?” she asked.
    Mr. Ditmar looked surprised. “Why, no,” he said. “He was on foot and went off through the woods walking north. I took it for granted that he was a farmer.”
    Trixie laid down her fork. “Did he describe the girl?” she asked, trying not to sound excited. “Did he say her name was Joeanne?”
    “No, he didn’t.” Mr. Ditmar shook his head. “He simply said she had black pigtails and was about eleven years old. I offered to send a group of boys through the woods to help search for her, but he rather rudely refused the offer and strode away hastily.” He gave Trixie a sharp glance. “What made you think he would be in a red trailer? Do you suspect the man had anythingto do with the recent theft that has been announced on the radio so many times?”
    Before Trixie could think of a word to say, Honey interrupted with, “Did the man have long, shaggy hair?”
    Mr. Ditmar laughed. “There’s some mystery about all this, but you two are certainly on the wrong track. The man, and I think he must have been a neighbor farmer, had a closely cropped head—it was practically a crew haircut.”
    “Then I guess we’re talking about two different people,” Trixie said with relief. “We saw a shaggy-haired man driving a red trailer on our way up the river last week.”
    Honey quickly changed the subject. “You must come over and see our trailer before we go back,” she said to Ben. “I’d like to ask you all to lunch but it’s not quite big enough for that.”
    “I should hope not,” Ben said as they left the dining hall. “It would have to be a young village on wheels to hold all of