“The rivers are off there somewhere. I can’t see them either, but I know this is the watershed. The sky shed water on us the last time we drove through here,” Judy remembered. “We thought we’d never make it to the Jewell place.”
“It’s beautiful today.” Holly was really enjoying the ride. She seemed to have forgotten her disappointment at not finding her typewriter. Now, as they crossed the watershed, she said she was looking forward to visiting the beaver dam.
“Do you think the Jewell sisters will go with us?” she asked.
“They may. If they don’t, I’m sure we can find it. They said it was down the old road that passes their house. The bridge is out, and the road isn’t used any more,” Judy added.
“Then how will we get across?”
“There’s a footbridge. Honey and I crossed on a plank that floated away as soon as we were on the other side. The river was high then.”
“What river?” Holly asked. “You said the Allegheny heads back there.”
She waved her hand toward the wilderness behind them. Ahead were more wooded hills with only now and then a farmhouse and barn with a little cleared land. It was a narrow road with very little traffic going in either direction.
“That’s right,” Judy agreed. “We’ve passed the head of the Allegheny. The other two rivers are the Genessee and some remote branch of the Susquehanna, I think.”
Judy knew where the road to the Jewell place turned off just beyond the next town. They were nearly there when Holly startled her by crying out, “Move over, Judy! That big panel truck is trying to pass!”
“But that’s dangerous on this hill!”
Judy could see the truck in the rear-view mirror. It was the same one that had stopped at the used-furniture shop. Maybe she ought to move over and let it pass.
“We’ll be turning off soon, anyway,” she decided, giving John Beer and his truck plenty of room. “He seems to be in a hurry, doesn’t he?”
“Too much of a hurry,” Holly agreed. “He didn’t have time to unload his truck or do any work. I guess Mr. Sammis won the argument, and he’s taking everything back.”
“Back where?” Judy wondered as the truck sped down the long hill and out of sight.
At the next crossroads Judy came to the gas station where she and Honey had stopped to ask directions when they first visited the Jewell sisters.
“You knew Honey picked up their suitcase by mistake, didn’t you?” she asked Holly. “My, what a complicated mystery that was! We didn’t know exactly what we were looking for, and so we called it a secret quest.”
“This time we know,” Holly declared. “We’re looking for beavers, and Horace and Honey are meeting us at the beaver dam. Maybe Peter could come, too.”
“That would be nice. I’ll telephone him and leave a message,” Judy decided.
She stopped at the gas station, telephoned the resident agency of the FBI in the Farringdon Post Office, and left what she thought was a clear message. After she and Holly were on their way again she wasn’t so sure.
“I told him we’d be at the beaver dam. But will he know where that is?” Judy wondered.
“Do we know?” Holly questioned.
“No,” Judy admitted. “I’m depending on the Jewell sisters to direct us. Horace knows that, but I forgot to tell Peter. Suppose there’s more than one beaver dam!”
“Thatwillcause complications, won’t it?” agreed Holly. “But that’s you, Judy. If you don’t have enough puzzles to solve, you make a few more. Peter knows that. Anyway, a G-man should be able to find a beaver dam.”
“He may enjoy looking for it. I know I will. If we’re lucky we may catch the beavers at work. I’m going to try and get some pictures of them. With a flashbulb it shouldn’t be difficult. You can’t depend on sunlight in the woods.”
“It may be gone by the time we get there. I saw a clock as we drove through that last town,” Holly began. “It’s almost four—”
“Is it?” asked Judy, glancing at her own watch to confirm the time. “Then we won’t have much time to visit. I did want to tell the Jewell sisters about the library exhibit. Their road turns off at the top of this hill.”
Soon they turned off the pavement. The dirt road was in better condition than it had been when Judy first drove along it. A week of dry, sunny weather had helped. Ruts and mud puddles had dried up. Houses looked more easily accessible than they had on that other ride. There were two or three farmhouses set far back from the road and then a long stretch of wilderness before they came to the Jewell place.
“Is this it?” Holly asked as soon as the big house with its square cupola came in view. “It looks—haunted.”
“I thought so too, when I first saw it, and so did Honey,” Judy admitted, “but I don’t believe the Jewell sisters are entertaining any ghosts today.”
“They’re entertaining somebody!” Holly exclaimed as they came nearer. “There’s a green car parked right in front of the house.”
Judy laughed. “I’m afraid you’re seeing green cars everywhere today.”
“Well, look for yourself.”
Holly sounded a little hurt because Judy hadn’t believed her. Judy looked, blinked, and looked again.
“Maybe I’m seeing green cars, too. How would it get there?” she asked in bewilderment. “This road ends at the creek. I know, because Honey and I had to cross on a plank that tipped and nearly spilled us into the water. The creek was high then.”
“Maybe it’s gone down. The car got over there some way,” Holly insisted.
“I know,” Judy agreed, mystified.
She remembered the gorge with the creek at the bottom. The banks were too steep for any car to drive through the water. Before they came to the footbridge that spanned the creek, Judy pointed out the place where the Beetle had sunk into the mud.
“It’s dry now, and the creek isn’t half as high as it was, but I still don’t see how a car could get across it. I don’t see any tire marks, either.”
“Would they show on this dry ground?” Holly asked when they were out of the Beetle.
Judy had parked the car at the end of the road. It did end. There was no doubt of that. It ended at the barn where the Jewell sisters kept their car. Holly peeked in to make sure it was there.
“Thank goodness!” she exclaimed. “It isn’t green. You didn’t tell me they had a car. Do they drive?”
“I don’t know,” replied Judy. “They had a man to drive it for them, but Dorcas said she was going to learn. I don’t know how they get anywhere if she didn’t.”
“Maybe on broomsticks,” Holly suggested.
“They are sort of weird,” Judy agreed, “but they’re quite nice old ladies, really. We’ll ask them whose car that is. Well, here we are. We have to cross on the plank. You aren’t afraid, are you?”
Holly laughed. “I guess if two old ladies can make it, I can. It does feel shaky, though,” she admitted as she started across the narrow footbridge.
“Don’t worry,” Judy told her. “I’m right behind you. If you slip I’ll catch you. There! You’re over. That wasn’t hard, was it?”
Holly didn’t answer. She was staring at the house. There were three women busy with something on the porch. At first Judy couldn’t see what they were doing but, as they came nearer, she could see that they were sorting apples. Violetta was just helping her visitor lift a full basket into the green car when she looked up and saw the girls approaching.
“Good afternoon, Judy!” she called cheerily. “You and Honey are just in time to sample some of our sweet apples.”
“She called me Honey,” Holly whispered. “I’m not. I’m Holly.”
“She’ll soon discover that,” Judy replied cheerfully.
Violetta was coming down the path to meet them. “You picked a good time to come,” she told Judy. “We’ve been out in the orchard picking apples all day. An old friend of ours drove over here this morning—”
“How did she get over?” Judy asked curiously. “There isn’t any bridge across the creek.”
“There’s another way—” Violetta stopped and looked at Holly in surprise.
“But you’re not Honey. Your hair is darker. And where’s your cat, Judy? You promised to bring him the next time you came to visit.”
“I’m sorry I’m not a cat,” Holly said, not meaning to be funny.
They all laughed as the joke was repeated to the other two women, and there were introductions all around. Judy explained that she and Holly had come to see the beaver dam and that they expected Horace and Honey to meet them there. “I didn’t bring Blackberry this time,” she ended, “because when I left the house I didn’t know I’d be coming here.”
“He’s such a good cat,” Violetta said, with a crooning sound in her voice. She had become very fond of Judy’s pet.
“I keep telling Violetta we should have a cat of our own,” Dorcas put in. “Don’t you agree, Meta?”
“Don’t I agree with what?” the third woman asked in a faraway voice. “I’m afraid I wasn’t listening. I was thinking of the Beetle and wondering if I would have any trouble driving it back.”
“Back where?” Holly asked.
Judy said nothing. By now she was completely bewildered. Was the stranger talking about the green car or her own?
Judy’s unasked question was soon answered. The owner of the green car proved to be the matron of a nearby orphanage. She had been introduced as Miss Hanley, but Judy was soon calling her Meta just as the Jewell sisters did.
“I took the woods road,” she said, smiling at the girls. “It hasn’t been used for several years but, with the weather so dry, I felt sure I could make it. I had to stop the car a couple of times to remove trees the beavers had gnawed down, but the Beetle finally plowed through.”
“The Beetle?” Judy questioned, still a little bewildered. “That’s what we call our car.”
Miss Hanley laughed. She looked younger and prettier when she was laughing and talking. Holly probably would call her middle-aged. Holly considered anybody over thirty middle-aged. Judy guessed Meta Hanley was about thirty-five. She said she had noticed Judy’s car as it came down the hill.
“It’s black, isn’t it?” she asked. “I guess that makes two Beetles, a black one and a green one. Danny named mine. He has names for everything.”
Danny, she told them, was one of the many orphans she mothered.
“They’ll love these apples,” she told the Jewell sisters. “We have a few apple trees, but the apples aren’t ripe yet. The older children help on the farm,” she explained to Judy and Holly. “We raise nearly everything we eat. You should see the family I have at table.”
“I wish we could see them,” Judy told her. “Are visitors allowed at the orphanage?”
“Of course. The children love visitors. They do react differently to them,” she admitted. “Those who want to be adopted put on their best manners. The others run and hide.”
“That’s strange,” Judy said. “Don’t they all want to be adopted?”
“Meta is so good to them,” Violetta put in, “that quite a few of them hope to stay where they are.”
“They can’t, of course,” Dorcas added. “The orphanage is too crowded. If Violetta and I were younger we might consider adopting one of them ourselves.”
“I wish we could help,” Judy said.
“Perhaps you can. We’ve been helping,” Violetta told her. “We’ve been giving Meta a day off now and then. We go to church now that Dorcas is driving, and the women in our church take turns at the orphanage.”
“It’s awfully kind of them,” Meta Hanley said. “Mrs. Alberts is there today. I must be getting back to relieve her. Would you girls like to ride along with me as far as the beaver dam?” she asked. “It is a lonely road, and it does bring back memories.”
“Cherish them,” Dorcas advised in her abrupt way. “Some day memories will be all you have.”
What did Dorcas mean? The remark hurt, Judy could see that. Meta was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Well, I better be going. Perhaps you girls would rather walk, though it’s quite a hike to the beaver dam.”
“Then we’ll come with you,” Judy decided.
“Whereisthe road?” Holly asked.
A faint path was pointed out. It crossed the open field, and then came a small break in the trees where it entered the woods. The beaver dam was about a mile farther along.
“I’ll drop you off there, but I’m afraid you’ll have to walk back. Walking is good for the constitution,” the matron declared. “I often take the orphans on hikes. They know the country around here as well as I do. Take Danny, for instance. He’s only ten, but he can tell you more about the beavers than I can. He comes down to the pond and sits for hours just watching them. The late afternoon is the best time to see them.”
Judy glanced at her watch. “Itislate afternoon, much later than I thought. I hoped Horace or Honey or even Peter would be here by now. But if anyone stops and asks, you’ll direct them to the woods road, won’t you?” she asked the Jewell sisters.
“Of course we will. Stop in and have a bite of supper with us on your way back,” Dorcas invited them.
“All of us?” asked Judy. “I’m afraid that would be an imposition. We’ll stop next time.”
“We’ll be back,” Holly promised. “Judy has been asked to get together a few things for an exhibit at the library. You may have some old cards or calendars—”
“We have plenty of things. Violetta and I were wondering what to do with them. Would you like old Christmas cards, Judy?”
“I’d love them.”
“Then you shall have them,” both sisters assured her in almost the same breath.
“They’re perfect dears, aren’t they?” Holly asked a little later as she and Judy and the matron of the orphanage were bumping along on the woods road in the green Beetle.
“Well, not perfect. Dorcas is a little too abrupt and Violetta a little too timid. I don’t want to be like them,” declared Meta. “I don’t want to grow old with nothing but memories to cherish. They aren’t enough. Of course,” she added after her car had bumped over a rough place where a tree had fallen, “the Jewell sisters have each other.”
“Don’t you have anyone?” asked Judy with quick sympathy.
“I have the orphans. I’m an orphan myself,” she confided, “so I guess I really feel for them. Once I thought I would marry and have a family of my own. We were going to live in a big house on the other side of the hill. This road takes me right past it.” She sighed. “The windows are boarded up now, and the yard is overgrown with weeds.”
“Do we pass it?” asked Holly.
“No,” she replied. “It’s beyond the beaver dam. This road joins another road that crosses the state line into New York.”
“That isn’t the road we took in our Beetle, is it?” questioned Judy.
“No, it crosses that, too. The orphanage is down in the valley near the crossroads. I hope you do visit us some time.”
“We will,” Judy and Holly promised.
The green car hurtled over more bumps in the little-used road and then stopped. They must be near the beaver dam. To their left, down a slope thick with ferns, Judy could hear water running.
“Well, here we are.” Meta opened the door on her side of the car. “I’ll walk a little way with you,” she offered. “Otherwise you may lose time looking for the pond. It’s near the head of this stream.”
“Does the stream have a name?” Judy asked as she and Holly stepped out on the needle-covered ground. Overhead were dark fir trees that made the woods seem lonely and full of whispers as the wind moaned through their branches.
“George always called it Jewell creek,” Meta Hanley said. “He used to meet me here and we’d talk and plan what we’d do with the house after we were married. Then, on the day he’d promised to give me my ring, he never came. Jewell creek,” she repeated, looking at her ringless finger. “That isn’t its real name, of course, but the water sparkles like jewels, and it does run past the Jewell place. Actually it’s one of the forks of the Genessee. The Cowanesque heads the other side of this hill.”
Judy took Holly’s arm, her camera in her free hand. They were near the beaver dam, so near that Judy could see a mass of piled-up saplings cemented together with mud.
“The pond’s just beyond that obstruction. I’ll leave you here. Wait quietly on the bank. Keep yourselves hidden in the ferns, and don’t make a sound,” Meta directed the two girls, “and you may catch a glimpse of the beavers swimming in their pond.”
But Judy, on sudden impulse, had caught a glimpse of something else and snapped a picture.
“What did you do that for?” Holly asked, puzzled. “There wasn’t anything there.”
“I thought there was, but maybe you’re right,” Judy admitted. “I do things on impulse. Afterwards I wonder myself why I do them. Did it seem to you that Meta Hanley left us rather abruptly?”
“Yes, she did,” Holly acknowledged. “Maybe telling us that sad story made her feel bad. It just proves what I said before. It’s bad luck to love anybody.”
“For her or for you?” Judy questioned, hoping to disprove her theory.
“Foranybody. If you haven’t found it out yet, you will,” Holly prophesied, clinging grimly to her gloomy philosophy. “She had an appointment, but nobody came. It makes me wonder if Horace and Honey will keep their appointment here at the beaver dam.”
“Don’t be silly. Of course they will. Horace intends to convince his editor that the beavers will make a good story. Peter may come, too, if he gets the message I left for him. I hope he does,” declared Judy. “There are so many things I want to ask him.”
“What sort of things?” questioned Holly.
“Oh, about rivers and stuff,” Judy replied airily, still not sure enough of what she had seen to report it. “Things could drift down with the current, you know. I mean, if the Cowanesque heads the other side of this hill it must flow past several houses including that one the matron of the orphanage was talking about. Probably it’s one of the forks of the Susquehanna, and I think this creek must be another.”
“But she said it was near the head of the Genessee,” Holly objected. “And you told me yourself that we could see three great river valleys from that watershed we crossed.”
“It was beautiful!” Judy remembered. “We could see hills and valleys for miles and miles.”
“I like open places like that,” declared Holly. “Here in the woods you get the feeling that someone is hiding and watching you.”
“Beavers, no doubt. We’re the ones who should be hiding and watching them,” Judy reminded her. “We shouldn’t be talking, either. We were told not to make a sound.”
“That’s right,” Holly agreed, lowering her voice to a whisper.
Not another word was said as they broke their way through the underbrush until they came to a fairly large tree that had been gnawed down by the beavers. The stump was right at the edge of the pond. Judy ran her hand over it to make sure it was flat enough for her camera. It surprised her to discover what experts the beavers were. Their dam was solidly constructed of mud, brushwood, and poles. But there were other things in it, too. Things that puzzled Judy more and more as she and Holly watched and waited. There was no sound of falling trees as the beavers worked. Holly asked why.
“Beavers are smart,” Judy whispered back. “They only work at night. We’ll have to wait here until after dark if we want to see them working.”
“Do we have to?” Holly asked, shivering a little at the thought of being in the woods after dark.
“It will be all right,” Judy comforted her. “Horace and Honey will be here by then. I can get sharper pictures with my flashbulb after dark. There will be no other light to interfere.”
“But going back in the dark will be terrible. We’ll get lost,” Holly interrupted.
“Oh, no, we won’t,” Judy reassured her. “I have my flashlight here in my shoulder bag.”
The shoulder bag was no longer on her shoulder. It was propped behind the stump. In it Judy had stored a number of useful things including the sweet apples the Jewell sisters had given them. Holly decided to eat her apple right away.
“I’m hungry,” she declared, taking a big bite.
Judy was surprised that the sound of anyone eating an apple could be so loud. When Holly had finished it she tossed the apple core in the pond. It hit the surface of the water with a loud plop.
“I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t scare the beavers,” Holly said.
“Sh! We weren’t going to talk,” Judy reminded her.
After that there was utter silence broken only by an occasional bird twittering and the sighing of the wind in the trees. Now and then a smallplopcould be heard as something disappeared in the water.
“I don’t see anything, do you?” Holly whispered after what seemed an eternity of crouching among the ferns and waiting.
“Just ripples.”
Judy suspected that the beavers, swimming under water, made the ripples that kept appearing and disappearing on the surface of the pond. They looked exactly like the ripples that had appeared when Holly threw in the apple core. But nothing had fallen in so it must be something coming up from underneath the water. Judy had her camera ready, hoping one of the beavers would pop out and pose for a picture.
“I don’t believe there are any beavers in there,” Holly said at last.
Judy was beginning to agree with her. It was growing so dark she could no longer see the ripples, but she could still hear theplops. Once she thought she saw a beaver’s head and snapped a picture, but she couldn’t be sure she had photographed anything except an empty pond.
“Let’s go,” Holly urged when it was quite dark. “Peter didn’t get your message, and I told you Horace and Honey wouldn’t keep their appointment.”
“You told me a lot of things,” Judy retorted. “I changed my plans for the whole day because of what you told me, but I’m still hoping to prove you’re wrong about some things.”
“You mean about love? I hope you do.” Holly shivered suddenly. “Let’s go home,” she said. “These ferns are positively creepy. Snakes may be hiding in them.”
“It’s not very likely,” Judy told her.
“Well, there’s something,” Holly insisted. “Did you hear that twig snap?”
“Yes, I heard it,” Judy admitted. “I couldn’t see what it was, but I snapped a picture. It sounded near the pond. There it is again, farther back in the woods. It could be Horace and Honey coming—”
“So late?”
Judy turned on her flashlight in order to see the face of her watch. “It is late, isn’t it?” she agreed. “Maybe they aren’t coming after all.”
Now she was worried. Horace didn’t make appointments and break them. He was a fast driver, but not a reckless one. Just as she was imagining her brother’s coffee-colored convertible in an accident a light appeared, flooding the dark woods with the sudden brilliance of a searchlight.
“It’s a car!” Holly exclaimed. “It’s coming along the woods road. Horace didn’t know—”
“Holly,look!” Judy interrupted.
The light, moving nearer, had picked up a strange sight. There by the pond were three beavers startled into immobility. One of them was perched atop a mound of sticks, grass, and moss that protruded into the water. The other two were on the ground. One was digging with his little front paws, and the other was dragging something toward the dam. Judy reached for her camera, but before she could snap them the beavers were gone, leaving nothing but widening ripples in the water.
“We saw them!” Holly cried excitedly, jumping up from the ferns and hugging Judy. “I’m glad you made me wait. We saw the beavers, and that’s Horace and Honey in the car. Now he can take us home.”
“Wait, Holly!” The light from the oncoming car had picked out something else. The piece of wood the beaver had dropped didn’t look like a pole. It looked more like a chair rung. And in the dam, worked in among the brush and the mud, was the most unbelievable thing of all. Judy stood transfixed, staring at it.
“What is it?” asked Holly. “Why are you staring at the beaver dam? You look as if you had seen a ghost.”
“Itisa ghost,” declared Judy, “or about the nearest thing to it. That’s our table leg. I’d know it anywhere.”
“Your table leg?” Holly repeated, not understanding.
“I told you about it,” Judy reminded her as the light revealed the patient face she remembered so well, just below the surface of the water. “It’s a leg of the lady table. It was washed away in the Roulsville flood, and the beavers found it and used it to build their dam.”
“Horace! Honey! Come over here. I want to show you something.”
They were out of the car now, coming as fast as they could in answer to Judy’s call. When they were near enough to be heard, Horace asked, “Did you see the beavers?” and Honey answered excitedly, “Yes! We saw them just as plain as plain. Their funny, humped backs and broad, flat tails—”
“Did you see what they were carrying?” Judy interrupted.
Honey looked at Horace. “Did you?”
“A stick, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t think so,” Judy answered. “I think it was a chair rung. And Horace, I saw something else.”
“It was a face in the pond,” Holly put in. “A lady’s face.”
“Oh!” gasped Honey.
“It wasn’t what you’re thinking,” Judy told her, “but it was every bit as uncanny. I could hardly believe it myself. Horace, look!”
She turned to show him what she had discovered in the beaver dam, but the headlights of the car were no longer shining on it.
“It’s gone!” gasped Holly. “Judy, itwasa ghost!”
“No, it was there. I’m sure of it,” Judy declared. “It was the leg of that lady table Dad used to have in his reception room.”
“In Roulsville?” Horace questioned.
“Yes, before the flood. I think it must have washed down here some way. The beavers do use pieces of furniture in their dam building. I thought so when I first saw it, and now I’m sure of it. Horace, thatwasthe lady table,” Judy insisted. “That face I remember so well was looking right at me. It was weird and a little bit frightening, but I’m sure of what I saw.”
“Well, I’m not,” declared Horace. “It’s the most impossible thing I ever heard of. Furniture couldn’t washupstreamall the way from Roulsville. This is a different stream, anyway. I believe it flows into the Genessee.”
“Meta Hanley said it did,” Holly put in.
“Who’s Meta Hanley?” asked Honey.
“The matron of an orphanage—”
“The one where we stopped,” Horace interrupted. “We missed the turn and stopped there for directions. A woman was just driving up in a green car.”
“She didn’t have your typewriter, Holly,” Honey added. “She had her car loaded with apples for the orphans.”
“That was Miss Hanley all right.”
“She calls her car the Beetle, too. Did she tell you she’d brought us here?” asked Judy.
“Yes, she directed us to the woods road. She said it would be quicker and that it would save you that long walk through the woods after dark.”
“But Horace, what about our Beetle?” Judy wanted to know. “We’ll have to leave it parked where it is all night if we go back with you.”
“Why not?” Judy’s brother asked. “It wouldn’t be the first time. You’ll be coming back here to investigate what you saw and, unless I miss my guess, you’ll find you’re all wrong about any of our furniture from Roulsville being built into that beaver dam. We gave it up as lost six years ago.”
“Maybe you and Dad and Mother did, but I didn’t,” Judy retorted. “I never give up—”
“Boy, she’s right there,” Horace interrupted with a meaning look in Honey’s direction. “You and I both know it. Once Judy latches onto a mystery she never gives up until she has all the answers.”
“Please, Judy,” begged Holly, “don’t try to find all the answers tonight. If that was your lady table it will still be there in the morning. It won’t look so spooky by daylight.”
“It will to me,” declared Judy. “I’ll never forget that face in the pond. Couldn’t you turn your car so the light will shine on it again, Horace?”
“Nope,” he replied stubbornly. “The car’s turned in the direction of home, and that’s where we’re heading.”
“Good!” Holly said. “I’ve had enough of hiding in those creepy ferns and watching beavers. Besides, I’m starved. Judy and I haven’t had anything to eat since lunch.”
“We’ve had a couple of apples,” Judy reminded her. “The Jewell sisters gave them to us. They gave Miss Hanley all those apples she had in her car, and they’ve been taking turns helping out at the orphanage,” she told Horace. “Did you and Honey see any of the orphans?”
“Just their faces looking out the orphanage windows,” he answered, “but we were asked to keep watch for one of them, a boy about ten who likes to visit the beavers.”
“That’s Danny,” Judy said. “Miss Hanley told us about him.”
“I hope he’s back,” declared Horace. “That lady who was minding the children said he’d been missing since early morning. She seemed quite worried.”
“We can watch for him on the way home, can’t we? Come on, Judy,” urged Holly. “You can come back here tomorrow and find your lady or whatever that was in the pond.”
Honey shivered. “I agree with Holly. Let’s go, Horace. It’s too dark to look for anything tonight.”
“Right,” he agreed, “but I’ll be back here first thing in the morning. What about you, Sis?”
“I’ll be with you. I wish Peter could come, too. Did you hear from him at all?” Judy asked.
Horace said he hadn’t heard but he felt sure Peter had received Judy’s message. “He’s probably out tailing suspects,” he added. “He is assigned to help round up the Joe Mott gang, isn’t he?”
“He doesn’t discuss his assignments,” Judy answered. Her brother was altogether too curious. He knew Peter’s work was confidential. She could understand Horace’s interest, though. His face was no longer swollen from the beating he had received from the Joe Mott gang, but there was still a small scar over his eyebrow. He had interrupted a robbery and probably was lucky that Joe Mott’s boys had given him no more than a beating. Joe was in prison, but some unknown gang leader apparently was taking his place. Peter had promised Horace the story as soon as it broke, but the investigation had to be conducted in secret.
“Are you coming, Judy?” Holly asked when Judy still stood there beside the stump where she had placed her camera.
“I thought we might wait just a little longer for Peter,” she protested. “He won’t know about the woods road. He’ll be walking over from the Jewell place and he’ll have his searchlight with him—”
“I get it,” Horace interrupted. “You intend to ask Peter to help you investigate this impossible discovery of yours. If the beavers have stolen furniture and transported it across state lines he might make a federal case out of it.”
“Don’t joke, Horace,” Judy scolded him. But she couldn’t help laughing.
All the way home Horace, Honey, and even Holly treated her discovery as a joke. Peter wouldn’t. She knew that. She could tell him not only what she had seen, but how she felt. That was one of the wonderful things about Peter. When Judy talked, he really listened.
“Are we going to stop for something to eat?” Holly asked presently.
“Hamburgers in Farringdon,” Judy suggested, “but let’s make it fast. I want to get home.”
“I was going to ask you over to the apartment—” Honey began.
“Some other time. Your grandparents will be sleeping. It’s so late even the hamburger places will be closed if we don’t hurry,” Horace told her.
“You’re right. It is late,” Judy agreed a few minutes later as Horace drove into Farringdon. She could see the illuminated face of the courthouse clock. The hands pointed to eleven. An hour more and it would be midnight. Surely Peter would be waiting for her at home.
“Maybe I ought to call the Jewell sisters,” Judy suggested when they were in the restaurant in Farringdon, having their late snack. “I could telephone from here and find out if Peter came by there. I did tell him to meet us at the beaver dam.”
“He wouldn’t expect to find us there so late,” Horace objected.
“Do the Jewell sisters have a telephone?” Honey asked. “They didn’t have one when we were there before.”
“They’ve made a lot of changes, but I guess it would disturb them if we called them so late. They’d be sleeping, and the phone would scare them half out of their wits, that is,” Judy amended, “if they do have a phone now.”
“Want to ride along with me to Dry Brook Hollow?” Horace asked Honey as they were leaving the restaurant.
Honey shook her head. “Not tonight, Horace. Take me home, please. I have to be at work tomorrow, remember? And those designs I’m doing take concentration. I can’t let myself fall asleep over them.”
Holly watched as Horace gave Honey a quick good-night kiss at the door of the apartment building where she lived with her grandparents. “Let’s move into the front seat,” she suggested to Judy. A little later, cuddled in between Judy and Horace, she almost purred with contentment.
“Another complication,” thought Judy. “Holly thinks she’s in love with Horace when he and Honey are practically engaged.” Aloud she said, “It’s too bad Honey didn’t come with us. You’ll be driving back alone.”
“That’s all right,” Horace agreed cheerfully, “I like my own company, especially when I have a lot to think about. I may have made a joke of it, Sis, but I’m just as puzzled as you are. If that is your lady back there in the pond, how did the beavers get hold of her, and where is the rest of the table?”
Judy was trying to think of an answer to her brother’s question when she noticed the headlights of another car just over the hilltop. It was the last hill before they came down into Dry Brook Hollow.
“It’s the Beetle!” she exclaimed as it slowed down and came to a standstill close by Horace’s car. Judy was surprised to see Blackberry in his usual place next to the back window. Peter was driving.
Judy was out of Horace’s car in a flash.
“Here I am, Peter! Were you looking for me?” she asked, running toward him.
“That,” declared Peter, “is the understatement of the year. I practically searched the whole woods.”
“I’m sorry we didn’t wait. Were you all alone?” Judy asked anxiously.
“Not at first,” Peter replied. “There were two of us in the official car, but the other agent left as soon as I spotted the Beetle. He didn’t think I’d have any trouble finding you, but he was wrong. I was about to wake the Jewell sisters and question them when I discovered that woods road and decided we’d missed each other and Horace had driven you home.”
“So you drove all the way back only to find nobody there,” Judy anticipated.
“Nobody but a hungry cat. Red had been there, as usual, to take care of the barn chores, but he forgot Blackberry. He jumped in the car and went along to help me hunt,” Peter continued. “We were on our way back to the beaver dam.”
“Were you there before? Did you see the beavers?” Holly questioned from Horace’s car.
Peter said he hadn’t been looking for beavers. He was looking for Judy.
“I’ll take Holly home,” Horace volunteered. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Sis, unless you’ve changed your mind about going back to visit your lady.”
“I haven’t. Want to come with us, Holly?” Judy asked.
“I wish I could,” she replied, “but I promised Ruth I’d baby sit while she does some shopping in Roulsville. She’ll take your films if you want her to. There’s a place right next to the library where you get fast service. I’ll look for old calendars and cards among Uncle David’s things if you want me to.”
“I do. I’d be glad to have anything you can find. Day after tomorrow you can help me arrange the exhibit. Will the films be ready by then?” Judy wondered.
Holly felt sure they would. “I can’t wait to hear what you and Horace find out about that lady. Maybe she won’t look so spooky in the daytime.”
“More likely she won’t be there at all,” Horace said as they drove away.
“What was all this about a spooky lady?” Peter asked curiously, as he turned the Beetle around.
Judy told him. It sounded still more unbelievable in the telling. As soon as they reached the house Peter brought out a map to show her how impossible it was for any of the furniture that had been washed away in the Roulsville flood to be carried anywhere near the beaver dam.
“You see how these rivers flow. Dry Brook empties into Roulsville Run, really the first fork of the Sinnamehoning—”
“But the Sinnamehoning has a lot of forks,” Judy protested, studying the map.
“True,” Peter admitted, “but none of them are anywhere near the beaver dam. Anything washed down by the flood would have ended up south of Roulsville, not away to the north. Are you quite sure of what you saw?”