The Mystery at Bob-White Cave (2 page)

“Because your Uncle Andrew isn’t here.”

“Don’t you think he’d want us to go and hunt for the fish, Mrs. Moore?”

“I don’t know. Exploring caves can be dangerous. Linnie knows that, don’t you, Linnie?”

“It is likely to be risky,” Linnie admitted reluctantly, “if you don’t know anything about exploring caves.”

“We do, though,” Trixie said. “There’s a cave in Honey’s father’s woods.”

Honey laughed. “That old thing! We know every inch of it. There’s certainly no danger there.”

Mrs. Moore seemed worried. “Caves round about here have sinkholes in them. They have dangerous ledges and falling rocks. You could run into a wild animal or a snake. You probably would be perfectly safe, but I’d much rather you’d talk it over with your Uncle Andrew first. He’ll be home for dinner tonight.”

“All right. We’ll wait till morning,” Brian said. Brian was the conservative, dependable Belden. “Another few hours won’t make much difference. You act as though you could walk right into a cave, Trixie, take the fish out with a dip net, and pocket the money. It couldn’t be that simple, or they wouldn’t be offering a five-hundred-dollar reward. We’ll wait, won’t we, gang?”

“I wish we didn’t have to waste a whole day!” Trixie said.

“You
are
on a rebellious kick,” Mart said. “Why don’t we go fishing after lunch? I’m dying to try out this reel. You bet me a dollar you’d catch the first fish. Don’t forget that, Trix. If you don’t go along, it’ll cost you a dollar, because I’m going to get a bass. See if I don’t.” —

“Oh, all right,” Trixie agreed reluctantly. Then a thought struck her. A mysterious smile crept round her lips. It could be that they just
might
find a cave, and if they did....

Uncle Andrew’s lodge was built of logs. It was located deep in the Missouri Ozarks, where life was still quite primitive, but he had managed to have some comforts brought to his mountain home.

A great rough stone fireplace dominated one end of the big living room. The comfortable chairs and divans were of peeled hickory and had been made by the mountain people. Woven rag rugs covered the floors. From high above the lodge, clear, cold spring-water flowed by force of gravity through pipes to the kitchen and shower room. Hanging oil lamps provided mellow light for reading.

Uncle Andrew’s bedroom was on the first floor in back, and stairs led from the living room to two large dormitories, equipped with comfortable bunk beds, on the second floor.

Through the wide-paned windows, where Trixie had watched the rain so impatiently, a glorious vista opened. Limestone ledges made a serrated pattern down to Ghost River, which emptied into the huge basin of Lake Wamatosa. Pines, walnuts, hickories, butternuts, papaws, dogwoods, redbuds, and wild crab apple trees tangled, in dense clumps, with wild grapevines and spiraling woodbines.

In a cleared place just beyond the lodge, Mrs. Moore’s cabin stood. She had known no other home. Her grandparents had built the two-room log house when they migrated from Kentucky years before. After Linnie was born, Mrs. Moore and her husband, Matthew, had added a third room. From year to year, they had managed to clear a little more ground for gardening.

Ten years before, when Linnie was only four years old, Matthew Moore had gone on a fishing and hunting expedition. He never came back.

The evening before, after the Bob-Whites had unpacked and had dinner and Mrs. Moore and Linnie had gone to their own cabin, Uncle Andrew told them all he knew of the tragic affair. “The mayor of Wagon Trail,” he said, “a little town south of Springfield, sent Mrs. Moore her husband’s knapsack. With it was a letter saying that her husband’s body had been found at the foot of a cliff, where, quite evidently, he had fallen to his death.”

“How sad!” Trixie said. “It must have been dreadful if they had to bring his body here in that mule wagon.”

“They couldn’t bring his body home to be buried,” Uncle Andrew explained, “because they had great difficulty in contacting Mrs. Moore. They did the best they could; they buried Matthew near where he had fallen. When Mrs. Moore received the letter and the knapsack, her husband had been dead for more than a month.”

“What
did
she do?” Trixie asked.

“Here in the Ozark hills, people have learned to accept death stoically; when it happens, the family just goes on living. Mrs. Moore had to support herself and her child somehow. She gathered ginseng and other herbs in the woods and sent them with a neighbor to White Hole Springs, to be sent to city drugstores. She wove baskets, made pottery, and made dewberry and blackberry preserves. She carried her products by muleback, then sat patiently all day long by the roadside, hoping to sell them to passing tourists.

“She gathered wood and split it to keep Linnie and herself warm in winter. She canned vegetables and wild fruits. She shot squirrels and rabbits and canned some of them for winter use. She even managed to buy Martha, the cow, and Shem and Japheth, the mules. Things are a little easier for her now, since I was fortunate enough to employ her as a housekeeper.”

The Bob-Whites quickly consumed the sandwiches Mrs. Moore had made, plus a big bowl of garden lettuce mixed with wild poke greens. There were little onions and radishes from Mrs. Moore’s kitchen garden.

“Moms has lettuce and radishes in her garden at home,” Trixie told Mrs. Moore. “Brian and Mart planted it for her, and they help her hoe and water it.” Mrs. Moore seemed surprised. “Then you all have chores to do at home. Do you hear that, Linnie?”

“I’ll say we do,” Mart said. “Plenty of them, the year round. Trixie helps Moms a lot by taking care of our little brother, Bobby, and with dusting—her
favorite
chore. Brian and I have the really hard work to do, though, shoveling snow, working in the garden, and carrying in wood. Jeepers, we get the tough end of it, huh, Brian?”

“We have all the time we want for Bob-White work and basketball and baseball practice and skating,” Brian answered. “You know that, Mart.”

“Sleepyside sounds like a wonderful place to live,” Linnie said, “especially your place, Crabapple Farm, and the Manor House, where Honey lives. I looked on the map in my geography. You’re hundreds of miles from here when you’re home. I’ve never been farther away than White Hole Springs. I wish I could fly in an airplane someday. That would be something fine. Did your mother teach you to sew, Honey?”

They all laughed at this question. Mr. Wheeler was a millionaire, and Mrs. Wheeler had servants to do everything for her. She enjoyed a busy social life far more than doing any work around her home.

“I learned to sew at boarding school,” Honey explained. “I love it. I made these jackets we wear.”

“They’re beautiful, with your club name embroidered on the back and all. I can sew, too. From pictures I’ve seen in magazines Mr. Belden’s friends have brought, and from the curtains you’ve made for the lodge, I know our cabin could be a lot prettier than it is. I wish I knew how to fix it up so it wouldn’t look like all the rest of the cabins around here.”

“It’s clean and comfortable,” Mrs. Moore said quickly. “What money it would take to change it, we’ve had to save for your education.”

Trixie’s generous heart was touched by the longing in Linnie’s eyes. “If you want us to,” she said, “we can show you how to make things for your house, and they’ll cost hardly a thing. The boys’ll help, too. They’re handy at fixing houses. You should see what they did to our clubhouse back home. The next time it rains, that’s exactly what we’ll do.”

Linnie’s face shone. “I may not have to wait very long. I don’t think the rain’s over yet.”

“Gosh, then let’s get going,” Mart said. “I’ve
got
to give this reel a workout. Thanks for such a good lunch, Mrs. Moore. Come on, everybody. Linnie?”

“I have to help Mama this afternoon. Have a good time, but watch out for a storm. If one comes up, take shelter under a cliff. The rain crows are still crying rain. Hear them?”

Right now, there’s not a cloud in the sky,” Trixie said. “How could it be mean enough to rain more?” ‘Do you have an insect spray?” Mrs. Moore asked.

“The mosquitoes and ticks are bad. And do you have heavy boots?”

“Yes, to the first question, and look at these boots!” Trixie held up her foot. “They’re snake-proof. Anyway, even if we saw a copperhead or rattlesnake, Jim’s Deadeye Dick with his gun.”

“Don’t step over your fishing line,” Linnie called after them. “It’s a bad sign. You’ll never catch a fish if you do. Watch out for sinkholes. Watch out for caves. You wouldn’t want to stumble into one!”

“Wouldn’t I?” Trixie said under her breath to Honey. “Just give me a chance!”

Wildcat Comes to Call ● 2

JIM WHISTLED for Jacob, Linnie’s black-and-tan coon-hound. Then he and Brian went ahead down the precipitous rocky path to the lake. Mart followed close behind them. Trixie, impatient, was at his heels, pushing back the dripping, low-hanging branches of oak and hickory.

“Isn’t this great?” she called back to Honey.

Honey’s unenthusiastic answer was drowned in the hoarse cawing of crows, who protested human invasion into their world.

“Watch out for your old bamboo rod!” Mart called out. “Carry the big end and trail it after you. You’ll put my eyes out.”

“Oh, all right,” Trixie said and reversed her hold on her fishing pole. “One of these days I’ll have a collapsible rod, too.”

“Yeah, if you ever learn to cast. Where are you heading, Jim?”

“No place, yet,” Jim called back. “Not till we get closer to the lake. Jeepers, this view is something, isn’t it?”

Down below, a flock of white herons waded in the shining shallows, lifting their feet high. As the Bob-Whites neared, they rose up and lighted on tree branches that hung low over the water’s edge. Soon, curious, they were back, spreading their wide wings and treading water. A big turtle scrambled awkwardly from a log and disappeared into the water.

To the right, lazy Ghost River, scarcely a dozen feet across, had carved a crooked channel through the hills to empty its water into the crystal lake.

“Just anyplace you look,” Brian called excitedly, “you can see a place to fish. It’s a bass fisherman’s paradise.”

“Let’s wait and see. Linnie said fish never bite in a rainstorm,” Mart answered.

Jim skilfully cast out his line and brought it back. Then he said, “Linnie is full of superstitions. For instance, Mart, she said never to step over your fish-line; it’s bad luck. You just did it!”

“That’s all gobbledygook,” Mart said and stumbled across his glass rod, nearly knocking it into the water. The girls laughed at the consternation in his face.

“Not all Ozark superstitions are foolish, it seems,” Jim said. “The people around here know a lot more than we do about snakes and wild animals—caves, too.” He looked directly at Trixie. She just tossed her curls and pulled in her bobbing line. A ten-inch sunfish dangled at the end of it. The first catch!

“It’s a beauty!” Mart called. “There goes the dollar I bet you. Me for a bass! See that log over there in the shadow? Everybody keep away from it. I saw it first.” Mart, his rod and line working perfectly, made a brilliant cast. The froglike lure at the end of his line dropped down, hit the stump, then plopped into the water where it lay motionless. Slowly he twitched the imitation frog toward him. Suddenly the water exploded around the stump, and a bass rose from the foam, splashing with all its might. Skilfully Mart let out his line, drew it in, let it out, and drew it in, till the tired fish gave up. Mart pulled him from the water —a fourteen-inch largemouth bass!

The Bob-Whites gathered around to admire it. Then Brian, too, brought in a bass, and shortly Jim pulled one in.

“We haven’t been here an hour, and look at the catch!” Mart cried exultantly. “Enough for two meals! Who said fish didn’t bite after a rain?”

“What Linnie really said was that fish wouldn’t bite
during
a rainstorm,” Honey said. “She also said she didn’t think the rainstorm was over. None of you have noticed the way the black clouds are piling up in the west. Don’t you hear thunder? We’d better go.”

Brian, the serious member of the Bob-Whites and their acknowledged leader, took one look at the sky and issued an order to head for home immediately.

The sun had disappeared behind a bank of angry clouds. A wind came up through the silence—a silence more ominous than the rolling thunder that accented it. The sky in the west was a sullen green along the horizon. Tree branches, caught in the wind, swept low. Turtledoves stopped their cooing. Katydids and crickets no longer chirped, but the crows kept up their ratchety cawing. A frightened rabbit looked out from behind a bush. Jacob paid no attention to it but stood beside Jim, head down and tail between his legs, while the wind whipped his short hair.

The Bob-Whites scurried up the path. The wind increased its fury, and the rain came down in sheets. Lightning cut crooked paths across the sky. Trixie stayed close to Jim. Honey, her face white with fright, cringed under the sheltering arm Brian put around her. Mart, forging ahead up the steep path, came to a sudden halt.