The Happy Valley Mystery

out. And I’m a sight... all covered with mud. The poor sheep are in worse shape. What will they do? They can’t ever get out of here, Jim. They’ll just die. We’ll have to have Mr. Gorman’s help. Jim!” A sudden thought struck Trixie. “Jim, do you suppose this could solve the mystery of the disappearing sheep? Do you suppose they fell in this ravine and couldn’t get out?”
    “Gosh, no,” Jim said. “Mr. Gorman would have looked here first thing.”
    “Sure,” Brian said, “and the dogs would have tracked the sheep if they wandered in here. Tip even found them in die storm. Say, where is the storm now?”
    “It’s gone!” Mart said from above them.
    “Even stars in the sky!” Diana exclaimed.
    “Iowa weather is funnier than Westchester County weather, if that’s possible,” Honey said. “Mart, what are you doing?”
    “Trying to find my way to where Jim and Trixie and Brian are,” Mart said, “and it looks as though I’ll have to fall down, the way Trixie did.”
    “Just don’t come down here at all,” Trixie said. “Someone has to go and find Mr. Gorman.”
    “Someone has to tell us how to get out of here and how to get the sheep out,” Jim added. “Mart, suppose you and the girls go back to the house and bring Mr. Gorman. Tell him where we are and what Trixie found.”
    “All right,” Mart said, “but it’s my opinion that he’d rather not see any Bob-Whites right now.”
    “We have given him a tough time,” Jim agreed. “However, go and find him now, please.”
    “Do that, Mart,” Trixie added, “or we’ll have to start swimming. The slush down here is over my galoshes!”
    “It’s a real mess,” Brian said. “Mart!”
    Mart didn’t answer. He and Diana and Honey were on their way to get help.
     

Trixie’s Discovery • 5
     
    BACK AT THE FARM, Mr. Gorman, with the help of Tag, had succeeded in corralling the flock where they could quickly seek shelter under the thatched sheds. He had just dropped the bar to lock the gate, when Mart appeared with the two girls.
    He seemed too weary to say anything. He just whistled for Tag and started out toward the pasture again. Somewhere out there, he was sure, about twelve of his best sheep were still marooned.
    “Mr. Gorman, sir!” Mart called, and he sloshed hurriedly through the snow to where the farm manager halted, waiting for him. “Mr. Gorman,” he said breathlessly, “Trixie found the rest of the sheep!”
    “Trixie found them?” Mr. Gorman repeated.
    “In the gully. She fell in on top of them,” Mart told him, then explained.
    “The gully, of all places,” Mr. Gorman said and dropped his arms with a sigh of exhaustion. “It’ll be a night’s work to get them out of there. Where are Brian and Jim? And where’s Trixie now?”
    When Mart told him they were keeping the sheep company in the ravine, he had no comment. “You’ll have to help me,” he said. “Go over to the house, girls, and get some dry clothing. You’ll just be in the way out here,” he insisted as Honey and Diana started to follow him and Mart. “My wife is worried now about all of you. I’m sure of that,” he said. “Please go and tell her what’s going on.”
    Then, as the girls obeyed him, he said to Mart, “We’ll have to get a short ladder so they can climb out of that gully, and then we’ll have to try and get the sheep out. It’s going to take some doing.”
    Mart followed Mr. Gorman to the big barn, where the farm manager took a ladder from a hook on the wall and handed it to Mart, then found a shovel, a short-handled ax, and a bag of cracked com. “Lead the way, Mart,” he said, “if you have any idea where to go. It’s a long gully, and the sheep could have wandered into it in half a dozen places. What a night!” For the first time in many a day, Mart didn’t have a word to say. He took up his share of the strange objects Mr. Gorman had assembled and just plodded ahead.
    Back in the ravine, now that the snow had stopped, the ewes made an attempt to dry themselves. “Have a heart!” Trixie begged. “Heavens, what are you doing?” Standing well apart from one another, the ewes shook their bodies, soaking Trixie and Jim and Brian. Then, to dry their heads, they shook them so fast that nothing but a blur could be seen.
    “Poor sheep!” Trixie said, trying to keep out of the way. “What a load of water their fleece holds!”
    The combined shaking of heads and bodies sounded like distant