The Mystery of the Missing Heiress

anything?”
    “Just that you were riding and wanted me to go with you…. I've saddled Sunny. Say... what could Miss Trask have told me? Why are you all grinning? Tell me!”
    Mart urged Strawberry over closer to Diana and brushed his hand nonchalantly over his short, sandy hair. “It’s nothing... really nothing... it’s just....”
    “That the Bob-Whites have their very own car!” Trixie exploded. “A station wagon!”
    “Now, where in the world would we ever get anything like that? You have to be fooling. I’m not old enough to drive. You aren’t, Trixie. Honey isn’t, either, or Mart. Where would we get a car?” she repeated. “Where?”
    “Honey and Jim’s father,” Trixie said dramatically. “He has a marvelous new Lincoln Continental and has given his old car to the Bob-Whites. Did you ever hear of anything like that? Jim’s going to paint our club name on the door. Who’ll drive it? Why, Jim and Brian, for now, and Dan will learn. But it belongs to every one of us! Oh, hurry, Di. Were going to the gamekeeper’s cottage to tell Dan the news, too.”
    Diana didn’t move. “I just can’t believe it!” she gasped. “It’s too—too—too super! Why, even the Sleepyside Turf Club doesn’t own a car!”
    “Why speak of that unimportant organization in the same breath with the Bob-Whites of the Glen?” Mart asked. “Gol, when I think of all that’s happened to us in the past year or so....”
    “Ever since Honey’s family moved to Manor House,” Trixie added, “and Di’s family moved here —and Dan!”
    “We have the best dub in the United States of America,” Honey said. “I always wanted to belong to a club like ours.”
    Trixie nodded her head. “Now all seven of us belong.”
    “With a clubhouse thrown in,” Brian reminded her.
    “Which we broke our backs mending and rebuilding and furnishing—” Mart stopped when he saw Trixie’s face.
    “Mart Belden! Were the luckiest people in the whole world! Just think of it—the Wheeler gatehouse for our dub!”
    “It’s true, what Mart said,” Honey said quietly. “It looked terrible, all choked with vines and so dilapidated. Daddy’s so proud of the way we fixed it up without any help from anyone. That’s one reason that he gave us the station wagon. He likes the things the Bob-Whites do.”
    “Trixie didn’t give me half a chance to finish what I started to say— Oh, stand still a minute, can’t you?” Mart said to Strawberry, who was pawing the ground, eager to get going. “I liked the work we did on the clubhouse. I was just trying to be a little bit funny. There’s no end to the things Mr. Wheeler does to help our dub—Di’s dad, too, and our own mom and dad.”
    Honey shook her blond head. “There’s more to it than that, Mart. When I think of the crazy, dressed-up kid I was before I met Trixie and the rest of you.... Heavens, I never even owned a pair of jeans before. I never had one day s fun in all my life till....”
    “Poor little rich girl!” Mart dried imaginary tears. “It’s true. Jim and I practically live at Crabapple Farm now... picnics and barbecues... your mother’s cooking. It’s a lot easier to give things to people when you have too much yourself. It’s better to do things with and for other people. The Bob-Whites have taught us that, haven’t they, Jim?”
    “Sure! Of course, I’m a Johnny-come-lately—just since your family took pity on a down-and-out orphan, Honey, and adopted me. I sure think I fell into a great life with some great friends. It took a punk like that stepfather of mine to make me realize this.”
    “Ho-hum!” Mart broke in, pretending to stifle a yawn. “Is this a love-in, or are we going to ride?”
    “Ride!” Trixie said briskly. “It doesn’t hurt anyone, though, to stop now and then and think about good things people do. Too many people are running down our country and everyone in it, with a special hate for teen-agers. I like us. I like all of us.” She turned Susie sharply, urged her into a trot, and called back over her shoulder, “You have to remember that Dan doesn’t know about the car. Let’s turn into the woods here.”
    They left Glen Road for a world of tangy spruce and pine as the intriguing shade of the trail closed around them.
    Reddy and Patch spread out, barking deliriously as they caught the pungent scent of damp pine needles, spongy leaf mold, and elusive cottontails.
    The surefooted horses picked their way, sniffing the