The Red Trailer Mystery

steps toward the girls, then hesitated and turned to go back.
    "Hello," Honey called. "Can we do something for you?"
    He wheeled, stared at them for a minute as though trying to make up his mind about something, then came closer.
    "Did you see my little girl?" he asked in a queer, low voice. "The one with the black braids?"
    "Yes," Honey and Trixie said together. "She brought back the puppy just before lunch."
    The man nodded. "We haven’t seen her since then. Did you notice where she went?"
    "Through the woods," Trixie said, pointing. "We wondered why she went off in the opposite direction from where you were parked."
    The man’s shoulders slumped. "Then she meant what she said," he sighed, more to himself than to them. "I didn’t think she’d do it." His face was expressionless, but he let out a groan of despair as he turned and walked slowly back to the Robin. He climbed into the driver’s seat, said something which they couldn’t hear to his wife, and drove away down the road.
    Honey and Trixie stared at each other in amazement. "He’s gone off and left her wandering around in the woods," Honey gasped. "Oh, Trixie, what’ll we do?"
    "We can’t do anything," Trixie said. "We’d never find her in those thick woods, especially since it looks as though she doesn’t want to be found!"
    Miss Trask called to them from the tow car. "All aboard, you two! We must get started if we want to reach Autoville before dark."
    Trixie and Honey climbed aboard the Swan, and Honey stretched out on the davenport. Trixie clambered up to her bunk.
    "You watch from your window," Trixie said. "And I’ll watch from mine. Maybe we’ll pass Joeanne on the road. If she’s run away from her family, she may have hidden beside the main highway until she saw the Robin go past. It would be easier walking on the road than through the woods."
    "But we don’t know which direction she’ll take," Honey said. "If she goes south we’ll never find her."
    "Well, she was going north when we saw her last," Trixie pointed out to Honey.
    "Why do you suppose she ran away, if she did?" Honey wondered out loud.
    "The only reason I can think of," Trixie said after thinking for a minute, "is that her father must be so cruel to her that she couldn’t bear it any longer."
    "I don’t think he is cruel," Honey broke in. "He didn’t look mean when he asked us if we’d seen her back at the lake. He looked—well, sort of beaten. I felt sorry for him."
    "Well, I didn’t," Trixie said briskly. "He had no business driving off and leaving an eleven-year-old girl."
    "I know," Honey argued, "but if Joeanne ran away, there was nothing else for him to do. You said yourself nobody could find her in those woods."
    "He could notify the police," Trixie said. "That’s what our family would do if we ran away and they couldn’t wait for us to come back."
    "Maybe he did," Honey said. "Maybe he stopped at the next town." She looked relieved at the thought. "The state troopers are probably combing the woods for Joeanne right now."
    "I wish I thought so," Trixie said. "They’re so wonderful that they’d find her right away. But somehow I have a feeling that shaggy-haired man doesn’t want to have anything to do with the police. There’s something mysterious going on inside that trailer. I’m going to keep watching out the window for Joeanne." But she didn’t. The swim and the big lunch made her so sleepy she couldn’t keep her eyes open. When she woke up, they had stopped at the entrance to a large trailer park, and Honey was rubbing her eyes and yawning.
    "Oh, dear," she sighed ruefully. "We both fell asleep. Here we are at Autoville."
    After Miss Trask had made arrangements with the proprietor for space and use of water and electrical connections, she drove the Swan down past a long line of parked trailers to the stand she had rented. Trixie and Honey jumped out, followed by the dogs.
    "Why, this is a regular resort," Trixie said, staring around her. Every stand had a tiny, flower-bordered lawn of its own, and in the middle of the landscaped park was an enormous swimming pool "That’s right," Honey said. "Some people live here all the year round. They have oil burners and everything in their trailers."
    A uniformed attendant backed the Swan into its section of the auto village and, after giving Miss Trask a receipt, drove the tow car off to a parking lot.
    "The tow cars," Miss Trask explained, "are parked so you can sit in them and watch the outdoor