The night grew still. Through sleepy eyes, Benny watched the snow falling through the dim firelight.
He was almost asleep when Violet sat straight up and cried, “What’s that?”
CHAPTER 5
The Hungry Thief
Everyone woke up. Maris, Henry, and Jessie switched on their flashlights.
The beams poked holes in the darkness. But nobody saw anything. “I heard someone walking!” Violet insisted. “Over there.” She pointed.
Bobcat came around the side of the lean-to from his tent. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“Violet heard someone,” Henry told him. He pointed.
“I’ll check on the food,” Bobcat said. “Maybe that’s what you heard, an animal doing a little grocery shopping.”
They watched Bobcat’s flashlight bob away from the lean-to. A few minutes later, he came back. “Nothing,” he said.
“I know I heard something,” Violet said.
“It must have been the wind,” Maris told her. “Or some small animal.”
Everyone lay back down. One by one, the campers began to fall asleep.
Until Violet sat up once more. “There it is again,” she cried.
This time, Maris walked to the edge of the clearing and shone her flashlight beam into the darkness all around. Everything was still and quiet. Bobcat called from his tent, “Everything okay. Maris?”
“Okay, Bobcat,” she called back. To Violet, she said, “Nothing’s here. Or if it is, it’s run away.”
“I know I heard something,” Violet repeated.
Jessie put her hand on Violet’s arm. “It’s just some animal,” she told her sister. “The animals won’t hurt us.”
“It didn’t sound like an animal,” Violet said. “It sounded big. Like someone walking.”
“A deer, maybe,” said Maris, yawning.
“Or a bear?” Benny asked.
“If it was a bear, it’d make a lot more noise. It’s no bear,” Maris told him. “Let’s get some sleep.”
Everyone lay back down again. This time, it took longer for them to fall asleep. But at last, only Violet was awake. She lay with her eyes wide open, listening hard. She listened and listened.
But the woods were silent except for the creak of branches in the cold wind.
Then she heard a sound. She sat up, but she didn’t say anything. She strained to hear.
The sound stopped. Violet began to relax. She lay back down. Just a raccoon or something, she told herself sleepily.
At last she fell asleep.
“Oh, great! That’s just great!”
Bobcat was shouting. Violet sat up and blinked. A thin frosting of snow decorated everything. Tracks made patterns in the snow.
Maris stood by the warm fire heating a pan of water. “What is it, Bobcat?” Maris called.
A moment later, Bobcat came into sight. His hair was wild and he looked upset and angry.
Benny and Henry were right behind him. “It was a bear!” Benny said gleefully, before Bobcat could answer Maris.
Jessie came trotting around the other corner of the lean-to, holding her toothbrush. “Where’s a bear?” she asked.
But Bobcat was shaking his head. “If it was a bear, I’ll eat my hat,” he said. “No bear is that neat.”
“Did something eat the food?” asked Maris.
“You guessed it,” Bobcat said. “About half of it is gone. Clean gone. No broken-open packets of soup, no dried noodles scattered on the ground. Just gone.”
Maris frowned. “That doesn’t sound like a bear.”
“Did you see any footprints in the snow?” Jessie asked.
“No,” said Henry. “It must have happened early in the night, when the snow had just started to fall.”
“Maybe we should just give up and start over,” Bobcat said.
“We have food left, don’t we?” Maris asked.
“Some—” Bobcat held up a small bag of sugar. “Powdered milk. Sugar. Some dried beans. About half a dozen chocolate bars. The peanut butter sandwiches. Oh, yeah, and some dried oatmeal.”
Maris made a face. “It could be worse,” she said.
Jessie looked at her sister. “You were right, Violet. You did hear something!”
Maris sighed. “Well, whoever did this left us enough food for today. If we can get more supplies, we should be fine.”
Now Bobcat sighed. “I’ll do it,” he volunteered. “I’ll go back to Blizzard Gap and get more food and meet you at the next campsite.”
“Can you make it all the way down and back up to the old cabin by tonight?” Maris asked.
“If I start now,” Bobcat answered.
“I could come with you,” Henry offered. “I can carry some of the supplies.”
Bobcat shook his head. “Stay here and help with the trail,” he told Henry. “I’m used to carrying a heavy backpack. It won’t be a problem.”
A few minutes later, as the Aldens and Maris packed up the camp, Bobcat put on his almost-empty backpack. “When you see me again,” he said, “this pack will be full of groceries.”
With a wave and a smile, Bobcat headed back down the trail. Soon after, the Aldens and Maris had the campsite as clean as if they’d never been there. Then they, too, put on their packs and headed in the opposite direction.
They didn’t walk fast. Maris stopped to make marks on trees with paint and write notes in a small notebook. Sometimes she took photographs or drew diagrams. The snow stayed on the ground in the shade but began to melt along the trail. Their boots made wet, squishing sounds as the Aldens walked.
Maris showed them the neat, even tracks of a fox where it had crossed the trail.
“What’s this?” asked Violet, pointing to another set of tracks.
“Rabbit,” said Maris. “And one with a sore foot, from the looks of it.”
“How can you tell?” asked Jessie.
“Look at this footprint. The other three tracks are deep. But the right front one is blurred and only deep at the toes, as if the rabbit put its foot down quickly, then lifted it up again, dragging it a little.”
“Oh,” said Jessie. “I see.” They hiked on. At last, when the sun was high overhead, Maris said, “It’s lunch-time. Why don’t you rest here? I’m going to look around and see if I can find a way around these rocks that isn’t so steep.”
Benny and Jessie sat on a log. Violet found a spot on a rock in the sun. Henry spread his waterproof jacket out on a patch of leaves and sat on that. They ate peanut butter sandwiches they’d made the day before and drank water that Maris had filtered from a stream that morning. For dessert they each had a chocolate bar.
“If it wasn’t a bear, I wonder who took our food last night,” Henry said.
“Half our food,” said Jessie. “Whoever it was left us some food so we wouldn’t starve.”
“A sort of nice thief,” said Violet.
“Maybe it was the thief who stole all that stuff from the museum,” Benny said.
“I don’t think so,” said Henry. “That thief would be long gone by now. But I do think it was a person, not a bear. If a bear had torn down our food bag, it would have left a big mess. There wasn’t a mess. I mean, the bag had burst open, but only some of the stuff had been taken.”
“The chocolate bars weren’t taken,” said Jessie. “If I was a bear, I’d take all the chocolate bars first,”
Everyone nodded. Then Violet said, thoughtfully, “It’s almost as if someone were trying to scare us off, but they wanted to make sure we didn’t go hungry getting back home.”
“You’re right,” agreed Henry. “I don’t think a bear would be that thoughtful.”
“Then who was it?” Benny asked. He looked around. “Is someone following us?”
Violet looked around, too. She shivered a little. “I hope no one is following us, Benny,” she said.
“Lots of people knew we were coming up this way,” Jessie said. “Carola. Rayanne.”
“Chuck,” said Benn
y.
“All the people in the coffee shop,” said Violet.
“But who would want to follow us all the way up here and steal our food?” asked Henry. “And why?”
“Not Chuck. He’s got crutches,” Benny said.
“Rayanne?” asked Violet.
Jessie shook her head. “I don’t think so. She was busy at work.”
“That leaves Carola. She doesn’t want us here,” said Henry.
“She could have sneaked into town and let the air out of the tires,” Jessie said. “And she could have fixed Maris’s car so it wouldn’t start yesterday morning.”
“She said she had an appointment in Millpond,” Henry said.
“She could have been making that up,” Jessie said. “Just like she might have been pretending not to remember Maris had told her we were hiking up Blizzard Mountain today.”
“Or if she did have to go to Millpond, maybe someone’s helping her,” said Violet. “She fixed Maris’s battery, but someone else let the air out of the tires and stole the food.”
“Who?” Benny wanted to know.
They were silent for a moment. Then Henry said slowly, “It could be Bobcat.”
“I like Bobcat!” Benny said indignantly.
“We all do. But he might not want people up here, either, Benny. Just like Carola,” Henry said. “They could be working together.”
“He was in his tent last night,” said Jessie. She thought for a moment, then added, “Both times Violet heard the noise, Bobcat didn’t come check on it or say anything until after the noise had stopped. So maybe he wasn’t in the tent at all.”
“Maybe he was being a bear,” said Violet.
“It would have been easy for him to have let the air out of the tires while he was doing his errands,” Henry said.
“That’s right. He did other errands before he came to the diner. He could have done it then,” Violet recalled.
“It wasn’t Bobcat!” Benny said, sounding almost angry.
“Maybe not, Benny. I hope not,” Henry said. “But—”
He didn’t have a chance to say more. Maris came through the woods toward them. “Let’s go,” she said. “I think I’ve found a nice little detour around these rocks.”
The Aldens jumped up and shouldered their packs. Before they left, Maris made a mark on a tree, with an arrow beneath it. “So Bobcat can find us,” she said, “when he comes up the trail this afternoon.”
The Aldens all looked at one another. They didn’t say anything. But they were all wondering the same thing.
What if Bobcat didn’t come back at all?
CHAPTER 6
A Haunted Cabin?
Later that afternoon, Violet stopped. “Look!” she said.
Through the trees, they saw an old cabin.
“That’s it,” Maris said. “We’re here.” She turned off the narrow, almost invisible path she’d been following and marking, and pushed her way through the bushes.
“Too bad old Chuck didn’t know about this cabin when he broke his ankle,” she said as she led the way to the cabin. “He was just down the trail. He was in his tent and snug enough. But he’d have been much more comfortable in the old cabin.”
The cabin sat on a small patch of level ground, its back almost against the side of the mountain. Wooden shutters were closed tightly against the one window, but the door sagged a little and piles of leaves, branches, and straw seemed to be about to crash down on them from the roof as they got closer.
“It looks like a haunted cabin,” said Benny.
“Not haunted. Just not used in a while. Bobcat and I did a few repairs a while back, but we haven’t been here in a long time.”
She pushed open the door of the cabin and led the way inside. Clouds of dust rose around her feet.
She sneezed. “Whew!” she said. “I don’t remember it being this dirty when I left. It’s almost like someone dumped a bucket of dirt in here.”
“We can clean it up,” Violet said. “Don’t worry.”
They dropped their packs on the rough bunk beds built along one wall. Maris put hers on the floor near the old woodstove.
Benny found a rusty basin with a bucket next to it on a shelf beneath one of the two shuttered windows. “Is this for water?” he asked.
“For washing dishes and your face,” said Maris. “It’s the cabin sink.”
A rickety table and some stools stood near the stove. On the wall above the rusty basin was a small white metal cabinet. Beneath it, a row of tin cups hung from hooks.
“Let’s get some wood for the stove,” Henry said.
“Good idea,” agreed Maris. “Then we can have a nice fire going to cook our food when Bobcat gets here in a little while.”
But although they kept the fire hot, the sun went down and no Bobcat showed up.
“Maybe he’s lost,” said Benny, looking worried.
“Not Bobcat,” said Maris. “He’s too good a woodsman for that. He probably didn’t make it down the trail in time to come back up tonight. I bet he’s camped at the lean-to. He’ll be here tomorrow.”
No one said anything. Everyone wanted to believe that Bobcat was on his way but none of the Aldens could be sure of that.
At last Violet said in a small voice, “What do we do about dinner?”
“Well, we’ve got some oatmeal, don’t forget,” said Maris cheerfully “And I’ve got a few things in my tin cabinet over there.”
She walked over to the cabinet. She peered inside. “We have a big metal canister of dried beans,” she reported. “And some rice in this metal box. And I think ... yes. Two packages of macaroni and cheese in this metal box. And a can of tomatoes! I’d forgotten about that!”
“Why is everything in metal boxes?” Benny wanted to know.
“This is my pest-proof food cabinet,” Maris explained. “I lugged it all the way up here when I first laid out the trail this summer. It’s metal to keep out mice, raccoons, chipmunks, and rodents. Everything inside is in metal, too, to help keep the smells inside the cabinet. That keeps any hungry bears away. If a bear can’t smell anything inside, it’s not going to bother.”
“Wow,” said Benny.
“We can make stew for dinner,” Violet said. “Bean and tomato stew. With rice.”
“Good idea,” said Henry. He was hungry.
“Let’s get to work,” said Jessie.
When they had finished dinner, they settled into the bunk beds. The cabin was rough, but they were glad to be indoors. After their long hike, they had no trouble falling asleep.
They had leftover stew at lunch the next day. “And we’ll have stew again tonight, too, if Bobcat doesn’t get here soon,” said Maris. She sounded worried.
“If Bobcat doesn’t come, will we have to leave?” asked Violet.
“No,” said Maris slowly. “We’ll do fine on beans for another couple of days, which is how long I’d planned to be here. It’s just that we’re going to get mighty tired of beans.”
Benny didn’t say anything. He liked most food, but he was already getting tired of beans for every meal!
After lunch, they walked farther up the mountain, helping Maris clear a section of trail. They cut back bushes and cleared away fallen trees. It was hard work.
Late in the afternoon, they returned to the cabin.
They saw no sign of Bobcat.
Maris shook her head. “If he doesn’t come tomorrow, maybe I’ll hike back down the trail to make sure he hasn’t fallen or gotten hurt on his way up here,” she said.
“What if he has?” Violet said, sounding more worried than Maris.
“Bobcat can take care of himself,” Maris said. “Don’t worry. He’s trained in wilderness emergency rescue, just like all the park rangers are.”
“Oh,” said Violet.
“I’m hot,” Benny announced.
“Me, too,” said Jessie in surprise. “I can’t believe how hot I am. Especially since it snowed the night before last.”
“H
ard work and sunshine,” said Maris with a smile. “Why don’t we head down to that stream over there and stick our feet in the water? That should cool us off.”
At once the Aldens jumped up and headed for the stream. They lined their boots behind a log at the top of the little bank above the stream, then slipped and scrambled down to the water.
“It’s freezing!” Violet squealed.
“It’s so cold it makes my teeth hurt,” said Benny dipping one toe in and then the other.
They stood on the rocks in the warm sun and played in the water, being careful not to get anything more than their toes wet. Maris sat nearby laughing. She splashed cold water on her face and lifted it to the sun. “This is one of the reasons I like working in this park,” she said.
“I’m going to be a park ranger when I grow up,” Benny said. “And a detective.”
“Oh, Benny,” said Violet.
They skipped stones on the water and made boats out of leaves that they sent swirling downstream. Violet gathered a collection of pretty colored rocks from the stream.
“Look!” said Benny suddenly. “Gold!” He held out a sparkling rock. They all came to peer at it.
“I’m afraid not, Benny,” said Maris. “Those sparkling chips are mica, not gold.”
“It’s pretty anyway,” said Violet.
“Here. You can have it for your rock collection,” said Benny generously.
“That’s nice of you,” Maris said. “And I have something you can add to your collection.”
“What collection?” Benny asked, puzzled.
“Your collection of knowledge,” Maris said teasingly She bent over and showed the Aldens a small plant with waxy round leaves. It grew close to the earth. Maris broke off a leaf and rubbed it between her fingers. “Smell,” she said.
Violet took a cautious sniff. “Peppermint?” she asked.
“Nooo,” said Jessie.
“Gum. It smells like chewing gum,” Benny said.
“It does, sort of,” Henry agreed.
“You’re all close. It’s wintergreen,” said Maris. “Just like in wintergreen gum. You can chew on it or use it to make tea out here in the woods.”