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forced herself to relax.
    “I’ll give you the worst news first,” Barry said, sitting down behind his desk. “The camp—or, rather, the land it’s on—is about to be sold to a development group. They’re planning to knock down the camp and build a community of luxury recreational time-shares.”
    Even Stevie was speechless. This was a million times worse than the most outrageous of her theories had been.
    Barry nodded at the horrified looks on the girls’ faces. “Believe me, I know exactly how you feel,” he said softly.“I’ve been working here for ten years, you know. This place is my second home.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, the owners aren’t quite as attached to it.”
    “The owners?” Lisa repeated. Somehow, none of them had ever thought about who owned Moose Hill. It hadn’t really seemed important—until now. “Who are they?”
    “A pair of brothers, Joe and Fred Winter,” Barry said. “They’re getting on in years now, and they’re starting to think about retiring. The camp hasn’t made much of a profit lately, so it made sense for them to sell it. The trouble is, the first buyer to turn up was these developers.” He sighed again. “They offered the Winters enough money to let them retire in style.”
    Stevie was trying to figure out what all this meant, but her brain seemed to be working in slow motion. “Couldn’t they find any buyers who wanted to keep it as a camp?” she asked.
    Barry shook his head. “Not for the kind of money the developers are offering. As I said, Moose Hill hasn’t been a big moneymaker lately.”
    “But how is that possible!” Carole cried. Her knuckles were hurting again, but she hardly noticed. “It’s such a wonderful place! How could it not make money?”
    For the first time, Barry smiled. “I’m glad you feel that way,” he said, and the girls could tell he really meant it. “Actually, there’s no reason it couldn’t turn a nice profit, but the brothers are really only interested in a quick fix.It’s not their only investment, and I guess they’ve been more involved with some of their other businesses. They forgot that this one also needed some attention. For instance, until this year they hadn’t raised prices since before I got here. And the staff was getting so big there for a while that the payroll was eating up what money did come in.”
    “And you had to build the new stable when the barn burned down,” Carole said, remembering the fire that had destroyed the old-fashioned barn that had been there on The Saddle Club’s first visit to Moose Hill.
    “Keeping horses here year-round for a summer-only business must be kind of expensive, too,” Lisa put in.
    Barry nodded. “Right on both counts,” he said. “But keeping the horses year-round is one thing I wouldn’t want to change. If we just rented horses while camp is in session, we wouldn’t be able to guarantee their quality.” He shook his head. “Still, we had to sell some of them this winter. That was tough.”
    “Like Basil, right?” Carole said, remembering the horse she had ridden during her first stay at camp.
    Barry nodded. “Once the brothers realized we were signing up a lot of kids who were bringing their own horses this year, they decided to sell off some of our own animals.”
    Carole and Lisa nodded sympathetically, but Stevie was thinking about something else. “You said keeping horsesyear-round is one thing you wouldn’t change,” she said. “Does that mean there are other things you think
could
be changed—you know, to make this place more profitable?”
    “Sure,” Barry said. “I have lots of ideas. For instance, I think when the brothers raised the prices this year, they went a little
too
far.”
    “Definitely,” Carole murmured ruefully. The sky-high boarding fees had been the reason she hadn’t enrolled Starlight for the first two weeks.
    “There are lots of things we could be doing,” Barry said. “I even talked to my brother about my