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quit?"
    "That's right," Honey said, "but Miss Trask isn't angry with us. She's already hired another gardener. A man named Nailor appeared right after breakfast asking for the job. He didn't have any really good references, but Daddy said to try him out for a week. Nobody could be worse than Gallagher was." She giggled. "I dashed right down to the cottage and brought the pruning saws and shovels back to the toolhouse. And I do mean dash. I was scared to death for fear someone was lurking in the woods."
    "I'm sorry I said what I did yesterday," Trixie admitted. "Whoever was eavesdropping must be miles away by now. I hope you didn't take the flashlights back to the tack room," she added. "I think we ought to go over every inch of the floor. Maybe we'll find more footprints."
    "I never even thought about the flashlights," Honey said. "Here they are. Right where we left them, outside by the window."
    "Thank goodness it didn't rain last night," Trixie said. "The batteries would have been ruined, and Regan would have been as mad as a hornet."
    Honey smiled. "We get worse every day, you and I. We're always taking things and forgetting to return them."
    Inside the cottage, they got down on their hands and knees with the flashlights and examined the dirt floor.
    "This looks like another heel print," Trixie said suddenly. "And it's not the same as the other one. Look, it was made by a rubber heel. You can see the trademark plainly."
    Honey pointed the beam of her torch on the new clue. "You're absolutely right, Trixie. Two men must have been in here since the rain Monday night. And they must have walked up and down a lot. That's why we can't find the other footprints. They've been scuffed away."
    Trixie thought for a minute. "I don't think they walked up and down. I think they had a fight. That's why all but the two heel marks were scuffed away."
    "Oh, oh," Honey gasped. "They fought over the diamond, Trixie. Maybe one of them murdered the other one!" She moved closer to Trixie. "Now I am scared!"
    Trixie grinned. "You're as bad as I am, Honey. You're letting your imagination run away with you. People don't go around killing other people for a diamond which they go off and leave behind."
    Honey sighed with relief. Then she frowned with a puzzled expression on her pretty face. "Why did they go off and leave the diamond behind, Trixie? It's very, very valuable."
    Trixie shrugged. "One of them dropped it while they were fighting, and it got ground into the mud. Then maybe they heard someone coming and hid in the woods. When they came back, we had already taken the diamond away."
    Honey shuddered. "Maybe two men were hiding in the thicket yesterday. Maybe both of them know that I have the diamond. Oh, Trixie, I can't stand it."
    Trixie went outside and stared into the thicket. "No poison ivy in there," she said. "The wild honeysuckle must have choked it all out. Let's go in and see if we can find any more clues." She pulled away some of the vines and pushed her way through others. Then she stopped, staring at the ground. "The man with rubber heels was hiding here yesterday, Honey. Look."
    Honey peered over her shoulder at the footprints.
    You're right, Trixie," she said. "The trademark is the same. What happened to the man with the leather heels?"
    Trixie pushed clear through the thicket to the path in the woods. She followed it down to Glen Road, with Honey right behind her.
    "You're wasting your time looking for clues in the woods," Honey said. "There are too many pine needles." Trixie stopped short so suddenly that Honey almost banged into her. "Look," she said, pointing. "Tire marks and more footprints! Both kinds of footprints!"

Bobby's Secrets • 5

    SURE ENOUGH, on the soft shoulder of the road, there were unmistakable signs that a car had been parked there since the Monday night rain and that two men had walked from it toward the cottage.
    Honey giggled nervously. "We're as smart as real detectives, Trixie. Two men, who have a