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phone, Ella?” she asked abruptly. In answer to the question in Honey’s and Ella’s eyes, she added, “If you don’t ask questions, you won’t find answers.”
    Still, when she had finished a stiff, short conversation with Mr. Lytell, Trixie was no closer to an answer. Swaybacked Belle, the storekeeper’s aged mount, had not lost a shoe. In fact, Belle was growing fat from lack of exercise. “We’ll ask Dan about Spartan,” said Honey. “That’s pointless,” Trixie decided. “We both know Dan takes care of Spartan’s feet. He even carries a hoof-pick in his pocket all the time.”
    “Whatever for?” Ella asked.
    “There are lots of boggy places and rocky ridges on the game preserve,” Honey explained. “Dan doesn’t want Spartan’s feet to become tender, so he cleans them with a hoof-pick.”
    “See? I’d never have known about hoof-picks if you hadn’t dropped in,” Ella said. Coming from another person’s mouth, her words might have sounded like sarcasm, but Ella Kline was interested in the small events that made up the lives of her friends.
    A voice called at the door, “It’s Pete, Ella.”
    “Come in.”
    A tall teen-ager carried in a huge basket of laundry, and Ella set to work without delay. She told Trixie and Honey, “The inn has its own laundry room in the basement. It’s hard for me to get to it in my wheelchair, so Pete brings a load when he has a spare minute.”
    Ella flipped a man’s white sock into her basket. “You didn’t see if that needed mending,” Trixie said.
    “I mend only the inn’s linen,” Ella explained, “but anything that’s left in a room gets washed. Someone probably kicked that sock under a bed or left it in a bathroom. Sometimes people reclaim things they leave in a room, but usually they don’t. The manager gives the good stuff to charity.” She held up a lace-trimmed slip. “Like this. Oh, we get all kinds of articles.” She rolled her chair closer to the basket and dug to the bottom. “Some of them are kind of mysterious, too. I’ve been curious about this, for example. Does either of you know what it is?” She lifted up a mass of fine mesh.
    Trixie shook it out, exposing dangling strong ties. “A fly sheet!” she exclaimed. Immediately, she dropped on all fours and told Honey, “Pretend I’m a horse. It’s a hot day, and I’m just in from exercise. Here comes a cloud of pesky flies.” Carried away by her own imagination, she whinnied with annoyance.
    “Whoa, girl,” coaxed Honey, getting into the spirit of the game. She draped the mesh over Trixie’s back, tied the strings across her chest, and put a soft browband on her forehead. The band fell down, of course, since Trixie’s head was nowhere near as large as a horse’s.
    “Oops, the wind must be blowing,” giggled Honey. “I need a blanket pin to fasten your fly sheet under your belly.”
    “Watch your language,” Trixie tut-tutted.
    “You’re the one who said you were a horse,” Honey insisted.
    “Don’t believe everything I say,” Trixie declared. “Get me out of here—this is hot! I don’t see how a horse stands a sheet on a hot day.”
    “A horse can get a chill, even when the air is warm, if a breeze blows on his damp coat,” Honey reminded her.
    Ella clapped her hands as Trixie scrambled to her feet. “I always have such fun when you girls visit me! I learn about things, too.”
    “Useful things—like hoof-picks and fly sheets,” Trixie said dryly.
    “Well, if I ever find another fly sheet in my basket, at least I’ll recognize it. But, Trixie, you didn’t demonstrate that ropy-looking loop.”
    “Can’t,” chuckled Trixie. “That goes under the horse’s tail!”
    “Sorry I asked,” Ella groaned, looking at the clock. “Will you girls have lunch with me?” Trixie hesitated.
    Honey, thinking that Trixie was tactlessly putting her own desire to get back on the case over Ella’s feelings, cried, “We’d love to, Ella!”
    Then she turned to