While Horace went to telephone, the three girls ordered lunch. Holly was still jumpy. She kept tossing her mane of thick brown hair like a restless colt. She wore it perfectly straight in a long pony tail. Judy’s red curls were cut a little shorter than usual, but Honey had let her lovely honey-colored hair grow long to please Horace. Today she wore it loose about her shoulders.
The three girls were very different in appearance, but they had one thing in common. All three of them adored Judy’s brother, Horace Bolton. He was a shy-appearing young man. To look at him, no one would suspect that he had once startled the town of Roulsville out of its complacency by racing through the streets on Judy’s ginger colt and crying out, “The dam is breaking! Run for the hills.”
Thinking back, Judy realized that since Horace had become a hero, he had changed. There wasn’t a note of timidity in his voice as he talked with the police officer who later came in and quietly seated himself at their table. It was Holly who was frightened. “I—I didn’t think they’d send a policeman,” were her first words. “I can’t be sure of anything. Maybe it’s all a big mistake.”
“We’ll take that chance,” the officer replied, smiling as he wrote out his report.
“Tell you what, Judy,” Horace suggested as they were leaving the restaurant. “Why don’t you and Holly drive on a ways? Maybe you’ll see that green car parked somewhere along the road. I’ll finish up a little job I’m doing and tell Mr. Lee this looks like a story. He’ll give me the afternoon off to follow it up.”
“What about you, Honey? Do you have to go back to work?” asked Judy.
“Oh, I guess Mr. Dean would give me the afternoon off if I asked him. I can’t do any work with all that hammering going on anyway. Where shall we meet you?” Honey asked.
“At the beaver dam!” exclaimed Judy, suddenly enthusiastic. “Remember, Honey? Violetta said she’d show it to us. I have my camera in the car. Maybe we could take pictures of the beavers.”
“It’s a date! Violetta is the younger of the two Jewell sisters,” Honey explained to Holly, “though neither of them is young. They’re such dears! They live in one of the oldest houses in this section of Pennsylvania. It’s like stepping back in time just to visit them.”
“I’ll ask them if they have anything for the library exhibit. I have the job of choosing the displays for those new cases in the Roulsville library,” Judy explained. “All right, Horace, we’ll see you and Honey at the beaver dam.”