Judy understood what Peter meant. They passed the sheared-off house without slowing down, Judy in the front seat beside Peter and Blackberry in his usual place next to the back window. The cat seemed to be enjoying the scenery as, one after another, the small towns along the way were reached and passed.
At the watershed Peter stopped long enough to point out the far-off river valleys that lost themselves among the blue hills.
“Back there,” he said, indicating a wooded slope beyond the little town named Gold, “is the head of the Allegheny. If we took that road to the right we’d cross a branch of the Susquehanna, and just ahead, before we get to the orphanage, is a bridge over the Genessee. Confusing, isn’t it?”
“Wonderful is the word,” declared Judy. “I mean that three great river systems originate within a few miles of each other right here in our own Pennsylvania hills.”
She knew that the furniture the beavers had built into their dam couldn’t have floated upstream and been transported overland by beavers. People must have transported it before the beavers found it.
“But where was it all this time?” Judy wondered.
“We’ll find out,” Peter promised after talking over Judy’s theory. “It must have been stored or dumped somewhere near the beaver dam.”
“Maybe Danny will know,” Judy suggested.
“What Danny knows and what he’s willing to tell are two different stories,” declared Peter. “He may be playing detective himself. On the other hand, he may be trying to protect someone—”
“His father?” Judy questioned. “At first I thought that might be his father in the picture.”