“I didn’t decode it. I just yelled it,” Horace chuckled. “Hip deminiga folliga sock de hump de lolliga yoo hoo!” he yelled.
“Good heavens!” Honey said, holding her ears.
But Judy was listening for the echo. It was a very ordinary one, not half as startling as the yell itself. Horace suggested they try it from a different angle, but just then Judy’s cat Blackberry appeared from around the corner of the barn and yowled, as if he were trying to say, “Please, people, don’t scare away my mice!”
The chickens were cackling, and even Ginger, in a far corner of the pasture, gave a startled whinny. Daisy, munching grass a little nearer by, looked up in the docile manner of cows and continued to regard Judy with a disconcerting stare.
“I don’t really think,” Honey said when their laughter had subsided, “that we ought to try that yell again. I hope it didn’t curdle Daisy’s milk.”
“She reminded me of you, sis, the way she ignored us!”
“Now that I won’t take, being compared to a cow,” cried Judy as she went for Horace.
They chased each other as far as the big barn door where they stopped to read the sign that was posted there.
HEADQUARTERS OF THE BLACK SPOT
Moved to Wally’s house. Meeting at 2 o’clock
“We’ve solved one mystery, at least,” Horace said as Honey came closer to admire the lettering. “Now you know what became of your left-over paint.”