“It was at first,” Connie corrected. “We haven’t seen a signpost for a long while now.”
“But we’ve not passed another fork,” Veve insisted. “So we couldn’t have taken a wrong turn.”
Not knowing what else to do, the girls went on, but at a slower pace. The path now seemed dark and mysterious.
Suddenly Veve halted to stare at a marking tacked to a tree trunk.
Behind her, Connie also saw it at the same instant. She uttered a gasp of dismay.
“Why, it says Trail 3 instead of Trail 2!” she exclaimed.
“And look what’s written in pencil directly under the lettering!” Eileen cried.
Veve read the nearly illegible message aloud. In pencil someone had scrawled: “Fooled you!”
Seeing the sign, the four girls were badly frightened.
“What does it mean?” Sunny asked, her voice shaking. “Why does the trail sign say 3 instead of 2?”