“Perhaps the driver only pulled off the pavement to fix a tire.”
Judy shook her head. “The tracks plainly go down the slope toward the cave,” she pointed out.
“Mightn’t it have been a forest ranger fire fighting truck?”
“That’s so,” Judy acknowledged, “it might have been. Maybe that would explain the headlight signals Aunt Mattie reported seeing. I can’t imagine though, why a Forest Service truck would use this road at night. The fire was across the river.”
As the girls considered whether to go farther down the private road, they heard the rattle of a milk wagon approaching on the main highway.
“It’s Bart!” Judy cried.
The delivery truck stopped some distance away, but after milk had been left at Calico Cottage, came on down the road. Bart drew up to chat with the girls.
“How’s everything?” he inquired cheerfully. “Your ghost behaving himself?”
Judy replied that the household had not been disturbed further by the mysterious flute player. She added, however, that her aunt had slept badly and that lights from a truck had bothered her.
“I guess it must have been a Forest Service truck that went down this road last night,” Ardeth remarked. “See the tire tracks.”