CHAPTER I

“Tourists Welcome”

“It looks nice, doesn’t it, Judy?”

Honey was surveying with pride the sign she had just finished lettering. “TOURISTS WELCOME,” it said. That was all. But the sign was in the shape of an arrow. It pointed toward the private road that crossed Dry Brook and continued on through the beech grove and up a little hill to the house Judy had inherited from her grandparents. It was a simple farmhouse with a wide front porch. Never, until this moment, had it been known as a tourist home.

“It looks beautiful,” Judy agreed. “I wonder who our first tourist will be. This is going to be exciting. Wait till Peter hears—”

“Haven’t you told him?” Peter’s sister questioned in surprise.

“How could I?” Judy laughed. “He wasn’t here when I thought of it. I was walking through all those spare rooms we have, and the house seemed sort of empty. Then you came, and I thought of asking you to letter the sign. It ought to attract someone. There aren’t any other tourist places along this road.”

“That’s true,” agreed Honey, “but isn’t it a little—well, dangerous?”

“To take in tourists? Lots of people do it,” declared Judy.

“I know,” Honey objected, “but I can’t help suspecting you of some secret motive. This isn’t a trap for an escaped federal prisoner, is it? What did you do? Peek at the FBI files?”

“Of course not!” Judy was indignant at the suggestion. Like most redheads, she was quick to flare up. But she cooled down just as quickly. “I couldn’t look at them even if I wanted to,” she now informed Honey. “They’re kept at the agency in the Farringdon courthouse. Peter is supposed to work there instead of at home for some reason.”

“You couldn’t be the reason, could you?” teased Honey.

“Because I’ve helped him solve a few mysteries? Why shouldn’t I?” Judy retorted. “What are FBI wives supposed to do if not help their husbands?”

“They help them in other ways,” Honey began. “They stay home and take care of their families. They do secretarial work—”

“Not according to Peter,” Judy interrupted. “Oh, I know he calls me his secretary, but I’m not really in the employ of the government the way he is. Sometimes he asks me to type reports on things I already know about, or write a letter. As for taking care of the family, we haven’t any unless you count Blackberry, and cats take care of themselves.”

“You do have the house—”

“Yes, and I may as well make use of it,” Judy broke in. “This may be exciting—”

“Judy,” Honey interrupted, “do you see what I see?”

“A car with three men in it! Oh dear! I hadn’t counted on so many!” Judy exclaimed as the car came to a stop beside them.

At first both girls were dismayed. Gray eyes met blue ones in a moment of panic. Then Honey recognized one of the men as a customer who had ordered signs to be lettered at the studio in Farringdon where she worked as an artist.

“That one won’t want a room,” she whispered. “He lives around here. His name’s Montrose, I think.”

“What about the others?” Judy whispered back.

For some reason that she could not name, she was suddenly suspicious of them. None of the men introduced themselves. After inquiring briefly about the sign, they piled out of the expensive car they were driving and asked Judy and Honey to show them the house. The two girls started down the road, hardly knowing what to expect. They had crossed Dry Brook and were passing through the beech grove when a sudden rustling of the wind in the trees overhead made them look up. The sky had darkened although it was still early in the day.

“It’s weird,” Judy whispered. “See that pinkish haze over there? It makes the sun look red. And the wind sounds—strange.”

“It is sort of spooky,” Honey replied. “I think a storm is blowing up.”

“We need it,” Judy said. “The ground is too dry. Maybe it’s just dust that makes the sky look pink.”

“Pink!” exclaimed Honey. “It looks green in the other direction, and I don’t like it. There’s something unnatural about the weather lately. Haven’t you noticed it yourself?”

“I haven’t thought much about it,” replied Judy.

She could tell Honey was chattering because she was nervous, and said no more. The three men were now exploring the grove, spreading out in all directions.

“That a barn over there?” one man inquired.

Before Judy could answer, another of the men, who had a white scar across his cheek, said, “Anything in it?”

“Just a saddle horse and one cow,” Judy began. “We like fresh milk.”

A stout man, the shortest of the three, chuckled.

“Your dad ain’t much of a farmer, is he?”

“My dad doesn’t live here,” Judy said. “There’s just my husband and myself—”

“Your husband? Now you are kidding. You girls don’t either one of you look more than sixteen. Who’s this other girl if you’re the lady of the house?”

“I’m her sister-in-law,” Honey said. “I don’t live here in Dry Brook Hollow. I live in Farringdon.”

“You work there, too, don’t you?” inquired the man she knew as Mr. Montrose. “Weren’t you the girl who took my order for signs?”

“I was,” Honey admitted. “I lettered them, too. But I’m not working today, because it’s Saturday.”

“I see. You’re just here on a visit—”

“Anybody else visit?” one of the other men interrupted.

“Of course,” Judy replied a little impatiently. “Lots of people do. My friends, my parents, my brother—”

“Anybody else today?”

“Oh, you mean tourists. Not yet. We just put up the sign.”

“Perhaps the young lady would like to show us what she’s advertising,” the man Honey recognized suggested.

“Why, certainly,” Judy began, but the short, stout man interrupted.

“It ain’t secluded enough for what we want,” he said to the driver. “What we had in mind was a place in the upper price brackets, not a tourist home.”

“We’ll have a look, anyway.”

But Judy had changed her mind about showing them the house and said so.

“I think you’ve made a mistake. My house isn’t for sale,” she informed them.

There was a moment of silence, broken only by the sound of the wind. It was almost moaning. Judy had never heard it make such a strange noise before.

“The place ain’t ha’nted, is it?” the stout man asked.

“It might be,” the third man said, and Judy couldn’t tell whether or not he was serious.

“Maybe we can find another place farther out in the country,” the short man suggested.

“You’re headed for a town right now,” Honey told them. “Roulsville is just a few miles below here. Then comes a long stretch of state forest land—”

“National forest,” Judy corrected her.

The tallest man in the group looked at her sharply.

“Does it make any difference?”

“Why, n-no,” she stammered, feeling suddenly uncomfortable under his scrutiny. “There are both state and national forest reserves just west of here. I don’t know where one ends and the other begins, really. I didn’t mean—”

Judy stopped abruptly. A voice that seemed to come from the trees themselves had said, with unmistakable urgency:

“_Don’t look for it!_”