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ride.”
    Lisa listened, too. “I think I hear something,” she said after a moment. “It’s a humming noise.”
    “We’d better watch out for bees,” Carole said, thinking of the horses. A sting could panic them, and that could be dangerous in the forest.
    Then Stevie heard it, too. “It’s not that kind of hum,” she said. “It sounds more like a machine or something.” The girls kept quiet as they rode, listening to the sound. It grew louder with every step the horses took, and as it did, Starlight and Belle grew more nervous. Major, who was a very calm horse, didn’t seem frightened, but his ears stayed pricked forward, monitoring the sound.
    “It’s definitely a machine—more than one, it sounds like,” Carole said. She had to raise her voice to be heard over the steady thrum of motors. “Are we anywhere near a road?”
    “I think there’s a dirt fire road that crosses the trail up ahead,” Lisa said. “But that noise doesn’t sound like cars, or even a fire engine.”
    Just when the girls thought they would have to turn back to keep Belle and Starlight from panicking, they turned a corner on the trail and saw the source of the noise. Several bulldozers and other pieces of construction equipment were moving along the dirt road Lisa had mentioned. A white car brought up the rear of the odd parade. As the girls pulled their horses to a stop, the car pulled around the other vehicles and roared past, moving too quickly for the girls to see who was inside. Within secondsit was out of sight around a bend in the dirt road, and the sound of its motor was swallowed by the steady throb of the other vehicles’ powerful engines.
    Carole had to work hard to keep Starlight from bolting when the white car raced by. After a moment she managed to get the big bay gelding under control, though he continued to snort and roll his eyes nervously. Carole thought ruefully that all the teamwork in the world didn’t make much difference when a car sped by only a few feet in front of a horse’s nose. “What on earth is going on here?” she asked, speaking loudly to be heard above the bulldozers.
    “I have no idea,” Stevie said, tightening the reins to keep Belle from whirling around and racing away from the noise of the heavy machinery, which suddenly seemed louder now that they were outside the protection of the trees. “We’re still on camp property, aren’t we? Of course we are,” she quickly answered her own question.
    “They’re probably just passing through,” Lisa suggested. She glanced at her friends’ horses. “In any case, we’d better turn back before the horses get any more upset.”
    “Just a second.” Stevie dismounted and handed Carole her reins. “Take them back into the woods where it’s quieter. I’ll be there in a minute.”
    “Where are you going?” Carole asked.
    “To find out what’s going on,” Stevie replied.
    While Carole and Lisa took the horses back into the trees, Stevie hurried across the clearing. She yelled to thedriver of the lead bulldozer, but she couldn’t make herself heard over the roar of the motor. Running a safe distance ahead of the machine, she jumped into the road and waved her arms.
    The driver looked startled. He brought the big machine to a stop and climbed out, leaving the motor idling. “Who are you?” he called.
    Stevie hurried forward to meet him. “I’m Stevie Lake,” she said. “I’m staying here at Moose Hill.”
    “Where?” asked the man. “Oh, you must mean that camp.”
    Stevie nodded. “My friends and I were out for a ride, and we heard your motors. Since we’re still on camp property, we were wondering who
you
are.”
    “Fair question, I guess,” said the man. “My name’s Bill.” He jerked a thumb toward the other machines, which had stopped behind his bulldozer. “The boys and I have orders to take these dozers into a field about a mile from here so they’ll be ready to start clearing and building.”
    “Building