The Sasquatch Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page B

for a while.
    “I think it’s just that we’re used to riding our horses back at home,” Honey told her. “But I’m beginning to wonder if the head of this canyon was just an illusion when we saw it back at our camp. We’ve been hiking almost two hours now.”
    Just when Trixie was sure she couldn’t climb another yard, quite unexpectedly the trail leveled. Trees were not so tall or so closely spaced. The August sun beat down on a flat area.
    “Tank, hey, Tank!” roared Knut, Cap, and Hallie.
    “Yah, sure!” The happy response came from the left.
    Trixie had not expected a hermit miner to be over six feet tall, thin as a sapling, and dressed in white. Even his bald head glowed whitely above a freshly shaven pink face.
    Tank was chopping weeds that grew in the queerest garden Trixie had ever seen. In cleared spaces among huckleberry bushes and Indian-paint brush, Tank had disturbed the earth just enough to insert a few seeds. In a helter-skelter way, he grew potatoes, onions, carrots, beans, and cabbages. The watering system was primitive but adequate—two pails and a dipper. Damp areas showed where he had dribbled water on the plants that needed it.
    Tank placed both hands on the end of his upright hoe handle. When he leaned his chin on his hands, his long body bent like a bow. He examined space from earth to sky. Then he said slowly and carefully, “Ay tank de tistles be tick dis year. Yah?”
    “Yah!” whooped Knut, Cap, and Hallie. They rushed forward to hug him.
    Knut drew Trixie, Brian, and Mart forward. “These are our cousins from New York State.” Next he introduced Miss Trask, Di, Honey, and Jim.
    “How’ve you been, Tank?” asked Cap. “Do you need anything?”
    “Now that ya put me in mind of it, Cap, ay could use some pep’mint drops n’ a slab of hawg.” Bright blue eyes swept over the group. “You young’uns et yet? Ma’am, could ay pull up a fresh drink fer ya?”
    Miss Trask’s face showed only momentary confusion. “Thank you, Mr. Anderson. I must confess I drank all my water on the climb up the mountain.”
    “Come on in where it’s shady and cool,” Tank invited.
    Everyone entered the fenced area around a small house built of rough-hewn logs and mountain stone. The trees around it kept it cool in summer and snug in winter.
    “Gimme a minute and ay’ll cool ya off fine.” Tank disappeared into the cabin, with Hallie at his heels.
    “Where does he get water on a mountain-top?” Di asked.
    Before Mart could launch into a many-sylla-bled reply, Cap answered, “Tank boxed in a spring. He has a pump.”
    Hallie came out of Tank’s house, balancing a dishpan filled with tin cups and a plate of the biggest cookies Trixie had ever seen. Tank carried the pail of water. He walked past the group to disappear behind a low door that seemed to be fitted into the mountain itself.
    When he came out, he said, “Vet yer vistles!” Miss Trask was first to be served. “My word, Mr. Anderson. Lemonade?”
    “With ice,” Honey said wonderingly. “Oh, Mr. Anderson, you shouldn’t waste your ice and lemons on us. I know how hard it must be to bring ice all the way over Moon Pass and up that steep trail.”
    Tank’s laughter boomed. “Ay had half a year to fill my ice cave. Ay've got yust three seasons in the Yoe country. Yune—”
    “Yuly and Vinter!” Hallie finished with a shout.
    “Vant to see how ay keep my wittles fresh?” Tank put a hand on one hip as he loped back to the ice cave. “Oh, this rheumatiz. Ain’t been vorking much dis veek, but ay got it yust the same.”
    “Tank, you know darned well you don’t have
    to work that claim if you don’t want to,” Knut scolded good-naturedly. “You’ve got enough dust stored to last you the rest of your life.”
    “Yah, sure,” Tank agreed. “But ay like to be sure ay can even up me owing’s vhile ay still can.”
    Tank opened the door of his cave. Everyone crowded close to peer at chunks of ice packed in pine