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!”

CHAPTER II
The Talking Tree

“Don’t look for what? Who said that? Where—”

Judy’s voice trailed off in bewilderment. She moved closer to Honey, whose startled expression showed that she had heard something, too. The men had started hurriedly toward their car.

“We may be back,” the driver called as they climbed in and drove on toward Roulsville.

Judy gazed after them, her thoughts in a whirl. She was a sensible girl, not easily frightened. Before she and Peter Dobbs were married, she used to spend part of every summer with her grandparents in this very house. She knew every tree in the grove of beeches where the two girls were now standing in puzzled silence.

“Grandma used to tell me those trees could talk,” Judy said at last.

“But how?” asked Honey. “Those men didn’t do it. They were frightened, too.”

“They did seem to be,” agreed Judy, “but maybe it was a trick of some kind. I don’t believe they wanted rooms at all.”

“I don’t either. They acted more as if they were looking for something—”

“And then the—the trees warned them not to! That’s it!” exclaimed Judy.

All of a sudden she remembered an old family legend that when danger threatened, the trees would sound a warning. She had laughed at the superstition when she first heard it from her grandparents. Later, after the old couple died and willed the house to her, she remembered it only in her more fanciful moments, never mentioning it to anyone.

As she stood pondering, Honey put a sympathetic arm around her.

“Our sign accomplished something, anyway,” she said reassuringly. “It gave us a mystery to solve.”

“Just the same, it was a foolish thing to do. Let’s walk back to the main road and take it down before anyone else sees it,” Judy suggested.

“Do we have to,” Honey said plaintively, “after all my work?”

“I’m afraid we do, Honey. We’ve invited trouble, not tourists. How do we know those men weren’t criminals trying to find out something about Peter?”

“But Judy, you said yourself there was no danger,” Honey protested, hurrying to keep up with her. They had crossed Dry Brook and were climbing the slope toward the main road where they had posted the sign. “One of those men was Mr. Montrose. At least, he had signs lettered for the Montrose Moving Company, and they’re well known in Farringdon.”

“But the others? Who were they and why were they so interested in exploring our property? No, I think that sign will have to come down. I only hope it comes down easier than it went up. You’ll have to help me with it, Honey.”

“I will. I wish—”

Honey’s wish was never expressed, as a two-toned convertible the color of coffee and cream, and rather the worse for hard use, slowed to a stop beside them. At the wheel of the car sat Judy’s brother Horace, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

“So my sister is running a tourist camp,” he said to Honey, observing the sign which she and Judy were now struggling to remove from the post where they had nailed it.

“We need a hammer,” Judy remarked, ignoring him.

“Here’s the one we were using before. We forgot it and left it here. But where is the paint?”

“Didn’t you take it?”

“No, I thought you did.”

“That’s odd,” declared Judy. “It really looks as if someone’s stolen it. I’m glad they left the hammer, anyway.”

“What,” asked Horace, “are you trying to do? I suppose I’ll find you building a little row of cottages next. If you’re going to take in tourists it wouldn’t be a bad idea. Cottages would look quite cozy nestled in among the trees in the haunted grove.”

“Why do you call it that?” demanded Judy.

“The name just came back to me,” Horace laughed. “Grandpa called it that, and he told me once that the trees talked. I heard them myself when I was just a little fellow. It scared me nearly out of my wits.”

“It scared quite a lot of us today,” said Honey.

Judy nudged her to keep quiet, but it was too late.

“You don’t mean to tell me the trees still talk!” Horace exclaimed. “That’s news! If we can find out why—”

“We don’t mean to tell you anything we don’t wish to see printed in the Farringdon Daily Herald,” Judy interrupted. “The story would look pretty ridiculous, anyway, without an explanation. ‘TREES TALK. SCARE TOURISTS AWAY.’ Seriously,” she continued, “some rather peculiar tourists did stop here. That’s why we’re taking down the sign.”

“I don’t get it,” Horace said. “If you didn’t want them to stop, why did you put the sign up in the first place?”

“We did, only we didn’t. Oh, bother!” Judy exclaimed. “I’m not explaining anything, am I? It’s a good thing you don’t write the way I talk. By the way, did the Herald’s star reporter bring along a copy of today’s paper?”

“He’s sitting on it,” giggled Honey.

“Ouch!” exclaimed Horace as Judy pulled the paper out from under him and then seated herself at his side to read it. “That news is hot off the press. I might have burned myself. It was my own story I was messing up, too.”

Judy glanced at the headlines—THIEVES LOOT MILLIONAIRE’S HOME—and quickly read Horace’s story about the mysterious looting of a secluded old mansion not far from the national forest.

“The national forest!” she exclaimed. “Honey, do you remember the look that man gave me when I mentioned it? The other men acted funny, too. Maybe they were the thieves. Horace, could they have been escaping over this road?”

“I wouldn’t think they’d still be around. The robbery was pulled Thursday night, and this is Saturday,” Horace replied. “I haven’t the remotest idea what men you’re talking about, though. Everything I know about the robbery is right there in the paper.”

“I see it is. It has your by-line on it. Where did you get your information, Horace?”

“From the police and other sources,” he replied a little vaguely. “I’d like to interview the caretaker of the estate, even though the police have already. That robbery was carefully planned. He may have had a hand in it. What do you think, Judy?”

“Heavens!” she exclaimed. “I don’t know what to think!”

CHAPTER III
A Puzzling Robbery

“Honey, see what you make of it,” said Judy, and handed her the paper. “You say in the Herald, Horace, that the caretaker swears no one passed his cottage on Dark Hill Road for two days. Is it a private road?”

“Yes,” he replied. “But the police think the robbers could have sneaked in from the national forest which borders the estate. But the forest rangers keep pretty close watch of anyone who enters it. They have to now, with the weather so dry and windy. A forest fire would get out of control fast.”

“Some of them are already out of control, aren’t they?” asked Honey. “I saw something about it on the back of the paper while Judy was reading the front.”

“Aha!” laughed Horace. “Now I know where to put the news I want peeping females to see. Perhaps the Woman’s Page should be the back page so that hubby can enjoy the headlines while wifey ponders the recipes.”

“Speaking from wifey’s point of view,” Judy retorted, “she is just as interested in the headlines as he is. She might even want to know the story behind them. You’ve only told half of it, Horace.”

“The paper had to go to press. Papers do, you know,” Horace reminded her. “The other half of the story is probably happening right now. This forest fire on the back page was spreading. It may get around to the front page. It may even get as far as the Paul Riker estate, where the robbery took place. I’ve never seen the main house, but I’ve been told it’s an immense wooden structure with a cupola on top.”

“Like some of the mansions in Farringdon?” asked Honey.

“No doubt. They were all built around 1880 and if you ask me they weren’t beautiful, even then. Most of them ought to be torn down. They’re regular firetraps besides being so hideous that nobody wants to live in them. Modern houses like the new ones going up in Roulsville are more to my taste.”

“Mine, too,” Honey whispered, and a look passed between them that made Judy wonder if Honey might not be forgetting her employer’s handsome young son for Judy’s own not so handsome but lovable brother.

Honey was having a hard time choosing between her two suitors and seemed in no great hurry to make up her mind. Judy knew how it was. She had once faced the same problem. If she had married handsome Arthur Farringdon-Pett instead of Peter Dobbs, her home might have been one of the mansions they were talking about. Judy did not consider them hideous.