Boxcar Children 61 - Growling Bear Mystery Read Online Free Page A

quieted down. The plume of steam grew smaller. When the steam disappeared back into the ground, the crowd clapped and cheered again.
    Henry laughed. “It is quite a show.”
    “What makes a geyser, anyway?” Benny asked. “And all the other steamy things coming out of the ground in Yellowstone?”
    As usual, Jessie knew the answer. “The ground around here has lots of cracks that go down into the earth for miles. When rain and snow fall down the cracks, the cold water hits all the hot liquid inside the earth. That makes the steam blow up into the air. I read that the Old Faithful Inn once tried to run a pipe of steam from a small geyser up in the hills to the inn.”
    Benny got all excited when he heard this. “You mean we could take a geyser shower?”
    Jessie laughed. “The system didn’t really work. The geyser dried up. Geysers are very delicate. That’s why there are signs all over telling people not to throw anything into them.”
    “I would never do that,” Benny said. “I guess I’ll have to take plain old showers, not geyser showers.”
    “Just think,” Jessie said as they walked back to their room, “in seventy minutes or so, the Old Faithful geyser will start up all over again. In the meantime, I guess we’d better head back to our room to unpack before we meet with Mrs. Crabtree.”
    Unpacking took the Aldens no time at all, since they were such experienced travelers. In just a few minutes, all their vacation clothes were folded in drawers or hung on pegs.
    Jessie lined up everyone’s hiking supplies on the dresser. “I’m putting our guidebooks, Oz’s map, our sunglasses, and our empty water bottles on this dresser by the door. We’ll want to get a fast start in the morning and not leave anything behind.”
    Henry checked his watch. “I wish there was time for a quick shower.”
    “I wish there were towels for a quick shower,” Jessie said, looking high and low for washcloths and towels.
    While she was searching, someone knocked at the door.
    “Who’s there?” Henry asked.
    “Housekeeping,” a man’s voice answered. “Sorry, the staff delivered your towels to the wrong room.”
    Henry unlocked the door. “Just what we were looking—” Henry stopped talking. “Oh, it’s . . . uh . . .”
    The other children came to the door to see who was there. Standing in the doorway was Mr. Crabtree, the hiker with the orange hat. Only now he wasn’t wearing his hiking hat or his backpack or his hiking boots. Instead, he had on an Old Faithful Inn uniform and an identification badge.
    Mr. Crabtree seemed just as surprised to see the Aldens—and none too pleased, either. “Here,” he said, standing there with a stack of white towels.
    Henry held out his arms for the towels. “Thanks, Mr. Crabtree. We’re the Aldens. We met this morning, up near the Continental Divide, remember?”
    “Don’t forget to mention Oz’s store,” Benny whispered to Henry.
    “And we saw you at Elkhorn’s General Store, too.” Henry moved closer to take the towels, but Mr. Crabtree held on to them. “I’m Henry Alden, and these are my sisters, Jessie and Violet, and my brother, Benny. We’re friends of Oz’s, too. He told us your name.”
    Mr. Crabtree ignored Henry’s introductions. “Here are your towels. They get changed every couple of days. If you need more, call Housekeeping.”
    With that, Mr. Crabtree put the towels on a small space on the dresser. The stack of towels was so tall, it toppled over, knocking several items off the dresser.
    “This is where we usually deliver the towels,” Mr. Crabtree said sharply. “If you clutter up the space, there’s no room.”
    Benny whispered to Violet, “He just picked up Oz’s map.”
    Sure enough, Mr. Crabtree clutched Oz’s map in his hand along with a water bottle and some suntan lotion that had slipped off the dresser. When he realized all four children were staring at him, Mr. Crabtree put everything back in a jumble. Without another word,