The Mystery of the Galloping Ghost

eh?” Gus asked. He laughed noiselessly, his shoulders moving up
and down. “I bet you thought I was the Galloping Ghost!”
    Trixie
stopped brushing her horse in midstroke . “Do you know
about the Galloping Ghost?” she asked.
    “Oh,
sure,” Gus said. “Everybody around here does.” He shook his head. “ ‘The Galloping Ghost’ is sure some fancy name for old
Gunnar Bjorkland !”
    Trixie
gave Honey a wide-eyed look. They were on the verge of getting the whole story.
Nobody could do a better job of drawing it out than Honey could.
    “Gunnar
Be- york -land,” Honey repeated haltingly. “Was that
the Galloping Ghost’s real name?”
    “ Bjorkland , ja ,” Gus said. “In
Norwegian, we say the j like y. Over here, some
people change their names to make them easier. Take my name—Gustav.” The old
man pronounced it “Goo- stahf .”
    “But
that’s hard for folks, so I just go by ‘Gus.’ Gunnar Bjorkland never changed his name, though. Too lazy even for that, I guess.” Gus laughed
his silent laugh.
    “Gunnar
was lazy, was he?” Honey said, directing the old man away from the subject of
Norwegian names.
    “Oh, ja ,” Gus said. “He was no
good for nothing. That’s what my pa said. I never knew Gunnar myself. By the
time I was born, they’d already hanged him.”



5 * The Legend Is Recounted
     
    Trixie and Honey both stared at
Gus in amazement.
    “H-hanged him?” Trixie squeaked.
    “Just for being lazy?” Honey asked, horrified.
    “Oh, no. I mean, ja ,
they hanged him, but it wasn’t his laziness that finally got him strung up.”
Gus paused and rubbed his palm across his stubbled jaw. “Well yes, you could say it was, because it’s just plain lazy to steal
another man’s prize cow instead of raising your own.”
    “You
mean all he did was steal a cow? That’s what they
hanged him for?” Trixie asked.
    Gus
shrugged. “Well, now, things were different then. A man’s cows
was all he had. If someone stole one, he couldn’t just go out and buy a
new one. Oh, no. He went without meat and milk, and his family went without,
too. That was serious—almost like a murder, you might say.”
    “But to hang him!” Honey exclaimed. “Now, I’m not
saying they should have done that. My pa thought they shouldn’t have and he was
there. He even tried to talk the guys out of it.”
    “You
mean he testified for Gunnar in front of a jury?” Trixie asked.
    “There
wasn’t a jury, or any testifying, either. Just a bunch of
angry farmers and a long rope. And a tree, of course,” Gus added, almost
as an afterthought. “It was that old oak out back, in fact.”
    “It
was a lynching!” Trixie said, feeling a surge of outrage at the thought. “No
wonder Gunnar came back as a ghost!”
    “ Ja , well, people thought they saw a ghost. My pa always said that it was just guilty consciences made
the ghost appear. He said that’s why the ghost looked different to different
people. Some saw it galloping across the open country, like the mob was still
chasing it. Others saw it riding slow and mournful, with its head lolling, like
the life was already out of it.”
    “That’s
the one I saw—the lifeless one,” Trixie said. “Unless it was
you. I mean—” She paused, flustered.
    Gus
grinned at her. “There’s still some life in me yet. But I do ride along pretty
slow some evenings.”
    “Does
that mean you think it was you, and not the ghost, that Trixie saw?” Honey
asked.
    Gus
scratched his head thoughtfully. “I never saw the ghost myself. There’s folks
that have, though—or thought so. I really couldn’t say.”
    Trixie
shivered. “It’s spooky, isn’t it, to think of something like that happening
right here? I mean, ghost or no, there was a lynching. That’s pretty scary all by itself. I’m
surprised that everyone involved didn’t pack up and move away, to escape the
memory of it.”
    “Some
of ’em did,” Gus told her. “That’s why Bill’s dad was able to buy this place so
cheap. Nobody ever lasted very long on the next ranch over, either. That young
Burke fellow bought it real cheap, I hear. Where old Gunnar lived is state
forest land now, so that’s nobody’s concern. It was a bad thing, though. No
doubt about that.”
    “That
must be why Mrs. Murrow doesn’t like Bill to talk about it,” Honey observed.
    “Oh, my! You didn’t mention the ghost in front of Mrs. Murrow,
did you?” Gus asked. “I bet she about hit the ceiling,