The Mystery of the Galloping Ghost

settled in. For the girls, there was a
small but comfortable twin-bedded room that had belonged to her daughter, now
grown and married. To Regan, she said, “You have a choice of the guest room
here, or the living quarters above the stable, which you’d share with Pat.”
After Regan quickly—and predictably— opted for the room above the stable, Honey
asked, “Is Pat your hired hand?”
    “Nope,”
Bill replied. “He’s slave labor .”
    “Bill!”
Mrs. Murrow exclaimed in a scandalized tone. Turning to the girls, she said,
“He’s our son. And if he’s a slave, it’s to his passion for horses. Why, the
day he turned sixteen, he announced that he was moving into the apartment he’d
fixed up over the stable. Since then, I can’t even drag him into the house,
except for meals.” As if suddenly remembering the subject of meals, Charlene
began bustling about the kitchen.
    Regan
and Bill left for the stable, and Trixie and Honey went to their room to
unpack. “That Bill is certainly a character, isn’t he?” Trixie said in a low
voice.
    Honey
nodded, a smile coming to her face as she remembered his antics. “Mrs. Murrow
is, too, in her own way. She pretends to be shocked by Bill, but I think she’s
just playing along.”
    “I
can hardly wait to see what Pat is like,” Trixie said.
    “He’s
so attached to his horses, he probably looks like one—buck teeth, bulging brown
eyes, and one lock of hair hanging down over his forehead.”
    Honey’s
description of a horselike human made Trixie picture
a humanlike horse seated at the Murrows ’ big kitchen
table. She began to giggle. In a moment, Honey had caught the giggling fit, and
both girls were lying on their beds, holding their sides.
    “Oh,
how are we going to face Pat Murrow now?” Trixie wailed.
    As
soon as they calmed down, they went to the kitchen and offered to help Mrs.
Murrow prepare supper. She put them to work peeling carrots and washing celery,
slicing homemade bread, and setting the table. An hour went by quickly and
wonderful aromas filled the air.
    Mrs.
Murrow stepped out onto the screened back porch and rang an old-fashioned dinner
bell. Trixie and Honey exchanged amused looks, but didn’t dare whisper Pat
Murrow’s name, for fear of setting off another giggling attack.
    Minutes
later, the girls heard the sound of heavy boots on the porch. The door opened
and Regan stepped inside, followed by Bill Murrow, who guided his guest down
the hall to show him where to wash up. The last person inside was a tall,
slender teenager, too muscular to be called thin. He had high cheekbones and a
long, straight nose. He did, indeed, have
    large brown eyes and a lock of brown hair that strayed
across his forehead, but the effect was far from horselike .
    “Pat,
this is Trixie Belden,” Mrs. Murrow said.
    “Hello,”
Trixie said.
    Pat’s
answer was just a nod.
    “And
this is Matt Wheeler’s daughter, Honey,” Mrs. Murrow concluded.
    Honey
stepped forward and held out her hand. Pat stared at her, but made no immediate
attempt to take the hand. After an awkward pause, Honey dropped her hand—just
as Pat offered his. Realizing he was too late, Pat dropped his hand—just as Honey
raised hers. Honey shrugged helplessly and giggled. Pat turned and headed down
the hall to the bathroom.
    Trixie
turned to Honey and discovered that her usually poised friend was blushing! The
incident was pushed aside, however, as Mrs. Murrow
assigned everyone to a place at the table and began serving heaping platters of
food.
    None
of the young people talked much during dinner. They didn’t have to, since Regan
and the Murrows kept up a running discussion of
horses—their selection, breeding, training, and showing. Trixie listened to the
conversation, but she also kept an eye on Honey and Pat. Her friend was
pretending to listen intently, but Trixie saw her sneaking frequent looks at
the Murrows ’ son. Pat seemed to concentrate only on
his plate.
    After
dinner, the men went out onto the porch. Trixie and Honey helped Mrs. Murrow do
the dishes and clean the kitchen; then they, too, went outside.
    “Why,
it’s still broad daylight!” Trixie exclaimed. “But it must be 8 o’clock by now!”
    “ It’s 8:20,” Bill Murrow corrected after looking at his
watch. “We get long summer days in this part of the country because we’re so
far north. It won’t be fully dark until 10 o’clock.”
    “But
come December, it will be dark from 5 p.m . to
7 a.m.,”