The Mystery of the Galloping Ghost

outside, Trixie asked, “Won’t your father be a little upset
that you handed out his name like that?”
    Honey
giggled. “No, he won’t be. But if there is a Roger Thompson living at 382 Elm Street in Minneapolis , he might be in for a surprise!”
    Trixie
laughed, then looked around for a secluded spot where
she and Honey could study the sales brochure. She found one under a huge old
maple that grew about halfway between the development and the entrance to the Murrows ’ ranch.
    “This
is just a recap of the sales pitch,” Trixie said, “with more stuff about
amenities. Wait a minute—here it is! ‘About the Developer.’ ” Trixie and Honey leaned over the page, reading quickly through the short
paragraph. Above the words, a smiling picture of Jon Burke, complete with
cowboy hat and feathered hatband, loomed out at them.
    Trixie
finished reading first. “What a bunch of hot air!” she snorted. She quoted from
memory: “ ‘Mr . Burke is descended from pioneer Minnesota stock, and is now opening Minnesota to those who want to pioneer in
the time-share concept.’ All the real pioneers must be spinning in their graves! Pioneers with
amenities!” The more Trixie talked, the angrier she got. “Besides, it
isn’t even true. That woman who works for him said he isn’t from around here.”
    “The
brochure doesn’t say Burke was born here,” Honey pointed out. “It just says his
ancestors were.”
    “They
were probably a bunch of shiftless no-goods like Gunnar Bjorkland ,”
Trixie growled. Then she gasped. “Oh, Honey, I’ll bet they were! And he is,
too!”
    Honey
was a little baffled. “What do you mean?”
    “Listen,”
Trixie said. She leaned close to Honey, to focus her friend’s full attention on
herself. She spoke slowly, pronouncing each syllable: “Gun- nar Be- york -land. Burke-land. Burke Land- ing . Get it? Burke is a descendant of Gunnar Bjorkland !”
    “They
do sound similar,” Honey admitted. “I’ll bet he’s always been ashamed of having
an ancestor who was hanged as a cattle thief. So he came back here and started
this big, fancy development to prove he wasn’t a shiftless failure like old
Gunnar. That’s the reason he’s so eager to get his hands on Fairhaven — to extend his development
practically to the doorstep of Gunnar’s cabin. I’ll bet the rustling instinct
runs in the family, too!” Trixie stopped only because she’d run out of breath.
    “It
sounds awfully farfetched,” Honey said. Before Trixie could protest, Honey
added, “I believe you,
but who else will? Look, I think Burke has Al- Adeen .
But who his ancestors were doesn’t make any difference—unless you think old
Gunnar might haunt Burke into returning the horse, to keep him from meeting a
similar fate.”
    Trixie
snorted. “Now, that’s farfetched. If anything, the ghost would help Burke out. If there was a ghost,
which there isn’t, because we know that Gus— Oh, gosh!” Trixie grabbed Honey’s
arm, her eyes as round as if she had, indeed, just seen a ghost.
    “What
is it?” Honey asked in alarm.
    “Wilhelmina!”
Trixie said. “We know old
Gus was the ghost, but she doesn’t. She’s convinced we had an honest-to-gosh retrocognition .”
    “Oh,
the poor woman,” Honey said. “She’ll be so disappointed. Do we have to tell her
the truth?”
    “Of
course, we do,” Trixie said, sounding shocked. “Otherwise, she’ll write the
whole thing up in a big technical paper. We’ll tell her tonight.”
    “You’re
right, of course,” Honey admitted. “But it just seems so unfair that everyone’s
dreams have to be ruined. First Murrows ’
prize horse, now Wilhelmina’s ghost. It isn’t fair!”
     
    Back
at Fairhaven ,
there was still no news about Al- Adeen . All the neighbors had been alerted, though, Charlene told the
girls.
    “That’s
going to make things hot for Burke,” Trixie told Honey when they were alone.
“We’ve got to figure out where he’s hidden Al- Adeen before he gets nervous and does something—something final.”
    Honey
nodded. “First things first, though. We have to tell Wilhelmina about Gus being
the ghost. That won’t be easy, but at least it’s simple. After that, we can
concentrate on Burke and Al- Adeen and all the rest of
it.”
    It
wasn’t hard for the girls to leave the house unobserved after dinner. The Murrows were in the living room, poring over a three-county
map that Bill had bought that afternoon.
    “They
still think they can