The Mystery of the Galloping Ghost

vision
out of the past.”
    “I’m
sure it was Gus you saw,” Bill replied with exaggerated calm. “But for a minute
there, I thought maybe you’d seen the Galloping Ghost.”
    “The Galloping Ghost! What’s that?” Trixie asked.
    “It’s
nothing,” Charlene Murrow said firmly. “Nothing but a silly
old story.” She gave Bill a sharp look.
    “That’s
right,” he said sheepishly. “I was just teasing. Never you
mind .”
    An
hour later, back in their room, Trixie asked Honey, “What do you think? Was
Bill Murrow just teasing?”
    “He is an awful tease,” Honey replied. “Yes, but do you think he was teasing this
time?”
    “No,
I don’t.”
    “I
don’t, either. The Galloping Ghost isn’t something he made up on the spur of
the moment. There’s more to it than that, and I’m going to find out what.”
    “Well,
I’m going to sleep,” said Honey.
    But
Trixie lay awake. It was not yet fully dark outside, and she found herself
staring at the dim light that filtered through the window.
    Suddenly
she saw it again—the strange flash of light she’d seen the night before. She
held her breath and waited. Yes! There it was!
    Trixie
got up and went to the window. Two minutes later, the flash came again. She
tiptoed to the dresser and found the binoculars that Brian had insisted she
bring along for bird-watching. Then she went back to the window and looked
through the binoculars at the spot in the trees from which the flash of light
had come.
    What
she saw was someone with binoculars looking back at her!



3 * Discovery
at Dusk
     
    Trixie’s first reaction was to drop
the binoculars, as if that could keep her from being seen. But she quickly
raised them again, afraid that the watcher might have disappeared.
    It
took her a couple of seconds, but eventually she relocated the shadowy figure.
This time as Trixie watched, the figure turned, scanning with the binoculars in
a wide halfcircle . Trixie breathed a sigh of relief
as she realized that the watcher probably hadn’t seen her, after all. I just happened to look over there
just as the watcher was looking over here, she thought.
    “Honey!” Trixie whispered loudly. Remembering her experience
from the night before, Trixie didn’t take her eyes off the figure.
    “Is
it the ghost?” Honey asked as she sat up, managing to sound
groggy and excited at the same time.
    “No,
but it’s definitely something,” Trixie replied. “Come here and take a look.”
    Honey
threw back the covers, scrambled to Trixie’s side, and took the binoculars.
Several seconds were lost in the fading light as Honey tried, under Trixie’s
direction, to pick out the figure amid the thick fringe of trees. “That’s it!”
she exclaimed finally. “I see it—but just barely. Did you see anything more?
How long were you watching before you woke me up?” Honey moved the binoculars a
few inches from her eyes to dart a glance at Trixie, then did a double take
when she discovered her friend was no longer there. She turned around and saw
that Trixie had already pulled on a pair of jeans over her nightgown. Now she
was sitting on the edge of the bed, putting on sneakers.
    “What
are you doing?” Honey asked.
    “I’m
getting ready to go over there and see what’s going on,” Trixie said. “Hurry. You can’t go wandering around barefoot.”
    “I’m
not sure we should go wandering around at all,” Honey replied. “Shouldn’t we
try to wake somebody and tell them about this?”
    “There’s
no time,” Trixie said. “The watcher could disappear any minute. Come on!”
    Honey
didn’t look entirely comfortable with the idea of going out in the gathering
dark, but she also knew there was no talking Trixie out of the idea. Quickly,
she put on jeans and sneakers and followed her friend out of the bedroom.
    There
were sounds of soft conversation from behind the Murrows ’
closed bedroom door, and Trixie felt a twinge of guilt as she tiptoed past it. Even
if I could convince them that there’s someone out there, it would take too
long. And by then it would be too dark to go look, she rationalized.
    In
the strange house, Trixie felt as though she and Honey were making enough noise
to be heard back in Sleepyside. Floorboards creaked beneath them. Trixie bumped
into a kitchen counter and grunted in surprise. Finally she made it to the back
door, then spent long minutes opening it, ready to
freeze at the hint of a squeak. Once the door was finally open and the