The secret of the Mansion

Reddy came close enough to be caught and dragged back. From the terrace, Trixie pointed up to the shattered remains of the second-story window. "It’s lucky our ceilings are so low," she said. "Otherwise he would have been badly hint. I still can’t believe he hasn’t a cut, somewhere."
    Inside the house, they examined him carefully but could not find a scratch. "We’d better put you in the cellar, old man," Jim said, patting the dog affectionately. "It’s a mean trick, but we won’t be gone long." Reddy was scratching and whining and snuffling on the other side of the door as they left the house for the third time.
    "He’s some dog," Jim said. "As soon as I get settled somewhere, I mean to get a pointer or maybe a setter. You’ve never gone shooting with Reddy, have you, Trixie?"
    "Brian and Mart do, sometimes," she told him. "But he isn’t much good. Dad says we all tried to train him at once and that’s what ruined him. Brian taught him to heel, Mart taught him to retrieve, and I tried to teach him to come when called." She giggled. "You can see how well he obeys me, so you can imagine how good he is in other ways."
    Regan was waiting for them with the three sad-died horses. "I was just about to come down after you," he said. "Thought I heard the sound of breaking glass, but then I saw you coming across the lawn and figured you were okay."
    He greeted Jim with a friendly "Hi, youngster," just as though there was nothing unusual about his appearing with the girls. "Take good care of Jupe, won’t you?"
    "Yes, sir," Jim said. "It was swell of you to let me have one last ride on him."
    "Going someplace soon?" Regan inquired as they mounted their horses.
    "That’s right." Jim rode off without another word. In the woods it was cool and quiet except for the occasional who, who-who, whooo of an owl. Every now and then, they heard the bark of a fox off in the distance and the scurrying of small feet on the path ahead of them.
    "This is heavenly," Honey sighed. "I thought I was going to be scared in the woods at night, but I’m not. It’s much more fun and so much cooler than riding in the daytime."
    "Dad used to take me on moonlight rides when I was just a kid," Jim told them. "Once I fell asleep on the way back, and he had to carry me on his saddle and lead my horse as well. Then, just as we got home, I woke up and yelled like anything because I’d missed so much fun." He chuckled. "Dad teased me about that for a long time."
    "You loved your father an awful lot, didn’t you?" Honey asked shyly. "You must miss him like anything."
    Jim nodded soberly. "I guess that’s why I hated Jonesy from the beginning. I didn’t think anyone could take Dad’s place. I knew Mother needed someone to take care of her, but I wanted to do it. I was too young, of course." He cantered along the moonlit path in a thoughtful silence. "Sometimes I think if I’d behaved better at first, Jonesy might have been kinder to me. It’s too late now, though. He hates me as much as I hate him. Once I looked up suddenly from my homework and caught him staring at me. There was such a mean look in his eyes that I was honestly scared to death for a minute."
    Trixie swallowed hard, thinking of her own father, who was always so cheerful and kind to everyone. "I never really appreciated him before," she thought. "I’m always nagging at him to buy me this and buy me that when I know he can’t afford it with four children to take care of." She made a quick little resolution to reform and immediately felt much better.
    After a while they reined in their horses beside a stream that was hardly more than a trickle. "Golly," Trixie said, "our brook’s beginning to look like this. If it doesn’t rain soon, all the wells will go dry."
    Jim nodded. "That’s one of the reasons why I had such a hard time keeping clean at Uncle James’s. The well there is just about dry." He crumpled a leaf to a dry powder between his fingers. "Its much drier up here than it is across the road where we went riding yesterday. If a blaze started around here we’d have a regular forest fire."
    The horses drank thirstily between the rocks in the shallow stream, and then Honey said, "We really ought to start back now. Regan said not to be gone more than an hour."
    Forty minutes later, they had returned the horses and were about to start down the shortcut to the hollow when Jim suddenly grabbed the girls’ arms and pulled them off the path into the bushes. "There’s