Hoofbeats on the Turnpike Part 16

The arrangement was not in the least to the girls' liking. The party, they could see, rapidly was breaking up. Joe Quigley seemed to have disappeared. Nearly all of the girls except themselves were supplied with escorts.

"I don't like this--not by a little bit!" Penny muttered. "Let's get out of here, Lou."

"How will we get back to Mrs. Lear's place?"

"Walk."

"Without an escort?"

"It's not far."

"We'll have to pa.s.s the Burmaster place and that horrid tulip tree."

"Who's afraid of a tulip tree?" Penny laughed. "Come on, if we don't get away quickly Old Silas will ask some young man to take us home. That would be humiliating."

Louise reluctantly followed her chum. The girls obtained their wraps and without attracting attention, slipped out a side door.

"Why do you suppose Mrs. Lear slipped off without saying a word?" Louise complained as she and Penny walked rapidly along the dark, muddy road.

"Our shoes will be ruined!"

"So is my ego!" Penny added irritably. "Joe Quigley certainly let us down too. He was attentive enough until after supper. Then he simply vanished."

The night was very dark for driving clouds had blotted out the stars.

Overhanging trees cast a cavernous gloom upon the twisting hillside road.

Louise caught herself s.h.i.+vering. Sternly she told herself that it came from the cold air rather than nervousness.

Presently the girls approached the Burmaster estate. No lights were burning, but the rambling building loomed up white and ghost-like through the trees.

"I'll breathe natural when we're across the bridge," Penny admitted with a laugh. "If Mr. Burmaster keeps a guard hidden in the bushes, the fellow might heave a rock at us on general principles."

There was no sign of anyone near the estate. Yet both Penny and Louise sensed that they were being watched. The unpleasant sensation of uneasiness increased as they drew nearer the foot bridge.

"Penny, I'm scared," Louise suddenly admitted.

"Of what?" Penny asked with forced cheerfulness.

"It's too quiet."

The half-whispered words died on Louise's lips. Unexpectedly, the stillness of the night was broken by the clatter of hoofbeats.

Startled, the girls whirled around. A horse with a rider had plunged through the dense bushes only a short distance behind them. At a hard run he came straight toward the foot bridge.

"The ghost rider!" Louise whispered in terror.

She and Penny stood frozen in their tracks. Plainly they could see the white-robed figure. His lumpy, misshapen hulk, seemed rigidly fastened to the horse. Where his head should have been there was only a stub.

CHAPTER 11 _THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN_

Swift as the wind, the headless horseman approached the narrow bridge.

Penny seized Louise's hand, jerking her off the road. The ghost rider thundered past them onto the bridge planks which resounded beneath the steel-shod hoofs.

"Jeepers creepers!" Penny whispered. "That's no boy prankster this time!

It's the real thing!"

The thunder of hoofbeats had not gone unheard by those within the walls of Sleepy Hollow. Lights flashed on in the house. Two men with lanterns came running from the mill shack.

"Get him! Get him!" screamed a woman's voice from an upstairs window of the house.

The clamor did not seem to disturb the goblin rider. At unchanged pace he clattered across the bridge to its far side. As the two men ran toward him, he suddenly swerved, plunging his horse across a ditch and up a steep bank. There he drew rein for an instant. Rising in his stirrups, he hurled a small, hard object at the two guards. It missed them by inches and fell with a thud on the bridge. Then with a laugh that resembled no earthly sound, the Headless Horseman rode through a gap in the bushes and was gone.

Louise and Penny ran to the bridge. Half way across they found the object that had been hurled. It was a small, round stone to which had been fastened a piece of paper.

Penny picked up the missile. Before she could examine it, Mr. Burmaster came running from the house. He had not taken time to dress, but had thrown a bathrobe over his pajamas.

"You let that fellow get away again!" he shouted angrily to the two workmen. "Can't you ever stay on the job?"

"See here, Mr. Burmaster," one of the men replied. "We work eight hours a day and then do guard duty at night. You can't expect us to stay awake twenty-four hours a day!"

"All right, all right," Mr. Burmaster retorted irritably. Turning toward the bridge he saw Louise and Penny. "Well, so you're here again?" he observed, though not in an unfriendly tone.

Penny explained that she and Louise had attended the barn dance and were on their way to the Lear cabin.

"What's that you have in your hand?" he interrupted.

"A stone that the Headless Horseman threw at your workmen. There's a paper tied to it."

"Let's have it," Mr. Burmaster commanded.

Penny handed over the stone though she would have preferred to have examined it herself. Mr. Burmaster cut the string which kept the paper in place. He held it beneath one of the lanterns.

Large capital letters cut from newspaper headlines had been pasted in an uneven row across the page. The words spelled a message which read:

"KICK IN HANDSOMELY ON THE HUNTLEY DAM FUND. IF YOU OBLIGE, THE GALLOPING GHOST WILL BOTHER YOU NO MORE."

Mr. Burmaster read the message aloud and crumpling the paper, stuffed it into the pocket of his robe.

"There, you see!" he cried angrily. "It's all a plot to force me to put up money for the Huntley Dam!"

"Who do you think the prankster is?" Penny asked.

"How should I know!" Mr. Burmaster stormed. "The townspeople of Delta may be behind the scheme. Or those hill rats like Silas Malcom! Then it could be Old Lady Lear."

"Can she ride a horse?" Louise interposed.

"Can that old witch ride?" Mr. Burmaster snorted. "She was born in a saddle. Has one of the best horses in the valley too. A jumper."