Hoofbeats on the Turnpike Part 10

"Oh, she will, though her place is an eye-sore. Now this is what you might do. Get the old lady to talking. If she should give you the slightest hint who the prankster is, seize upon it."

"Then you think Mrs. Lear knows?"

"I suspect half the community does!" Mr. Burmaster answered bitterly.

"Everyone except ourselves. We're hated here. No one will cooperate with us."

Penny thought over the request. She did not like the idea of going to Mrs. Lear's home to spy.

"Well, we'll see," she answered, without making a definite promise.

Mrs. Burmaster was coming across the bridge. Not wis.h.i.+ng to talk to her, the girls bade the owner of Sleepy Hollow a hasty farewell and rode away.

Once on the turnpike, they discussed the queer mistress of the estate.

"If you ask me, everyone in this community is queer," Louise grumbled.

"Mrs. Burmaster just seems a bit more so than the others."

Intent upon reaching the Lear homestead, the saddle-weary girls kept on along the winding highway. It was impossible to make good time for White Foot kept giving Louise trouble. Presently the mare stopped dead in her tracks, then wheeled and started back toward the Burmaster estate.

Louise, bouncing helplessly, shrieked to her chum for help.

"Rein her in!" Penny shouted.

When Louise seemed unable to obey, Penny rode Bones alongside and seized the reins. White Foot then stopped willingly enough.

"All I ask of life is to get off this creature!" Louise half sobbed. "I'm tired enough to die! And we've had nothing to eat since noon."

"Oh, brace up," Penny encouraged her. "It can't be much farther to Mrs.

Lear's place. I'll lead your horse for awhile."

Seizing the reins again, she led White Foot down the road at a walk. They met no one on the lonely, twisting highway. The only sound other than the steady clop of hoofbeats was an occasional guttural tw.a.n.g from a bullfrog.

The night grew darker. Louise began to s.h.i.+ver, though not so much from cold as nervousness. Her gaze constantly roved along the deep woods to the left of the road. Seeing something white and ghostly amid the trees, she called Penny's attention to it.

"Why, it's nothing," Penny scoffed. "Just an old tree trunk split by lightning. That streak of white is the inner wood showing."

A bend in the road lay just ahead. Rounding it, the girls saw what appeared to be a camp fire glowing in the distance. The wind carried a strong odor of wood smoke.

"Now what's that?" Louise asked uneasily. "Someone camping along the road?"

"I can see a house on ahead," Penny replied. "The bonfire seems to have been built in the yard."

Both girls were convinced that they were approaching the Lear place. The fire, however, puzzled them. And their wonderment grew as they rode closer.

In the glare of the leaping flames they saw a huge, hanging iron kettle.

A dark figure hovered over it, stirring the contents with a stick.

Involuntarily, Penny's hand tightened on the reins and Bones stopped.

Louise pulled up so short that White Foot nearly reared back on her hind legs.

"A witch!" Penny exclaimed, half jubilantly. "I've always wanted to meet one, and this is our chance!"

CHAPTER 7 _BED AND BOARD_

For a moment the two girls watched in awe the dark, grotesque figure silhouetted against the leaping flames of the fire. A woman in a long, flowing gown kept stirring the contents of the iron kettle.

"Doesn't she look exactly like a witch!" Penny exclaimed again. "Maybe it's Mrs. Lear."

"If that's the Lear place I know one thing!" Louise announced dramatically. "I'm going straight on to Delta."

Penny knew better than to argue with her chum. Softly she quoted from "Macbeth":

"'Double, double, toil and trouble Fire burn and cauldron bubble.'"

"Trouble is all we've had since we started this wild trip," Louise broke in. "And now you ask me to spend the night with a witch!"

"Not so loud, or the witch may hear you," Penny cautioned. "Don't be silly, Lou. It's only a woman out in her back yard cooking supper."

"At this time of night?"

"Well, it is a bit late, but so are we. Any port in a storm. Come along, Louise. I'll venture that whatever is cooking in that kettle will be good."

Penny rode on and Louise had no choice but to follow. A hundred yards farther on they came to an ancient farmhouse set back from the road.

Dismounting, the girls tied their horses to an old-fas.h.i.+oned hitching rack near the sagging gate. A mailbox bore the name: Mrs. M. J. Lear.

"This is the place all right," said Penny.

Just inside the gate stood an ancient domicile that by daylight was shaded by a giant sycamore. Built of small bricks, it had latticed windows, and a gabled front. An iron weatherc.o.c.k perched on the curling s.h.i.+ngle roof seemed to gaze saucily down at the girls.

Going around the house to the back yard, Penny and Louise again came within view of the blazing fire. An old woman in a long black dress bent over the smoke-blackened kettle which hung from the iron crane. Hearing footsteps, she glanced up alertly.

"Who is it?" she called, and the crackled voice was sharp rather than friendly.

"Silas Malcom sent us here," Penny said, moving into the arc of flickering light.

"And who be you? Friends o' his?" The hatchet-faced woman peered intently, almost suspiciously at the two girls.

Penny gave her name and Louise's, adding that they were seeking lodging for the night.

"We'll pay, of course," she added.

The old woman scrutinized the girls for so long that they were certain she would send them away. But when she spoke, her voice was friendly.

"Well, well," she cackled, "anybody that's a friend of Silas is a friend of mine. You're welcome to bed and board fer as long as you want to stay."

Penny thanked her and stepped closer to the kettle. "We've not had anything to eat since noon," she said suggestively. "My, whatever you're cooking looks good!" She sniffed at the steam arising from the iron pot and backed hastily away.