Dick and a younger helper were soon back with the mounts, and they all started gayly out in the snow, which was falling faster than ever. But it was a dry, fine snow that did not melt on one’s garments or get in wet around one’s neck. Even the horses seemed to like it; this friendly snow.
“Which way shall we take?” asked Sim as they started out.
“Let’s go round by way of the Hall and—have a look at the prospects,” suggested Arden, warning her companions with a look not to say too much about Granny’s Christmas party before Dick. The details were to be a sort of surprise, though the old lady might have to be told that the young people wanted to use that one big room in her former home for a little festivity. The Hall being locally famous, that arrangement would be reasonable enough.
“We can bring Granny over from her cottage at the last minute,” Arden had said when discussing this angle of it.
“There’s nothing doing at the Hall now,” said Dick when the horses had been turned in the direction of Jockey Hollow.
“What do you mean?” asked Sim.
“I mean Callahan has called all the work off.”
“Why is that?” Arden wanted to know.
“Perhaps new and worse ghosts,” suggested Dorothy quizzically.
“No, that isn’t it,” the young groom answered. “I believe he couldn’t get the right kind of men to work, it’s so near Christmas. They would work half a day and then want to stop. I didn’t hear anything more about the ghosts—not since my sister found what she thought was a dead man in the cellar,” and Dick laughed, recalling that incident.