“That certainly was something to find,” murmured Arden. “Poor Betty! She was so frightened. I’ll never forget how she shook.”
“She’s all over it now, though,” her brother declared. “But it did give her quite a shock. She talked about it a lot afterwards. No, I don’t believe in that ghost business myself. It’s just a lot of tricks those workmen think funny,” he suggested boyishly.
“Tell him about the scream you heard, Harry,” suggested Dorothy to the young man she was riding beside. As if that might change Dick’s opinion.
“No, I think I’d better not,” Harry answered. “I want to find that screamer first. Then, I’ll tell the big story.”
They broke into a brisk canter. It was a splendid ride in the friendly snow, and in due time they reached the old Hall.
“Hello!” exclaimed Dick as he saw the now almost obliterated footprints leading into the mansion. “Somebody has been here after all. I wonder if any of the men can be working, after what Callahan told me?”
“Probably just some curiosity-seeker went in,” suggested Harry with a warning look at the girls. “Only one man, according to footprints,” he said.
“I guess that’s right,” Dick agreed. “Well, it shouldn’t worry me. This place doesn’t belong in our family any more.” He could not repress a little sigh of regret as they rode on past the historic place that had been in the possession of the Howes so many years.
“How does this ghost business affect your grandmother’s cousin, Mrs. Tucker?” asked Arden of Dick.
“Oh, Cousin Viney? She just laughs at it. Doesn’t believe in it at all. She’s bitter, though, at us losing the place. Rants about the carelessness of some ancestor who either lost the deeds or else hid them so well neither he nor anybody else was ever able to find them—deeds, a missing will, or whatever papers are called for in a case like this,” Dick said, a little confused in attempting to make that complicated speech.