Arden did manage, when her horse settled down a bit and danced along beside Dick’s for a stretch, to ask him what had gotten into their usually well behaved mounts.
“They’re frightened at something,” he answered. “They were scared stiff when we came out.”
“So were we all,” Arden admitted. “Do you suppose the horses could feel our fright?”
“Some people claim that a horse feels his rider’s every mood,” Dick answered. “I really don’t know. But I surely believe these horses sensed something, perhaps more than we did. But——” Then Dick’s shining black mare broke into a sudden trot, and he could not finish what he started to say.
But Arden was persistent. She urged her steed forward and was again riding beside the groom while Terry and Sim pranced on ahead.
“Do you believe in ghosts, Dick?”
He hesitated a moment and then slowly answered: “I believe that people often see just what they expect to see in haunted houses, so called, and hear just what they want to hear.”
Arden was plainly disappointed at this matter-of-factness on Dick’s part. She had hoped for something more concrete than this. But remembering Dick’s, or, rather, his grandmother’s, connection with Sycamore Hall, she did not press her point.
“Let’s catch up to the others,” she proposed, and Dick assenting, they were soon close behind Terry and Sim, who were still talking soothingly to their mounts to quiet the restless animals. After a ride of several miles through woodland they reached a straight open stretch of road and broke into a smart canter. The girls were a little breathless when they dismounted at the stables.
“Do you young ladies want to make another date for the end of the week?” asked Titus Ellery, owner of the riding academy, as he came forward on much-bowed legs. He was not an attractive man, but he knew horses. Rather stingy and grasping was his reputation. “How about it?” He was respectful enough but persistent.