A sudden sound of sleigh bells and trotting horses! Josie was in a brown study, trying to untangle the web woven around Ursula Ellett. She found it difficult to fix her thoughts, since the general appearance of the hospitable home she was approaching made her think, in spite of herself, of roast turkey and goose, plum pudding and mince pies, bulging Christmas stockings and fir trees blazing with candles. The sound of sleigh bells made her jump. She felt almost that Santa Claus himself was coming. So swiftly were the horses drawing the red cutter over the beaten snow they had passed her almost before she could collect her scattered senses.
“Whoa!” commanded the driver, stopping his team a few feet beyond the spot where Josie stood rooted in the snow. “Have a ride?”
The driver was a young man of engaging manner and wonderfully even teeth. That was the first impression made on Josie. Afterwards she realized that he was an exceedingly handsome young Kentuckian, blue-eyed, straight-nosed, clean cut and athletic.
“Certainly!” She answered his invitation without hesitation. Female detectives cannot afford to be squeamish, but it was not a detective who sprang so readily into the red cutter—rather a young girl away from home on Christmas morning, in whose ears the music of the sleigh bells played an alluring tune and who was, in spite of the serious business that had brought her to Louisville, longing for companionship.
“Where are you going?” asked the young man. “I can take you wherever it is, because my horses are eating their heads off in the stable and are as wild to be up and out and racing as I am. I came on you so suddenly I couldn’t tell which way you were headed.”
“This way,” pointed Josie. “I am hunting some colored people. The woman makes rag rugs and the man brooms. I was directed through Colonel Trask’s place. I am on the right road, am I not?”
“You are indeed. Colonel Trask is my father. But why hunt rag rug and broom makers on Christmas morning?”
“Because—but—oh, please tell me, are you Teddy?”
“The same—and you?”
Josie looked into the kind, clear, boyish, blue eyes and determined to trust their owner with her story.