“No.” Mr. Carroll shook his head. “She must be the woman one of my colored boys was trying to tell me about the other day. He described the cottage you’ve just mentioned and said a ‘voodoo’ woman lived there who was ‘a heap sight crazy.’ He claimed he saw her out in her yard late one night ‘making spells.’ I didn’t pay much attention to him, for these darkies are full of superstitions and weird yarns.”
“We’ll ask Carlos about her,” decided Patsy. “That makes two things we’re going to quiz him about; the ‘voodoo’ lady and the Feredas. When is he to begin working for you, Dad?”
“He’ll be back this afternoon. I’m going to set him to work at clearing up the stable. It’s a regular rubbish shack. I’ll give him a gang of black boys to help him. I’m anxious to have it put in trim as soon as possible. To-morrow I must go over to the stock farm and see about getting some horses for our use while here. I’ll take Carlos with me and then we’ll see how much he knows about horses.”
“We’d better be moving along. We promised Miss Martha to be back in plenty of time for luncheon,” reminded Mabel.
“I’ll see you girls at the house,” Mr. Carroll said. “I’m going to take the car to the garage. We’ll hardly need it this afternoon. The Wayfarers are such famous hikers, they’ll scorn riding to the beach,” he slyly added.
“Of course we are famous hikers. Certainly we intend to walk to the beach,” sturdily concurred Patsy.
“Scatter then, and give me the road,” playfully ordered her father.
Moving briskly out of the way of the big machine, the chums followed it up the drive at a leisurely pace.
“Well have to change our gowns before luncheon.”