“Oh, brace up,” Penny encouraged her. “It can’t be much farther to Mrs. Lear’s place. I’ll lead your horse for awhile.”
Seizing the reins again, she led White Foot down the road at a walk. They met no one on the lonely, twisting highway. The only sound other than the steady clop of hoofbeats was an occasional guttural twang from a bullfrog.
The night grew darker. Louise began to shiver, though not so much from cold as nervousness. Her gaze constantly roved along the deep woods to the left of the road. Seeing something white and ghostly amid the trees, she called Penny’s attention to it.
“Why, it’s nothing,” Penny scoffed. “Just an old tree trunk split by lightning. That streak of white is the inner wood showing.”
A bend in the road lay just ahead. Rounding it, the girls saw what appeared to be a camp fire glowing in the distance. The wind carried a strong odor of wood smoke.
“Now what’s that?” Louise asked uneasily. “Someone camping along the road?”
“I can see a house on ahead,” Penny replied. “The bonfire seems to have been built in the yard.”
Both girls were convinced that they were approaching the Lear place. The fire, however, puzzled them. And their wonderment grew as they rode closer.
In the glare of the leaping flames they saw a huge, hanging iron kettle. A dark figure hovered over it, stirring the contents with a stick.
Involuntarily, Penny’s hand tightened on the reins and Bones stopped. Louise pulled up so short that White Foot nearly reared back on her hind legs.