CHAPTER IV
Unwelcome Visitors
“Oh dear! I wasn’t quite quick enough,” Lois complained as she gave thesteering wheel another turn.
Judy and Lorraine had gotten out of the car to direct her as she turnedthe car around. Now it refused to budge, spattering mud as the wheelsspun. The two men came nearer, shouting and waving their arms.
All at once Judy recognized one of them as Roger Banning. His lighthair emphasized the angry flush that covered his face.
“What are you girls doing here?” he demanded. “Can’t you read?”
“Oh dear! I wasn’t quick enough.”]
Lois had an answer for that. She spoke fearlessly in spite of herpredicament.
“You should know, Roger. You went to school with us. I should thinkyou’d help instead of yelling at us. One little push on the back of thecar ought to do it. Please!”
“Go ahead, help her,” the huskier man said.
With that Roger and the other man almost lifted the car back on theroad where it was soon turned in the other direction. Lois smiledsweetly as she thanked them.
“Are you friends of the Brandts?” she asked.
“That’s not the point,” Roger Banning retorted. “You and your girlfriends are trespassing on private property.”
“I can explain why we came here if you’ll listen,” Judy put in quietly.“When we started on this trip we thought the Brandts still lived here.Lois knows Helen Brandt from school. We thought she’d be glad to showus around the estate.”
“You did, eh? Well, nobody gets shown around this estate. Now getgoing!”
“Wait a minute. Don’t hurry us.” Judy’s voice was still quiet. “What,exactly, is your objection to showing people around?”
“It ain’t a showplace,” the other man objected.
“It was when the Brandts lived here. We didn’t know they’d sold theestate.”
“They haven’t,” was the reply. “They went to Florida for the winter andleased it to us. Why don’t you drop in for a call after they get back?”
“Watch it, Cubby,” Roger Banning warned him. “I wouldn’t be handing outany invitations if I were you. I recognize this girl now. She’s JudyBolton, or was, before she married that smart young lawyer, PeterDobbs. Her brother’s that pasty-faced newspaper reporter they call thehero of the Roulsville flood. Dr. Bolton’s on the staff at FarringdonHospital and that’s where these kids will wind up if you let—”
“Watch it yourself,” the heavy-set young man called Cubby interrupted.
They both glared at her, waiting for her to explain herself further.But what could she say? Her wide gray eyes must have told them she wasbaffled.
Lorraine was not saying a word. As she shielded her face with her handsshe looked like a poor, frightened bird trying to hide under its ownwing.
“She’s really in trouble,” thought Judy, “and these men know somethingabout it.”
Determined to find out something herself, she faced them unflinchingly.It was Lois who finally apologized for the intrusion, explaining thatshe had been a guest of the Brandts several times and felt sure theywouldn’t mind if she and her friends had just one more look at thefountain.
“Fountain! What fountain?” Roger Banning laughed derisively. “There’sno fountain on the estate and never has been. You girls have taken thewrong road if you’re looking for a fountain.”
“I don’t think we have,” Lois told him calmly.
“What about the tower?” asked Judy. “We noticed what looks like a watertower over there in the woods. Isn’t it used to store water for thefountain?”
“It is no longer in use. Now will you leave?”
“I think we’d better,” Lorraine whispered, pulling Judy toward the car.
It seemed the only thing to do. The two young men who had made up whatJudy called the “unwelcoming committee” watched them as they drove offdown the road. When they were nearly to the main highway Lois laughedand said, “If they think they’ve scared us away they’re greatlymistaken. I’ll hide the car the way Lorraine suggested. It wasn’t sucha bad idea after all.”
Judy helped her find a secluded place just beyond the entrance to theestate. Apparently people had picnicked there in the summertime. A bigevergreen tree with branches dipping to the ground hid the car fromview while the girls planned their next strategy.
“We’ll find that fountain if it’s the last thing we do,” declared Judy.“The idea of telling us it doesn’t exist! You girls both saw it, didn’tyou?”
“That—that was years ago,” Lorraine said. “They—they could have tornit down or something.”
“I don’t believe they did. We just drove past the path without seeingit,” Lois declared.
“It will be easier to find if we walk back. Let’s do it,” Judysuggested. “We should have walked up to the estate in the first place.Then they wouldn’t have heard us coming.”
“But suppose they see us?” Lorraine objected, holding back.
“They won’t bite—if you mean those two overgrown schoolboys,” Judysaid. “Anyway, I don’t believe they have any more right on the estatethan we have. They weren’t necessarily telling the truth about it. Doyou know the other one, Lois?”
“Cubby? No, I’m afraid I don’t.”
“What about the third character, the one who passed us in the car?”
“I never saw him before,” declared Lois. “Did you, Lorraine?”
Her silence was answer enough. She had seen him before, but she wasafraid to say so. If he lived on the estate, Judy decided it might be agood idea for them to do their exploring before he returned.
“I wouldn’t care to have him catch us, would you?” she questioned.
Lorraine finally agreed to Judy’s plan, and they started back up thenarrow road. They had not walked far when they came to the sign thatLois had chosen to ignore the first time.
NO TRESPASSING, it warned them in big black letters. ALL PERSONS AREFORBIDDEN TO ENTER THESE PREMISES UNDER PENALTY OF THE LAW.
“We can’t walk right past it,” Lorraine objected as they stopped toread the sign.
“I don’t see why not. We drove right past it,” Lois returned with adefiant toss of her head. “Who cares about their old sign, anyway? I’msure the Brandts wouldn’t forbid us to come here. They may even thankus for it.”
These puzzling words only partially convinced Lorraine. But Judy wasbeginning to enjoy the adventure. She studied the NO TRESPASSING sign amoment more and then began to laugh.
“It says ALL PERSONS,” she told her friends as they walked deliberatelypast it, searching for the path to the fountain. “Who _is_ permitted toenter, I wonder—ghosts?”
“Spirits, maybe, like the one that spoke to you,” Lois said with ashiver.
“Then the fountain wouldn’t be enchanted at all. It would be_haunted_,” declared Lorraine.
And suddenly she held back, afraid.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Haunted Fountain Page 5
