The Mystery of the Headless Horseman

Reddy if you like.”
    “When will you start?” Trixie asked.
    “As soon as possible,” Mart said promptly. “If there’s time, I’ll start tonight. That’s it!” He nodded. “A week from tonight, Reddy will be all set to do what we want. Deal?”
    “Deal,” Trixie agreed.
    She smiled as she watched Mart and Bobby hurry into the house together. She looked down at Reddy, who was busy exploring a bed of marigolds. She tried to imagine what it would be like to have Reddy obey their slightest command. Somehow she couldn’t picture it.
    She tried, anyway. “Come, Reddy!” she ordered.
    Reddy glanced at her over his shoulder, then turned and trotted happily away in the opposite direction.
    Trixie chuckled softly to herself as she watched him go. “Mart will never teach that dog to do what we want,” she murmured. “That bet is as good as won. Now, if we can only find Harrison, our troubles will be over.”
    It was just as well that she didn’t know their troubles were only about to begin.

    After the fastest lunch they had ever eaten, Trixie, Mart, and Brian changed quickly into old jeans and clean shirts and hurried along the path that led to the Wheeler stables.
    Their mother, Helen Belden, had understood all too well their need for haste when Brian had explained the circumstances.
    “Why, of course you must go,” she had said. “The chores can wait. And as for Bobby, he’ll be just fine. I’m planning on making pies for the bazaar this afternoon, and he can help me mix the dough. I can’t imagine, though, where you’re going to begin to look for Harrison.”
    As things turned out, it was Bill Regan who gave them their first clue to the missing butler’s whereabouts.
    When the Beldens arrived, Jim and Honey were already in the stable’s cool, dim interior, which smelled of horses, oats, and saddle soap. Regan was helping Jim lead Jupiter out of his stall. The big black horse was hard to hold. He was anxious to be off.
    “Where are you all going this afternoon, anyway?” Regan asked.
    Mart walked to the box stall that held the strawberry roan, who was his favorite. “Believe it or not, we’re off to look for a mislaid butler,” he answered. “I don’t suppose you’ve got him hidden around here anywhere, have you?” He pretended to look in Strawberry’s sleeping quarters.
    “Harrison?” Regan scratched his red head and looked surprised. “Are you serious? Why, I saw him just last night.”
    Trixie gasped. “You did? Oh, Regan, where?
    Please try to remember. It’s very important.”
    “But I don’t have to try to remember. I do remember, very clearly. I saw him along Glen Road, riding his bicycle.” Regan grinned at the memory.
    “I didn’t know he had a bicycle,” Mart said idly.
    “Well, he had one last night,” Regan said. “It was yellow, I think. Anyway, I was riding Jupe at the time. Harrison tipped his derby hat and said, ‘Good evening, Mr. Regan. Good evening, Jupiter.’ ”
    “And then what?” Trixie asked.
    Regan shrugged. “And then nothing. He turned off onto one of those side trails that lead into the woods and—” He broke off sharply. “Is that where you’re planning on taking the horses?”
    “We’ll be careful,” Trixie said quickly. “We’ll watch out for loose stones and trailing roots and stuff like that. Honest!”
    “Did Harrison say where he was going?” Honey asked.
    “No, he didn’t.” Regan’s pleasant face still held a worried frown. “Now, you just listen to me, all of you. If I find that you kids ever try to gallop the horses through those woods—”
    It took another ten minutes and the combined efforts of all the Bob-Whites to convince him that his precious horses would come to no harm.
    By then Di had joined them. She was riding her palomino, Sunny, whose home was in the Lynches’ paddock. Di looked smart in her tan jodhpurs. Too, she seemed to feel a little more cheerful when Trixie told her Regan’s news about Harrison. At the Lynch home, none of the staff had known anything more about his disappearance.
    Regan stood calling instructions after all of them until, with a clattering of hooves, they were out of the stable yard and across the meadow.
    The search for Harrison was on!
    The horses wanted to run, but Trixie and her friends held them to a steady walk. Jim, mounted on Jupiter, led the way, as usual.
    The big black gelding, whose coat gleamed like dark satin, pranced sideways in his eagerness to outrun his