Ghost Rider Read Free

at the kitchen table and began plotting. As Stevie rattled off her ideas, Phyllis nodded enthusiastically and took notes.
    “Where do these go?”
Thump
. The girls heard the sound of their suitcases hitting the floor and looked to see who had asked the question. It was a boy a little older than they were.
    “This is John Brightstar,” Kate said, introducing him to Stevie, Lisa, and Carole. “His father, Walter, is our new head wrangler.” She thanked John for bringing the bags in and told him that the girls were staying in Bunkhouse One. Lisa offered to give him a hand carrying the suitcases over to the bunkhouse. John accepted her offer. Without a word the two of them picked up the suitcases and left the kitchen.
    “… and we’re going to need to have at least onereally special prize. It’s for the Kandy Korn Kounting Kontest,” Stevie continued, as she and Phyllis picked up exactly where they’d left off.
    Carole turned to Kate. “Okay, what’s up?” she asked. “I mean, it’s time for you to explain what you meant by ‘There’s something else.’ ”
    Kate’s face lit up. “It’s really exciting,” she said. “It’s about a horse. Come on, I’ll tell you all about him.”
    The look on Kate’s face told Carole that this was a very special horse, and she couldn’t wait to hear more. The two of them left the party schemers at the kitchen table and retreated to the lounge, where they could talk about something
really
important: horses.
    “It’s a stallion,” Kate began. “He’s pure white, and he’s the most beautiful horse I’ve ever seen.”
    “Really white?” Carole asked. The only true white horses were albinos and were extremely rare. All the rest were called gray horses, no matter how white they appeared, because they all had some other colors mixed in with the white.
    “A really white gray,” Kate confirmed. “But it isn’t even so much his color as his beauty.”
    Carole could visualize the horse, and she was thrilled for her friend. “When did you get him?” she asked.
    “I didn’t. That’s the problem,” Kate said. “He’s in awild herd that roams on the federal land around here. I
want
to get him. I just don’t know if I can.”
    “Isn’t there a way to buy a wild horse?” Carole asked. “I remember reading something about it.”
    Kate nodded. “You don’t buy them. You
adopt
them. It’s a program run by the Bureau of Land Management.” She pulled a booklet out of a pile on a coffee table. It was entitled
So You’d Like to Adopt a Wild Horse or Burro
. Carole flipped through it, and it sparked her memory. She had read about the Adopt-a-Horse-or-Burro program. If somebody wanted a horse, all he or she had to do was pay a small adoption fee and take good care of the horse for a year, at which time that person could own it. There were other rules, but it wasn’t much more complicated than that. The only drawbacks were that the horses were most likely completely wild, and you might not get too much choice.
    “The next adoption is coming up in another week, and I just keep thinking, what if somebody else adopts him before I do?” Kate said.
    Carole looked at her friend and smiled. “This is almost funny, you know,” she said. “You’ve been a national championship rider. You’ve been mounted on some of the finest horses in the country with bloodlines that would wow the queen of England. And now you’ve got your heart set on a no-account mustang?”
    Kate nodded. “He’s special,” she said.
    “Love at first sight?” Carole asked.
    “Definitely,” Kate said. “Just wait until you see him.”
    “How long do I have to wait? Can we go for a ride now?”
    “I thought you’d never ask,” Kate said. “Let’s get Stevie and Lisa.”
    I T TOOK THE girls a very short time to change into their riding clothes and head for the barn to saddle up their horses. Each one had chosen a favorite horse on previous visits to The Bar None, so there was no delay