Ghost Rider Read Free Page A

in selecting their mounts for this ride. Kate had alerted Walter, and their horses were ready for them.
    Carole greeted Berry, her strawberry roan, with a firm pat. Chocolate, Lisa’s bay mare, nuzzled her neck.
    “She remembers me!” Lisa cried, offering the horse a sugar lump.
    “Possibly, but she may also be able to smell the sugar,” Kate said wryly.
    Lisa was just pleased to see “her” horse again.
    Stevie rode a brown-and-white-patched pony whose name was Stewball. He had an offbeat look that matched his personality, which also matched Stevie’s. This horse always seemed to know exactly what he wanted to do. Normally that was a troublesome characteristicin a horse. The odd part about Stewball was that what he wanted to do always seemed to be exactly what Stevie wanted to do. It was as if the two of them were made for each other. Back in Virginia, Stevie usually rode a blue-blooded Thoroughbred named Topside. Topside was an elegant, beautifully trained horse. He was almost the opposite of Stewball. Stevie loved them both for very different reasons. She gave Stewball a great big hug when she caught him in the paddock. He pretended not to notice, but Stevie was convinced he remembered her and was at least a little bit happy to see her again.
    John was at the barn ready to help the girls saddle up their horses while his father rounded up Kate’s horse from the field. When John offered to bring Lisa her saddle, she accepted. Western saddles were much heavier and more cumbersome than the English ones they used at Pine Hollow. Lisa was glad for the help—until John showed up carrying a pony saddle!
    “Uh, John,” Kate began.
    It was then that Lisa noticed the twinkle in his eyes. “I just thought these fancy English rider types might prefer a little saddle to a real one,” he said.
    Stevie was the first one to laugh. She herself was quite a practical joker, and she always appreciated it when somebody thought up something funny to do.
    “Thanks, but we can handle the real thing,” Lisasaid. “And I guess I’m going to have to get it myself.…”
    John smiled wryly. “No problem,” he said. “I’ll get it for you.”
    “John! What’s going on?” Walter demanded, returning to the paddock with Kate’s horse, an Appaloosa named Spot.
    “We were just joking around, Walter,” Kate said. “John’s helping my friends saddle up.”
    “It doesn’t look like he’s being much help,” Walter said. His sternness surprised Stevie, Lisa, and Carole. “It looks more like he’s causing trouble.”
    “No trouble, Walter,” Kate said. “It’s just fan.”
    Walter grunted a response while he hitched Spot’s lead rope to the corral fence. Then he fetched the Appaloosa’s saddle and had him saddled up in what seemed like an instant.
    “Wow,” Carole said, admiring how quickly he’d done the job.
    “Just trying to be helpful like I’m supposed to be,” Walter said, holding Spot’s reins so Kate could mount him.
    John looked sheepishly at his father.
    Kate climbed into the saddle and thanked Walter. It took only a few more minutes for Lisa, Stevie, and Carole to mount up, too. Then Walter and Johnhelped them all adjust the cinches on the saddles, and they were off.
    It was wonderful. Stevie, Lisa, and Carole loved riding in any form, and they particularly loved the kind of riding they did at Pine Hollow. But riding at The Bar None was unique. They weren’t riding through fields and hilly woods. They were riding across Southwestern desert, passing tall cactus and scrubby bushes, around old rocky mountains, and along dusty trails. It was open, it was wild. Lisa found herself thinking that she had suddenly been dropped into an old Western movie. She could easily imagine cowboys and stagecoaches and one-street towns and half-expected John Wayne to pop up in front of her and drawl, “Howdy, pilgrim.”
    She smiled at her own thoughts and recognized that it felt great to be back at The Bar None, riding with