Haunted Cabin Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner Page A

all the lights inside the barn. Whoever tried to come in there would be covered with light from both inside and out of the barn.
    Henry was to stand just inside the chicken yard fence. He got that job because he was the biggest and the fastest runner. He would leave the gate open a little bit so that he could get out and start running fast. He would race across the yard and slam the barn door and lock the prowler inside. That way he couldn’t run away before they caught him. Everything had to work perfectly.
    That was the longest day ever. When dinnertime finally came, nobody was even hungry. “You kids must be excited to see your grandfather,” Cap said when Benny turned down a second helping of spaghetti.
    Finally, it felt strange to be in bed fully dressed except for their shoes. They hardly breathed waiting for Henry to decide it was time to go out and take their places.
    â€œIt’s so noisy tonight,” Benny whispered.
    â€œIt sounds that way because we’re being so quiet,” Jessie told him. But it was noisy. The frogs croaked. Off in the woods, the screech owl gave its trembling eerie call, sending a shiver up everyone’s spine.
    Henry watched the moon climb up the overcast sky. Mostly it was only behind the clouds. Once in a while, it broke free and flooded the wet barn and the yard around it with a silvery light.
    Jessie was watching, too. “Look how plainly you can see everything in that light.”
    Henry nodded. “We should go as soon as the moon gets hidden behind that big bank of clouds.”
    The minute the moon slid under the clouds, Violet and Jessie went outside. They stood in the shadows of the cabin only a minute before making a dash for the barn door which Henry had left open for them.
    â€œIs your heart beating like everything?” Violet asked Jessie when they were safe inside the barn and Jessie was starting up into the loft.
    Jessie nodded. “I don’t like to think I’m afraid, but my skin feels creepy, too.”
    â€œI’m scared and I know it,” Violet told her.
    Jessie felt her way carefully up the wooden ladder into the loft. With the flashlight in her hand, she crept through the dark to the high window.
    When Violet let herself inside the stall where Pilot stood, the big horse stamped his foot, then whinnied softly. After she had located the light switch, Violet stroked Pilot’s long warm head.

    Back on the porch, Henry and Benny watched the girls make their shadowy run across the open yard. “Now it’s my turn,” Henry told Benny. “Whatever you do, don’t get sleepy.”
    â€œI’m already sleepy,” Benny told him, “but that doesn’t mean I’ll go to sleep. I’ve even practiced pinching myself to stay awake.”
    When the moon disappeared again, Henry made his way to the chicken yard and stood by the tall post just inside the gate.
    The moon continued to rise in the sky as the time passed. Henry worried about Benny, back on the porch, pinching himself to stay awake. He even worried that the prowlers might not come at all.
    He leaned against the fence post and sighed. This wasn’t the first mystery they had been involved in, but it was the most puzzling. Even if he hadn’t liked Cap Lambert as much as he did, it was terrible for someone to be scaring an old man. The plan had to work.
    Suddenly something caught his eye. Something or someone smaller than a man, all dressed in dark clothing, was creeping around the side of the barn, moving awkwardly.
    He drew in his breath and held it. How strangely the creature walked, unevenly, as if it were dragging something heavy at its side. Then the dark creature melted into the shadow of the barn, and Henry let his breath out slowly.
    In a minute it would be inside the barn. In a minute he would see Jessie’s signal from the barn loft. He had to be ready to run faster then he had ever run in his whole life.

CHAPTER 11
    The