Ghost Beyond the Gate
“You think!”

“Well, I’m pretty sure,” Penny amended. “Salt’s station is up there on top of one of those hills. If this snow would stop we should be able to see the tower from here.”

Slightly reassured, Louise followed her chum across a wooden bridge and up a narrow, winding road. On either side of the frozen ditches, tall frosted evergreens provided friendly protection from the stabbing, icy wind. Nevertheless, walking was not easy for the roadbed bore a shell of treacherous ice.

Confident that they soon would come to the airplane listening post, the girls trudged on. Penny, anxious to make the most of the remaining daylight, set a stiff pace.

“Shouldn’t we be coming to the station?” Louise presently asked. “Surely we’ve gone more than a half mile.”

“The post is a little ways off from the road,” Penny confessed, peering anxiously at the unbroken line of evergreens. “We should be able to see it.”

“In this blinding snow? Why, we may have passed the station without knowing it.”

“Well, I don’t think so.”

“You’re not one bit sure, Penny Parker!” Louise accused. “We were crazy to start off without being certain of the post’s location.”

“We always can go back to the car.”

“I’m nearly frozen now,” Louise complained, slapping her mittens together. “There’s no feeling in one of my hands.”

Penny paused to wipe the moisture from her goggles. From far down the road came the sound of a laboring motor. She listened hopefully.

“A car, Lou!” she cried. “Everything will be all right now! We’ll hail it and ask the driver for a lift.”

Greatly encouraged, the girls waited for the approaching vehicle. They could hear it climbing a steep knoll, then descending. From the sound of the engine they decided that it must be a truck and that it might round the curve at a fast speed.

Worried lest the driver fail to see them, the girls stepped out into the middle of the road. As the truck swerved around the bend, they shouted and waved their arms.

The startled driver slammed on brakes, causing the big black truck to slide like a sled. Penny and Louise leaped aside, barely 
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