The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players | Page 2

every little noise
about sets her wild. She has taken a notion that the only salvation for
her is to find some sort of a quiet country home in which her servants
can glide around in felt slippers, with never a rooster's crow to disturb
the dead silence."
"Whew! you must mean she's a regular crank, Alec---excuse me for
saying it!" exclaimed Billy, wiping his heated brow, for when others
were shivering the fat boy perspired.
"Well, forget that part of it," resumed Alec, making a wry face. "Aunt
Susan is peculiar, and immensely wealthy, so that money needn't stand
in the way of her doing anything she fancies. In some way or other it
seems she heard about a queer place away up here in the woods. It is
known as Randall's Folly!"
"Why, seems to me I've heard something about that place!" burst out
Arthur Cameron, in a surprised tone. "Isn't it a modern castle built by a
man years ago and meant to look like some British place in the days of
Queen Elizabeth?"
"Just what it is, Arthur," chuckled Alec, as though highly amused.
"Let's see," pursued the other, uneasily, "there was some sort of story
told in connection with the castle---strikes me folks said it was haunted,
or something like that."
"Whew! and are we heading for that beautiful spot as fast as we can
hike along?" demanded Billy, his eyes round with wonder, perhaps
uneasiness.
"My aunt wrote to my mother that she wanted some one to come up
here and investigate, so she could have a full description before going
any further into the deal for the property. Not that Aunt Susan bothered
a bit about the ghost part of it, but she wanted to know whether the
building was a ramshackle affair, or part-way decent. In fact, she asked

for photographs of the place inside and out, and even requested that, if I
could be induced to take the trip, along with some of those wonderfully
bright chums of mine of whom she had been hearing such great stories,
I was to buy the best camera that fifty dollars could command, and use
the balance of the hundred for other expenses. So here we are close to
Randall's Folly, with Saturday ahead of us for business, and meaning to
go back home Sunday afternoon."
"Which lovely programme must include two nights spent under the roof
of a haunted house!" gasped Billy, still wiping his streaming forehead,
though he really should have been cooled off by this time.
"For my part," spoke up Arthur Cameron, "nothing would please me
better than the chance to say I'd run across a real ghost. I've been
reading lots of creepy stories connected with spooks, but they never
could get me to believe in such silly things."
"Same here," added the Stallings boy, though his voice sounded a trifle
unsteady as Hugh could not help noticing.
"As for me," the scout master remarked, "I considered it a fine chance
for a little excitement. I, too, had heard some stories about this gloomy
make-believe castle that had been built in the lonely woods by old
Judge Randall when he married a young wife, and wanted to carry her
away from the rest of the world. They say it's getting to be an
interesting ruin by now, though perhaps Alec's aunt might choose to
patch the crumbling walls up, if other things suited her."
"Huh! takes all sorts of freaks to make this world," grunted Billy. "The
idea of anybody actually wanting to bury themselves away up here, and
never see a thing in the way of circus, baseball, winter hockey, Boy
Scout rivalries and other good happenings. The old Judge must have
been crazy."
"Well, lots of people suspected it when he started to build this castle,"
said Alec, drily. "They felt dead sure after it happened; for hold your
breath now, fellows, because to be honest with you there was a terrible
tragedy, and after the poor young wife was buried the judge lived as

much as ten years in an asylum. He had become a maniac, you see,
from jealousy of his beautiful wife."
"I suppose it's all right, since there are four other fellows along," Billy
finally went on to say, "but honest Injun, if I had known all this at the
start, I don't believe I would have been so anxious to come. I expect
that old toothache of mine would have cropped up and kept me home."
"The walking is good down to the station, Billy," murmured Alec, "and
we were told that a freight-train would come along around dark this
evening, bound south, which was due to stop at the water-tank"
"That'll be enough for you, Alec," continued the fat boy, with a certain