The Boy Scouts with the Motion Picture Players | Page 8

makes
me sick with laughing even now when I remember how those sillies
tore off, with that pup snapping at their legs."
"I'm glad to notice," said Billy, just then, "that we can fasten both doors
to this lower room, if we feel like it. You see, they've got bolts that can
be shot into the sockets."
"Shucks!" mocked Alec, disdainfully. "What good are locks and bars
and bolts when they say a ghost can ooze itself in through a keyhole
even? But then don't get an idea in your head, Billy, we're going to be
bothered by anything except rats. That's the only kind of spooks you'll
find in such a place as this. And after we've had our supper I hope
you'll all accompany me while I take some views of the interior,
because several of the rooms are going to make dandy pictures."
So supper was cooked after their customary camp style, only in this
instance, while the scouts had a roof overhead, and stout stone walls
surrounding them, they missed the whispering of the treetops, as well
as the star-studded sky.

Afterwards they gladly helped the aspiring photographer while he made
good use of his flashlight apparatus. Alec chose certain apartments in
which he fancied his wealthy and eccentric aunt would be most
interested. He also declared himself satisfied in the end that he had
succeeded in getting some views that ought to turn out "gilt-edged."
The mansion was unfurnished, so that they had no chance of finding
sleeping quarters or beds of any kind above. Whoever now owned the
place had removed all such articles long since, possibly to prevent
tramps from finding an inducement to lodge in the deserted and lonely,
castle.
However, this was nothing serious to fellows who had camped many a
time among the rocks, where they were even debarred from having
hemlock browse for a soft mattress.
"We'll try the floor to-night, boys," said Hugh, as he started to spread
his blanket out in regulation style. "If it proves to be too hard for us,
perhaps we can put in the second night outdoors somewhere. That will
depend on the weather, for we have no tent to keep the rain or snow off,
you remember."
The others hastened to copy his example, for they were all fairly sleepy.
Billy told himself that he would very likely lie awake all nightlong,
because he felt sure something strange was bound to happen to them.
He was shrewd enough to arrange his blanket bed directly in the middle,
so that he had a pair of chums on either side of him. If the others
noticed this sign of weakness they kindly overlooked it. Perhaps, to tell
the truth about it, Monkey Stallings and Arthur Cameron were
themselves not entirely free from uneasiness, and deep down in their
hearts wished the night well over with.
Hugh happened to awaken some time afterwards, and as the flames
lazily lighted up the big room occasionally, he lay there watching them
play upon the wall. So he allowed himself to figure what strange scenes
these same rooms must have witnessed in those bygone days when the
old judge and his young prisoner wife occupied the monstrosity of an
imitation feudal castle.

When Hugh was about to turn over and compose himself to sleep, he
heard a peculiar sound that caused his heart to beat much more rapidly
than its wont. He suddenly sat up and listened again.

CHAPTER IV
SCOUTING AT MIDNIGHT
It was certainly a queer sound that floated to the strained hearing of the
boy as he crouched there on the floor of the room amidst the folds of
his blanket and listened with might and main.
There followed a brief period of silence and then he felt a thrill, for it
came again, a peculiar whimpering that would have given Billy a
spasm of fright had he been awake to catch it, instead of calmly
sleeping close by.
"What in the mischief can it be?" whispered Hugh to himself as he
allowed his hand to grope around for something he wanted, and which
he remembered placing conveniently by at the time he prepared his
crude bed.
The fire had died down again so that the big apartment on the main
floor was almost wrapped in darkness. Still, when tiny tongues of flame
played at hide-and-seek about the charred log, they caused all sorts of
odd shadows to run athwart the walls.
Hugh gave a grunt of satisfaction when his fingers closed upon the
object he sought. It was only about the size of two fingers, and
nickel-plated at that. In fact, Hugh had made himself a trifling-present
lately of a small vestpocket edition of a flashlight, controlled by a
battery, and had thought it worth