"What's the next stunt, Hugh?" asked Alec, his voice more or less betraying the eagerness and concern he felt.

"Oh, from what I can gather," answered the scout master, smilingly, "it runs about like this: The forces headed by the hero knight have carried the outer works of the fortress castle in which the villain has the fair heroine shut up in that turret room. The invaders, having made a breach in the walls and swarmed over in various places, will now pursue the few desperate defenders of the castle through this pa.s.sage; and that, with many a desperate hand-to-hand fight. Always the knight in armor is seen hewing his way steadily through all opposition, with one object in view. Of course this is to meet the scoundrel, and finish him, which he eventually does after a dreadful sword fight."

"Whew!" gasped Billy, listening with round eyes to the stirring story.

Alec, too, was deeply interested, but his professional instinct caused him to remark:

"They'll have to burn heaps and heaps of flashlight powder to get all those inside effects. Wish they'd let me see just how they manage it, but it would be apt to queer the value of the picture to have, a modern Boy Scout appear in it. If I get a good chance, though, I've a notion to ask Mr. Jefferson."

"You'll never be able to make it, Alec," Hugh told him. "He's the busiest man on earth. He has to be thinking of fifty things at once."

"Go on, Hugh, and tell us the rest," urged Billy, pawing at the sleeve of the other, which action he doubtless meant to be an urgent second to his appeal.

"Every once in a while there will be glimpses shown of Rebecca in her dungeon, looking out of the little opening, and carrying on as if nearly frightened to death, for gusts of smoke will be circling around her, and she is supposed to know that the fire is getting closer all the time."

"Wow, that must make it a thriller for fair!" exclaimed Monkey Stallings, who was known to love exciting stories, though his watchful mother kept a tight rein on his propensity to indulge along those lines, and censored all books he brought into the house before allowing him to devour them.

"Of course," remarked Alec, flippantly. "It goes without saying that eventually knight in shining armor, Ivanhoe, or whoever he may be, gets to the locked door of the turret tower room, bursts his way through, and saves the lovely maiden, like they always do in stories of those olden times. But here's hoping the fire doesn't get out of control, and set in to destroy the best part of this wonderful castle. Such things have been known to happen, I've read."

"Gosh!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Billy with morse than his accustomed vigor, "you're only thinking of the humbug old castle, Alec, and what chance there would be for your rich aunt to buy the same if half burned down.

Guess you forget the poor girl shut up in that lonesome turret room; what d'ye suppose would become of _her_ if the fire got beyond control?"

"And not a ladder in sight, either," added Monkey Stallings, dismally, as he swept his eyes around in a nervous way. "As for a fire company, there isn't one closer than Danbury, which is all of ten miles away.

Whew! I'm beginning to wish the whole business was over with, boys, and the troupe jogging along back to the town they came from in all those big automobiles."

Hugh made no remark just then, but perhaps this suggestion of possible trouble cause him a little concern. He could be seen looking gravely toward the immense pile of real and imitation stone as though mentally figuring what it might be possible to do in a sudden emergency.

As numerous events in the past had proved, Hugh Hardin was always a great hand for mapping out things beforehand. He believed in the principle of preparing for war in times of peace, so as not to be taken unawares.

"A man insures his home," Hugh often said in explanation of this habit, "when everything seems lovely and safe, not when the fire is raging, and his property going up in flame and smoke."

The stage manager had determined that there was no need of repeating the last wild scene where the castle was taken, and a tottering wall fell unexpectedly in the midst of the furious struggle. Let it stand, he had determined, accident and all. It appeared to be almost perfect "copy," and would show up as a faithful portrayal of the stupendous perils attending the efforts of his company in enacting just one phase of a romantic drama of the days of chivalry.

"I notice that they are meaning to use two machines and a couple or camera men, so as to get all the excitement down pat," ventured Alec, presently, as they stood and watched the hurrying people of the play in their remarkable attire suggestive of those feudal days of old.

"One is to be kept busy outside," explained Hugh, "while the other takes pictures of the fighting going on through the corridors and apartments of the castle, while the knight and his valorous retainers are battling their way closer and closer to the place where the captive 'maiden' is held fast behind the locked door. I got all that stuff straight from Mr. Jefferson, and those are his own words, so don't laugh."

"Huh! it's too serious a business to do much laughing," grunted Billy.

"I'm just itching all over to see how it comes out. There, that must have been the signal to start. I can see some of the men beginning to make an awful smoke with the apparatus they're handling. What a good imitation of the real thing it is!"

"Whoopee! listen to the big swords clashing inside the castle, will you?" cried Monkey Stallings. "Say, we're missing great stunts, believe me, in having to stay out here. I've got half a notion-----"

However, Monkey did not finish the sentence, whatever rash notion was flitting through his active mind. Possibly he had indulged in a wild dream that for one of his climbing abilities it might prove feasible to reach a window above, and by thrusting his head through the aperture see something of the wonderful things going on in the pa.s.sages where the crowd was thronging.

It was the fact of Hugh looking meaningly at him that caused Monkey to stop in the midst of his sentence, for he saw by the expression on the face of the scout master that Hugh would not permit any meddling.

The enormous expense and labor attending the taking of that picture must not be wasted through any injudicious act on the part of himself or one of his chums.

As the minutes pa.s.sed the confusion became almost a riot, so it seemed to Billy. The shouts of the fighting men grew hoa.r.s.e with constant repet.i.tions, for naturally they had to give vent to their emotions, or else much of their efforts would have lacked in the genuine feeling.

How those swords did whack and beat upon each other as slowly but surely the defenders of the castle were being cut down one by one!

It was terribly realistic, too, with the vast volumes of smoke rising up in billows, and here and there what seemed to be a red tongue of fire shooting through the appalling waves of black vapor.

Presently, as the boys understood, matters would reach a climax. This was when the hero knight attained the goal for which he was striving so valiantly.

Then he would be seen attacking the fastened door furiously, while inside and out that ominous smoke curled in wreaths about him. In the end, just when it seemed as though all would be lost, of course, the knight must batter his way in through the broken door, and the dashing rescue would be complete.

Hugh was beginning to feel nervous, and with a reason. While his chums' were wholly wrapped up in observing the numerous exciting incidents that fell under their observation, and connected with the work of the laboring players, the scout master had made a sudden discovery that worried him.

It was a very small matter, and would never have been noticed by any one whose training had not been that of a scout, accustomed to observing everything happening around him. But small matters may become _deciding_ factors.

The wind had shifted all of a sudden, and besides coming from a new quarter was rapidly growing in violence. Hugh knew this from the way the smoke had turned and was now sweeping toward the southeast. This fact, while trifling in itself, might, as he well knew, a.s.sume a terrible significance when it was remembered that a dozen industrious supers were playing with fire, and causing it to appear that the whole wing of the castle were enveloped in flames, real or make-believe.

Hugh had eyes for nothing else after making that thrilling discovery.

He watched with his nerves on edge, and at the same time began to think within that active brain of his what his plan of campaign must be should the worst that he feared come to pa.s.s.

Those hoa.r.s.e shouts of the combatants, the clang of steel smiting steel, the roar of the manager's voice through his big megaphone, the shrieks of the women connected with the troupe, induced by the real excitement of the occasion---all these sounds fell upon deaf ears as Hugh gripped his chum Arthur by the arm and called his attention to the impending peril, becoming greater with every second.

"The wind, don't you see it's whipped around, and is coming from a new quarter?" was the tenor of what he called in the other's ear.

"If that fire gets away from those supers it's going to give them a heap of trouble! Yes, it will chase those fighters out of the pa.s.sages in a hurry, and I'm afraid it'll even cut off the poor girl who is supposed to be locked in that turret room."

"Hugh, look! look!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Arthur, in sudden excitement; "Just as you said, I do believe the fire has got beyond their control already.

Listen to the way everybody is whooping it up now. It's real fright that we hear, and no make-believe!"

CHAPTER XIII

WELL DONE, SCOUTS!

Hugh was glad that he had foreseen just such an emergency as the one that now confronted the motion-picture players. It afforded him a chance to get busy without wasting any precious time in laying out plans.

The men who had been inside the building began to come rushing out, some dragging comrades who may have temporarily found themselves unable to walk, owing to the fatigue influenced by their recent terrific efforts, and also the weight of the armor which they were wearing.

Everybody looked alarmed and distressed, and with reason, for it was now seen that the wing where the girl was shut up in that turret room was enveloped in real flames, which, whipped by the rising wind, threatened to consume the whole structure in so far as it consisted of wood made to resemble genuine stone.

The director was again shouting hoa.r.s.ely through his megaphone, but he was now up against a situation that none of them had foreseen, so that consequently no preparations had been made toward meeting it.

Men ran this way and that as though they had temporarily taken leave of their senses. Women could be seen wringing their hands, and shrieking wildly.

Although the outside camera man undoubtedly realized that this was anything but a sham now, he never once ceased grinding away at his machine. Long experience in these lines had convinced him of the great value of a stirring scene like this; and besides, his services were hardly needed in the work of saving the one whose life seemed to be in deadly peril.

"We must do something, and right away at that!" called Hugh. "Come along with me, every one, I've got a scheme that may be made to work."

They followed close at his heels. Evidently it did not enter into the head of the scout master to think, of applying for permission from the stage manager before starting to try out his suddenly formed plan. Hugh realized very well that this was an occasion where that energetic gentleman would be at a loss what to tell him. Besides, a wideawake scout, accustomed to doing his own thinking, should be better equipped to manage such an affair as this than a man whose talents ran in quite another direction.

The first thing Hugh sought to get hold of was a long and stout rope which he had noticed lying on the ground near by, together with numerous other things which the company had thought to fetch along with them, having an eye to possible need.

"Lay hold of that ax, Alec!" he told the other, who had managed to leave his beloved camera back of a tree, under the impression that it would hinder him in the execution of the work Hugh had laid out for himself and churns to perform.