"If you've got an idea hurry and tell us what it is!" urged the impatient Alec. "I'll be hanged if I can grapple anything, it's given me such a bad shock."

"Go on, Billy!" added Arthur.

"Why," explained the fat scout, "you see, I was thinking that p'r'aps those tramps we scared off had come back with a big bunch of their kind, meaning to take possession of the castle. Now, you needn't all jump on me and say that's silly, because I happen to know those hoboes often gather in regular armies about this time of year, heading for the cities. Hugh, it isn't such a bad idea, after all, is it?"

"Since none of us seem able to think of any other explanation," the scout master told him, rea.s.suringly, "it will have to stand until we can strike on a better. It seems to me the sooner we hike over that way the quicker we'll learn the real facts."

"True enough, Hugh," a.s.sented Alec, readily, while the others showed by their actions that they were perfectly willing to make the start.

Their preparations for leaving their camp were few and simple. What food they had left was thrust up in the crotch of a big tree, so that it might not be carried off by any wandering wild animal, though they had no reason to believe there was anything larger than a 'c.o.o.n' or a 'possum' around that region. The blankets and a few other things of value were also placed in safety, while Alec again tested the supports of his "clothes line" on which those precious films were strung to dry.

"I hate to leave them," he told the others, mournfully, "but now that they're wet and sticky they can't be packed away. I almost wish I hadn't been in such a hurry to develop them."

He stared at Billy as though almost tempted to beg that worthy to stay behind and protect the films by his presence, which Billy absolutely refused to do, rightly interpreting the look.

"Not on your life, Alec, much as I would like to oblige you!" a.s.serted the fat scout, positively. "I want company when there's all sorts of strange things happening around. You don't catch me sticking to this camp by my lonely. Stay back yourself if somebody has just got to hold the fort. My duty lies in the front rank. History tells that the Worths were always found in the van when danger loomed up. Sorry not to oblige you, Alec, but it's simply impossible. William Worth will sink or swim with his comrades."

As Alec could not think of staying back when the rest were bent on learning the secret of all that terrible clamor of human voices raised in angry shouts and whoops, he took his place alongside Hugh, and they all started forth.

"One thing sure, to begin with," remarked Hugh, after they had left the camp behind them, "we're a unit in saying that racket came from where we happen to know the old castle lies."

"Oh! that's an easy nut to crack!" declared Monkey Stallings. "The sounds came right down the wind, and any one can see it's blowing softly straight from the haunted mansion."

"We might guess that the ghosts were having a hop all by themselves,"

ventured Billy, "only you know they say spirits never show themselves in the daytime. Anyway, those whoops were more like wild Injuns on the warpath than just spooks."

"Well, as we don't happen to have any Indians left in this region nowadays," added Hugh, drily, "we can put that explanation down as impossible. But we'll know more about it before three minutes more have pa.s.sed, because, unless I miss my guess, we can glimpse the castle when we strike that rock yonder. I remember taking a look back as we came along, so as to impress distances and direction on my mind, and could see the whole structure looming up."

"Whee! listen again, will you?" exclaimed Billy, aghast.

The strange noise had again broken out. They could hear many husky voices shouting in unison, and, besides, there were other odd sounds such as might be made by a small army of desperate a.s.sailants beating wildly against that stout door of the lonely castle.

No wonder the five boys stared at one another, with vacant looks on their several faces. It would have puzzled smarter people than they pretended to be to a.n.a.lyze such a remarkable jumble of noises as their ears now caught.

Hugh would not let them stop for a second. Indeed, if anything, he hurried them along faster than ever, as though fully determined to have the mystery cleared up without further loss of time. If Billy's footsteps were inclined to make him linger behind his mates he bestirred himself to a.s.sume a faster gait, for at such a critical moment the fat scout did not wish to find himself left in the lurch.

The horrid din continued as they hurried forward. If anything it grew more and more maddening, causing the boys to shiver with mingled impatience and alarm.

Now they were close on the rock mentioned by Hugh. In another ten seconds they would be able to at least see the walls of the grim castle in the near distance. Billy wondered whether, after all, they might not discover that there was not the slightest sign of a living human being in sight. He was rapidly coming to believe there might be something ghostly about these sounds. Billy was just then in a fit condition to believe anything, no matter how absurd, for his poor heart was fluttering in his manly bosom just as you have doubtless felt the tiny organ of a bird throb when you held the frightened thing in your hand.

They all kept in a bunch, and thus arrived at the rock at the same time. Every scout came to a sudden stop. Their eyes, dilated with amazement, were turned toward the region where those sounds still welled forth, shouts and blows and shrieks making a conglomeration that was simply appalling. So stunned were Hugh and his mates that for a brief time their tongues clove to the roofs of their mouths.

CHAPTER VIII

AS IN THE DAYS OF CHIVALRY

"W-what's it all mean, Hugh?" Billy was gasping, as he stood there with quaking knees, and just stared and stared.

Indeed, for the moment Hugh could not have answered him, he was himself so busily engaged in looking. There was good and sufficient reason for the eyes of every one being glued on the remarkable sight taking place before them, for surely such an amazing spectacle had never before been witnessed in America, nor indeed for some hundreds of years even in the old country.

The castle was no longer given over to the owls and bats and rats. It now seemed to be fairly swarming with moving figures, and such figures!

Hugh blinked, and took a second look before he could actually believe his eyes.

Why, there were horses clad in all the panoply of the fourteenth century, on the backs of which sat knights in shining armor, with long lances, and great two-handed swords for their weapons, and waving plumes dangling from their helmets. Men with bare legs and all manner of weird apparel were attacking the castle, using clubs, rocks, and queer arrangements for casting missiles; some of them were climbing short scaling ladders only to be rudely hurled down again by some of the valiant defenders who manned the top of the walls.

The drawbridge had been raised, and the portcullis protected the door, but the gallant a.s.sailants had apparently thrown a bridge hastily constructed across the moat, and they were certainly as busy as a hive of bees that had struck a mine of sugar.

It was a wonderful scene, and the five scouts could hardly be blamed for thinking they must be dreaming, everything was so unreal, so like a page torn from history in the times of the Crusaders.

Perhaps one or more of them began to believe that a host of spirits belonging to ancient worthies, long since dead, while pa.s.sing by had recognized in the make-believe castle such a wonderful copy of something they had known in life that they were tempted to stop and play their parts again with all this gusto and confusion.

If this were the case, however, Hugh quickly disillusioned the rest of the group. His quick eye had found an explanation for all this remarkable happening.

"Well, I declare, who would ever have believed it?" they heard him saying, for again the riot was beginning to die out, men were brushing themselves off, while a few others, less fortunate than their companions, were being pulled out of the moat surrounding the castle, which evidently held some water, for they appeared to be dripping wet, though taking it all in good part.

"What have you guessed, Hugh?" demanded Arthur, knowing from the manner of the scout master that he had apparently solved the mystery.

Hugh was laughing now. The strained look had pa.s.sed from his young face. It seemed to him like a jump from the sublime to the ridiculous.

"If you fellows will look over to one side to where that man was turning the handle of some sort of box just as if he might be an organ grinder, you'll guess what it all means," Hugh told them, pointing as he spoke.

Cries of wonder and comprehension immediately arose from Alec and Arthur, though even then Billy and Stallings did not seem to fully grasp the facts.

"Motion-picture actors at work!" exclaimed Alec.

"Oh! did you ever hear of such a thing?" gurgled Billy, at the same time beginning to lose the haunted look on his face.

"Sure thing!" added Arthur, grinning now. "That chap is the camera man---what is it they call it, a cinematoscope or something that way.

He's been grinding like mad while all that battle on the walls was taking place. And I can see him laughing from here, as if that last sc.r.a.p pleased him a whole lot."

"Well, if that don't beat everything!" said Monkey Stallings, in mingled awe and delight. "To think of a company finding out about that queer old imitation castle, and coming all the way up here so as to stage one of their Shakespeare plays around it!"

"And look at all the actors they've gone and fetched along with them, will you?" Billy went on to say. "Why, there must be scores of men and women there, all dressed in fancy costumes. Gee! it must cost _rafts_ of money to stage just one of those dramas."

"Oh!" said Hugh; "expense doesn't seem to enter into their calculations when they think they've got something that will go. A thousand people have been used in, one play, I've read, and as much as two hundred thousand dollars spent on it!"

"Say, here's our same old luck come along again, fellows!" declared Arthur, as though it gave him a tremendous amount of satisfaction to realize it. "I've always had a sort of hankering after a chance to learn just how these queer people managed when staging one of their plays, and as sure as you live we're in a fair way to find out now."

"Was there ever anything so strange as our being up here just at the time they came to play their game?" demanded Monkey Stallings. "Why, it begins to look as if they must have engaged the old castle especially to cast their play here, and make it seem the real stuff, don't you think so, Hugh?"

"That's not so very remarkable, after all," ventured Hugh, as all of them continued to stare at the many moving figures, apparently resting for the next stage in the exciting drama that was being reeled off. "I understand that all those big companies have spies out everywhere about the country."

"Spies!" echoed Billy; "and what for, Hugh, when we're not at war with anybody?"

"There's a tremendous amount of compet.i.tion afloat between the numerous companies," explained the other. "They are looking for all sorts of queer settings for their plays. Houses have to be burned down, bridges blown up, railroad trains ditched, and all manner of stunts pulled off to satisfy the public greed for thrilling spectacles."