had wearied of wandering about the strange place, and came back to the apartment where their blankets and packs had been deposited.

"Wonder how Aunt Susan will like the blooming old shack?" Alec was heard to say as though some doubt had already commenced to enter his mind.

"You, said, she wanted it quiet, you know, Alec," observed Hugh. "I defy any one to find a place that fills that bill better than this one. Why, not even the peep of a bird can be heard; it's just a brooding silence that would get on the nerves of most people and make them shout out loud."

"Let's hope it stays that way while we're up here," said Billy, and then noticing that some of the other fellows were smiling broadly he hastened to add: "Oh! it isn't that I really expect anything like a ghost to walk when it comes midnight, you understand, but I don't always sleep as sound as I would like, and I hate to have anything screechy wake me up. So, Monkey, please keep that goose-call of yours in your pocket the rest of the time."

"Perhaps, we had better get ourselves comfortably fixed before night finds us," suggested Hugh. "We can make a blaze in that fireplace and cook supper here as nice as any one would want. It's going to turn out a novel experience for the lot of us."

"You bet it, will," asserted Monkey Stallings stoutly. "I always did think I'd like to spend just one night in a house they said was haunted. To tell you the honest-truth I'm real glad you asked me to come along, Alec, even if there does seem to be a queer feeling running up and down my backbone. I never knew the like before save that time I was dared to walk through the graveyard at midnight, and some fellows tried to scare me with their old sheets. Huh! I had made sure to carry Tige, my bulldog, hid under my coat, and I just let him loose. It 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 while to carry it along with him on this expedition, though not saying anything about it to the others, thus far.

"I'm bound to find out what makes that noise, as sure as anything can be," was what the boy was telling himself resolutely, even while he crept out from among the folds of the warm blanket endeared to him by reason of many associations of the past, of which so much has been written in previous volumes.

That was just like Hugh Hardin. A good many boys would possibly have concluded that going wandering about a great imitation castle like Randall's Folly, after midnight, trying to discover the origin of strange sounds, was no business of theirs, and would have cuddled down closer, even drawing their blanket over their heads in order that they might not hear a repetition of the noise.

Hugh was built on a different order. He knew full well that sleep with him was entirely out of the question so long as that chilling whimpering and rustling continued at regular intervals.

Now Hugh was only a boy, it must be remembered, and many a strong man would have declined committing himself in the way the scout master intended doing.

He had listened to all the talk about ghosts carried on by the other fellows, with more or less interest