NEAR THE HAUNT OF THE "SPOOKS"
"WE might as well hold up here a little bit, so as to let that crowd
pass on," suggested George. "I never did take any stock in Connie Mallon
anyway. He's got a pretty bad name down around our way. My father says
he'll land in the penitentiary before he's two years older, except he
reforms, and I'd never believe he'd change his ways."
"Oh! Elmer, I wonder now, could they know about those splendid nuts, and
mean to skin the trees ahead of us?" exclaimed Toby, as though nearly
overwhelmed by a staggering thought.
"You've some reason for saying that, Toby?" Elmer told him.
"Why, don't you know, it flashed over me just like a stroke of
lightning," was what Toby went on to say, excitedly, a troubled look on
his face. "You remember that when I was talking to you over the
telephone, Elmer, and telling you about wanting to get the boys to come
up here with me Saturday, I said several times somebody was rubbering,
and once even told 'em to get off the wire, which they did, only to come
on again."
"Yes, I do remember something like that," admitted the other scout.
"Well, our telephone is on a four-party line, and one of the other
three houses is Jackson's down the street. Phil Jackson is one of the
cronies of Connie Mallon, and he's sitting there in that wagon right
now."
"Then you think he must have heard all you were telling me that man said
about the immense crop of nuts up here at the Cartaret place, and has
put the others wise to it?" Elmer asked.
"I wouldn't put it past Phil a minute!" Toby declared, with an
expression of pain, "and now it looks like we mightn't get what we came
after, unless we fight for it."
"I knew it!" muttered George; "call me a doubter all you want, but let
me tell you things ain't always what they seem. There's a string tied to
nearly everything you think you're going to get so easy. Oh! I know what
I'm talking about, and for one I'm not surprised at anything happening."
"Don't throw up the sponge so easy, George," Elmer told him. "We may
have our troubles, but scouts are supposed to be wide-awake enough to
know how to overcome any kind of difficulties that happen along. As
Sheridan said at the battle of Cedar Creek, we'll have those camps back,
or the nuts in our case, or know the reason why."
"Lithen to that kind of talk, would you?" burst out Ted, brimming over
with confidence in their leader; "why, we haven't begun to get buthy
yet. That Connie may think he'th tholen a march on our crowd, but thay,
he'll have to cut hith eye-teeth before he can beat Elmer here laying
planths."
"It may turn out to be a false alarm, after all, boys," Elmer continued,
while Toby still restrained the impatient Nancy; "but even if we get
there to find that they're on the ground ahead of us, we'll hatch up a
scheme to turn the tables on that crowd, I give you my word for it."
"That's the ticket!" Chatz exclaimed, being inclined to display an
impetuous style of talk and action, as became his hot Southern blood;
"if they've sneaked this idea from Toby by listening over the wire
they've got no business up here. I'd call it rank piracy, and treat the
lot like I would buccaneers of the Spanish Main. Why, it'd serve 'em
right if that ghost they tell about jumped out at them, and sent the lot
scampering off like crazy things."
"That's just what I had in my mind, Chatz," said Elmer, chuckling; "and
perhaps we'll find some way to coax the spook to help us out."
"Elmer's got the dandy idea, all right," said George; "you leave him
alone, and he'll sure bring home the bacon. But how much longer do we
have to stay here? I wonder if anybody's getting cold feet about now?"
"Speak for yourself, George!" cried Toby; "I'm for going on three times
as much as I was before we saw that bunch cutting in ahead of us. When
Elmer gives me the word I'll start things moving."
"You might do that now," said the leader, "but take it slow, Toby. I
want to keep an eye on the track of their wheels. If they turn off at
any fork in the road, or into the woods, we want to know it."
"Thith theems to be getting mighty interethting," observed Ted; "and I
want to thay right now that I've got tho much confidence in Elmer and
the whole of our crowd that I'd call the chances five to one we'll go
home with a full cargo thith afternoon."
"Good boy, Ted; and I second that motion!" Chatz announced, heatedly.
The mare was allowed her head, but Toby kept a tight rein, so that they
did not begin to whirl along with half the speed the other wagon had
displayed as it came out of the side road on to the main thoroughfare.
Elmer kept his gaze firmly fixed ahead, where he could plainly see the
marks of that other vehicle in the dust of the road. Thus they continued
for a short time; then the leader put out his hand, and Toby again
pulled in.
"They've left the road, and entered the woods back there twenty feet or
so," the acting scout master told them.
"On the left, wasn't it, Elmer, that they turned out?" asked Chatz,
eagerly.
"Just what it was, which shows that you were using your eyes, as a scout
should always do," came the reply. "Back up, Toby, and we'll follow
suit."
"Do you think we're at the place already?" asked Toby.
"I certainly do, though I'm some surprised that they knew where to hit
that little grass covered wagon-road that led off among the trees,"
Elmer replied. "It was once used as a way through the forest to the rear
of the Cartaret place, so I was told when I asked a man about it who
used to work for the judge long ago. They must have been busy doing some
of the same kind of missionary work, because I don't believe any of them
has ever been up here before--to stop I mean."
"Well, what if we get in where the nut trees are growing to find that
lot skinning every tree, and ready to put up a rattling fight before
they'll let us have even a look-in; what are we goin' to do about it?"
Toby wanted to know.
"First of all we'll just hang around, and watch them work," Elmer
declared.
"That's all very fine, Elmer," interposed George, who was always the
first one with any objection; "but once they cover the ground with nuts,
we'd find it a hard proposition to chase the bunch away, and lay claim
to what they'd gathered."
"But they'd be really _our_ nuts," interrupted Toby, "because didn't the
bright idea flash right into this brain of mine; and ain't first
discoverers entitled to the land always? It's the rule of the world.
They hooked the idea from me by unfair means, and ain't entitled to any
consideration at our hands. If Elmer can manage to scare them away you
watch and see how quick I'll start to filling my bag with some of the
nuts they've knocked down."
"I only want the chance to do the thame," Ted insinuated.
"Ditto here, because, as we said, they're only a pack of wolves or
pirates, and have no rights honest people are bound to respect," Chatz
added as his quota to the discussion; "after we've filled all our bags,
if there happens to be some more nuts to be had why they're welcome to
the same. Gentlemen first, every time, we believe, down our way."
"Pull up, and let's listen, Toby," Elmer counseled; "I thought I heard a
shout or two just then; and perhaps they've started to work."
When the mare had been made to stand they could all readily hear the
sounds that welled up some little distance ahead. Loud laughter and
boyish shouts attested to the fact that a party of nut gatherers must be
busily engaged in the grove; for with other sounds could be heard the
plain swish of poles beating the branches of the trees in an effort to
rattle the nuts down.
"Just our luck!" muttered George, disconsolately.
"Well, what would you have?" demanded Toby, like a flash; "it ain't
every bunch that can have a lot of fellows knock down their nuts for
'em, is it? Think of all the hard work it's going to save us. Elmer, the
more I look at that grand little scheme of yours the better I like it.
Go it, Connie, Phil and your mates; keep the ball arollin' right along.
The more the merrier, say we. And now, Elmer, do we hide our rig
somewhere around, so they won't happen on the same if they come to skip
out of that grove in a big hurry?"
"That's the idea, Toby," Elmer told him; "turn out to the left here, and
we'll like as not run across a good hide-out for the wagon. When we've
got the nuts all sacked we can come back for the outfit, and head for
home."
A short time later they found the place they were looking for. It
offered concealment for the wagon and the mare; and Toby soon had the
latter securely hitched to a limb.
"Fetch the bags along with you, boys," remarked Elmer at this stage of
the proceedings, and picking up several himself as an example.
Toby saw that the others had cleaned out the entire assortment of sacks,
which fact caused him to grin with satisfaction. He calmly secured the
rather bulky package that lay in the bottom of the wagon, and trotted
after the rest of the scouts.
They made a sort of detour in approaching the spot where all that noise
announced a busy lot of boys covering the ground with shell-barks and
other varieties of choice nuts.
"Whee! looky over there, Chatz; ain't that the house you c'n see through
the trees? I never thought I'd ever have the nerve to come up here, and
break in on the enchanted ground given over to hobgoblins and spooks and
owls ever so many years."
When George said this in a low and rather shaky tone he clutched the arm
of the Southern boy, and pointed toward the left. Of course Chatz
eagerly followed the line of his extended finger; for he had been
wishing to catch the first glimpse of the haunted house for several
minutes back.
"Yes, that's it, all right, George," he replied, with a sighing breath,
as though something he had long yearned to see was now before him.
"Come on, you fellows back there," said Elmer, who did not like to have
them lagging so; and accordingly George and Chatz hurried their steps.
It was certainly anything but a cheerful place, for a fact. The trees
were very much overgrown, and the undergrowth had year after year
increased its hold until it would have been difficult to force one's way
through this, only for wandering cows having made paths which could be
followed.
"Elmer, I c'n see 'em workin' like beavers over there!" whispered Toby,
who had forged alongside the leader, still burdened with that package
which the others believed must contain some new fangled contraption of
his connected with the science of aviation.
The five scouts gathered in a group, being careful not to expose
themselves in a way to draw attention. They could see a boy in a
chestnut tree, and plainly hear the rattle of nuts from the opened
burrs, whenever he switched the branches with the long pole he was
carrying, secured somewhere in the woods near by.
"Did you ever hear it hail nuts like that in all your born days?" gasped
George as they stood there, sheltered by the bushes and watched
operations.
"Oh! listen to him talk from the other side of his mouth, fellows?" Toby
muttered. "George has seen a big light; he ain't a doubter any longer,
you notice. He hears the rattle of the nuts, and sees 'em falling like
hail. Talk to me about beavers and busy bees, that crowd would take the
cake for business. Look at that one climbing to the very top of the
hickory tree to get the best nuts that always grow up high. There he
starts in slashing, and it's like a regular bombardment on the ground.
If they get away with all that lot I'll die of a broken heart. There
never was, and there never will be again, such a bully chance to lay in
a big winter's supply of nuts in double-quick time. And I never did like
to take other people's leavings."
"Make up your mind to it we don't have to," Elmer assured him.
"Might as well make ourselves comfy while we're about it," suggested
George, as he dropped down, and sat tailor-fashion, with his legs
doubled under him.
"Yes, for we may have to stay here quite some time," admitted Elmer,
copying his example without hesitation.
"Ain't it nice to watch other people working for you?" observed Ted,
after a while.
"Only they don't know it," added George; "but, Elmer, suppose you give
the rest of us a hint what you mean to do. I see you've been cutting the
bark off that white birch tree, and got the same in your hand. It's used
for marking canoes, and picture frames as well. Some persons even write
on the brown back of the bark, but I don't think you mean to send them a
notice from spookland, telling them that if they don't clear out
instanter the bully old ghosts will grab them tight?"
"Not the kind of message you're thinking about," replied Elmer, smiling.
"In the first place I don't know what sort of hand writing ghosts would
be apt to use; and then again, I don't believe they'd pay much attention
to that sort of thing. Watch and see if you can guess now."
With that he rolled the large strip of bark so that it looked like a
great cornucopia. So had Elmer seen Indian guides fashion a horn when
wishing to call the aggressive moose on a dark night, away up in
Northern latitudes.
"Oh! now I see what you're meaning to do!" exclaimed George; "that looks
like a regular megaphone now, the kind they use when there's a boat race
on, or at college games. You're going to throw a scare into them by
whooping it up through a horn; is that right, Elmer?"
"You've hit it to a fraction, George, because that's exactly what I'm
meaning to do with this birch bark horn. And as some of the bunch have
started to slip down the trees even now, thinking they've got enough
nuts on the ground to keep them busy picking the same up, we'll watch
until they've gathered all they want, and then you'll see some fun--that
is, it'll be fun at this end, but a serious business for them. Lie low
when I give you the signal."
They hovered there for a full hour while the four boys were gathering
the nuts, and stowing them away in sacks that had been brought for the
purpose.
At last Elmer decided that matters had gone far enough. There were
evidences that one of the boys had been sent to fetch the horses and
wagon up, in order to load the numerous bags that had been filled. So
cautioning his chums to lie low so they might not give the game away,
Elmer raised the bark horn to his lips.