ully painted to resemble the more lasting
material.

"Whew! it has about forty rooms all told, I should say," observed
the steaming Billy after they 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 y