tes
to be evicted in case your rich aunt, or anybody else, buys the same!"

"Come off, Hugh; don't try to muddle me all up like that, when I'm
dying to know what could make such awful sounds. What kind of a family
is it?"

"Owls, with a few big bats thrown in for good measure," explained Hugh.
"They've taken up their quarters in one of the turret chambers where
slits in the walls allow them to go and come as they please."

"You woke up and heard that gibberish, didn't you, Hugh? And you
made up your mind on the spot that you just had to find out what it
meant? It's like you to do such a thing! But, Hugh, why didn't you
let me in on it? I'd have been glad to keep you company, sure I would."

"I knew that, Alec," apologized the other, yawning as he began to
creep under his blanket again, "but all of you seemed to be sound
asleep, and I hated to wake anybody up. Besides---well, I just felt
like going it alone, you see."

"Of all the nerve, you've got it to beat the band," commented Alec.
"I thought I could stand for a good deal, but let me tell you I draw
the line at creeping upstairs in this spooky old castle, and
investigating such a fierce noise as that. Listen, will you, they're
at it again, Hugh? Why, if Billy woke up and heard that he'd throw
a fit."

"Then we want to quit talking and not wake him," cautioned the scout
master, as he gathered the folds of his covering about him, much as
a soldier of olden times might wrap his martial cloak around his body
while settling down calmly to sleep on the battlefield.

Alec was chuckling as though something amused him.

"Tell you what," he presently whispered, as a last thought, "if my
Aunt Susan is as dead set for silence as she says, those noisy owls
are going to vacate their snug quarters up there in a hurry. I
honestly believe, Hugh, this lonely old curiosity of a castle is going
to please my queer relative a whole lot. The chances are she'll plank
down the money to buy Randall's Folly when she gets my report,
accompanied by the pictures I'm taking. Well, here goes for another
nap, hoping the Owl family will settle down and not disturb us again
to-night."

CHAPTER V

A STARTLING SURPRISE

"Hello! Is it safe to come out; and is the coast clear of ghosts?"

That was Billy addressing Hugh on the following morning, the scout
master, as well as Alec Sands and Arthur Cameron, being up and around.
They looked at Billy poking his head out from a