CHAPTER II

A SCHEME THAT WENT WRONG

For a brief interval after Nat had so triumphantly announced his grand scheme for frightening Old Deacon Nocker the other boys were still. Apparently, every one was digesting the idea, and coming to some sort of a mental decision. Dan Fenwick was the first to voice his views.

“It strikes me as a cracking good prank, Nat!” he exclaimed, “and I’m voting to help you carry the same out.”

“Count me in for one of your old sheets, Nat!” cried Peg, enthusiastically.

“Dick, what do you say?” asked Leslie Capes, a little anxiously, as though he rather hoped the other would veto the whole business by declaring it was too silly, or too full of danger.

If this was Leslie’s expectation, he was doomed to disappointment, for Dick immediately came out with a full endorsement of Nat’s proposal.

“I go you, Nat,” he said, presently; “the scheme is worth trying out. Of course, if any fellow chooses to stand back and miss the fun, he’s at liberty to do it; but I’ll borrow one of your old sheets; and I’ll do my level best to throw my voice so as to make it sound like it came up from the grave.”

“Then we’re all in on the game, if you say so, Dick,” declared Andy Hale.

“Ditto here!” echoed Elmer, feeling that the die was now cast; and no one had ever called him a quitter.

“How about you, Leslie?” asked Nat, sneeringly, for he had noticed that the other seemed uneasy when the great scheme was first broached.

“Who, me?” replied the Capes boy, scornfully. “Did any one ever know me to back down when my chums were in for a lark? I speak for another of the sheets, Nat.”

“There, the clock struck the half hour,” interrupted Dick, “and if we want to be on deck at exactly midnight, we’d better get a hustle on.”

“Come along fellows, we’ll chase out along the road here to the Brandon place, and climb the fence there. Say, I prowled around today and got my bearings all right.”

It was not a great distance to the vacant Brandon place, and the seven mischief-loving boys scrambled over the old fence with the greatest of ease. Nat did not seem really to need any lantern to show him the way, so well had he stamped the lay of the grounds on his memory.

Arriving at the dividing fence he showed the others where he had taken pains to pull off some boards, allowing a free passage to the adjoining grounds of the rich old storekeeper, who seemed to have such a poor opinion of all boys after his complete failure to bring his own son up by strict methods.

“Look there, I can see lights in his house!” whispered Elmer.

“Oh! that’s nothing unusual!” declared Dick; “they say the old man is awake all hours of the night, making up his accounts and reading. He puts on a bold front, but I reckon when he heard that his boy died away out West it hit him harder than he’ll ever own up.”

“Still he’s as hard as nails,” grunted Dan. “My folks say he had a letter from the girl his son Amos married, telling him that she and her little boy were awful poor; and the old skinflint had the nerve to get Lawyer Bodgkin here to write that if she sent the kid on he’d agree to stand for his education, but that he’d never set eyes on the woman who’d married Amos, thinking she’d fall into all the old man’s money.”

“But she never did send the child, you notice,” said Leslie. “Which proves that she cared more for him than Old Jed’s miser gold.”

“Stop jabbering there, you fellers,” muttered Nat, with a touch of his ordinary bullying authority, for he was used to lording it over Dit Hennesy and several other boys.

“Yes,” Dick went on to say, “let’s creep up close to the house, and find out if we can get in through some window he’s forgotten to fasten. Quiet now, everybody.”

They wriggled their way through the new leafless undergrowth with considerable skill, and soon reached the side of the large building. Then a hasty search was made, which resulted in the discovery that one window fastening had been overlooked by Old Jed when going his rounds earlier in the evening.

Dick soon had the window raised without making any noise. Perhaps the hearts of several of those boys beat faster than customary as they crawled in through the aperture. They knew they were doing something that bordered on the lawless, for to break in and enter a house, even in pursuit of Hallowe’en fun, was an act that no court would sanction or forgive, no matter how lenient the judge might be.

What made it seem more realistic was the fact that Nat had come prepared to show them the way, for he carried a small electric flashlight, which, by constantly keeping in action, he could use to advantage.

“Whee! this makes me feel queer,” whispered Andy in the ear of Elmer, as they started to pick their way across the room, avoiding such obstacles as chairs and tables.

“Wonder if this is the way a burglar always feels,” the other answered, in such a low tone that it could not have been heard three feet away.

Dick turned on them, and shook his head as if to intimate that even such communications were out of order. Then he started to get his sheet fixed, Nat having previously torn places in each covering so that they could be used for peep holes.

By the time four of them had rigged themselves out in these ridiculous costumes, the parlor of Deacon Nocker’s big house looked as though it might be the assembling place for the whole ghost tribe.

After glancing about to make sure all was ready, Nat gave Dick the signal agreed upon. From that time forward he wanted Dick to take the lead, since it was up to the other to do what speaking was required.

They could see that there was a light in the library, for a line under the connecting door betrayed this fact. The window being open, every one plainly heard the not far-distant town clock begin to strike the witching hour of midnight.

Hardly had the last solemn clang died away when a deep groan arose, Dick being the one to start the ball rolling. He waited to ascertain what the effect might be before repeating the performance.

Evidently, Deacon Nocker had heard the groan, for they caught the sound of his chair falling over in his haste to jump to his feet. The question now was whether he would be afraid to look in on them as they hoped. But all doubt on that score was quickly dissipated, for the old man suddenly threw the door wide open, and then started back at sight of what he saw beyond.

The four who were covered with the sheets all pointed straight at the owner of the house, just as they had read supposed-to-be ghosts always