Toby had adjusted the big parachute to his satisfaction, before he called this out; and it seemed to have been attached to his back by means of some device of his own. When open it resembled a large umbrella, only the ribs were made much more solid than the usual ones.
"It's lucky the ground's pretty soft down here, Toby!" called George; "because you're apt to get a swift knock when you land. Be sure and keep that tongue of yours well inside your mouth, or you might bite it off."
"Seems to me you do your share of biting, George; you've always got some ill-natured remark to make about everything I invent. Nothing venture, nothing gained, is my motto. And now I'll walk a little further out on this limb, so as to get a better chance to jump; and then watch me sail like a thistle-down!"
"Careful, there, Toby!" shouted Elmer, as the scout up in the tree started to move out further, looking very queer with that canopy over his head, and his waving arms assisting him to keep his balance.
Hardly had the scout master given this warning than what he possibly anticipated happened. There was an ominous crack, and the rotten limb started to drop earthward. So did Toby, though the parachute caught the air, and sustained his weight pretty fairly. How it would have been had he been thousands of feet up, instead of a paltry thirty-five, was a question that could not be answered.
The four boys saw the limb come crashing down, to break into fragments when it landed. Strange to say the ring-tailed animal that had accompanied the rotten limb in its sudden descent did not appear to have suffered any material damage from the drop; because it was seen to run away as soon as the termination of the unexpected aerial voyage had been reached.
As for Toby, he was certainly falling, but buoyed up by that stout material extended in the shape of a parachute, his descent was not nearly so rapid as it must otherwise have been.
He struck the ground with a resounding thump, and then fell over in a heap; though from the scrambling that ensued the others knew he could not have been hurt very much.
"How'd she go, Toby?" demanded Chatz, hurrying forward to assist the daring air navigator, if it turned out he needed any help.
"Kinder hard slap it gave me when I hit terra firma," replied the other, whose lip was bleeding a little, showing that he must have bitten it; "but all that's going to be remedied easy enough. What she needs is a little more canvas; ain't a big enough sail yet to hold me up. But whee! who'd ever expect that limb to snap off as sudden as that? See what it means to be prepared, fellows? Scouts ain't the only ones that ought to do that same; for if anybody ever needed to be ready, the air pilot does. He never knows what's going to happen to him next."
"Well," the scout master remarked, "let's hope that's plenty for you to-day, Toby. We've stood and watched you make a record drop, and you came through in pretty decent shape; but enough's as good as a feast.
The next time things mightn't turn out as nice for you; and we don't want to carry a scout with a broken leg home in our wagon to-day."
"But think of that little 'coon coming down with it all, and then running away as if he didn't have a scratch to show for it?" George observed.
"He got off sound and unhurt, did he?" asked Toby; "I'm real glad of that, 'cause I wouldn't want him to be injured. I reckon that 'coon was a mascot to me, and gave me good luck. But do we get ready to start home so early in the afternoon, Elmer?"
Before any opinion could be advanced by the scout master, Chatz broke in hastily:
"I'm going to ask you a great favor, suh," he told Elmer; "and which I hope you can grant without interfering at all with any plans you have formed."
"What's that, Chatz?" asked the other; although from the quick look he cast in the quarter where lay the haunted house, it was easy to see that he could give a pretty fair guess what it's nature would prove to be.
"Why, suh, we may never get the chance again, and I've always wanted to see what the inside of a haunted house looked like," Chatz went on to say.
"Whee!" burst from the lips of Ted; while both George and Toby pricked up their ears, and began to show considerable interest.
"You mean that while we're up here, and have half an hour or so on our hands," Elmer suggested, "we might as well take a look-in over there, and see if the rats and the owls are the only things living in the Cartaret house."
"I'd like to very much, suh, believe me, I would," Chatz continued, with one of his winning smiles that were very difficult to resist.
"What do the rest say about that?" and as Elmer made this remark he turned to the other three scouts.
"I vote in the affirmative!" Toby immediately answered.
"Thame here," purred Ted.
"Oh! of course I'll join you in anything you hatch up, fellows," George told them; "though I don't take any stock in all this nonsense about ghosts and such. If you show me one, and I can pinch his arm, and feel the bones in his hand, I might believe in the stuff; but you never can, and that's a fact. Still, I'd like to see what the inside of this old Cartaret house is like. I don't believe there's a single fellow in Hickory Ridge that can boast he's been through it. Lead the way, then, Elmer, or Chatz. We'll follow you."
That was always the way with George. He would oblige a comrade every time, but his chronic way of fault-finding, or unbelief, often took away much of the pleasure his accommodating nature might have afforded.
They had bundled the cooking utensils together, ready to be placed in the wagon when it was brought up; Toby also fastened his wonderful parachute in as small a compass as possible, and laid it down alongside the other things.
"Wouldn't want to forget to take that along home for a king's ransom,"
he stoutly declared, looking defiantly at George, because of course that individual was smiling in a fashion that smacked strongly of incredulity.
After that the whole five of them headed toward the spot where they knew the deserted house was to be found. Chatz was fairly quivering with eagerness, and there was a glow in his dark eyes that told how much he appreciated this chance to pry into the secret lodging place of a reported ghost.
Everything was overgrown, and looked very wild. Elmer remarked that if there really were such things as hobgoblins in this world, they certainly could look long and far without finding a more congenial neighborhood in which to reside; for the whole appearance of the place seemed to smack of the supernatural. The breeze actually whined as it passed through the bare branches of the untrimmed trees close to the house; and loose shutters and windows added to the creaky sounds by their rattling, every time a little gust happened to blow.
"Wow! this sure is spooky enough around here to suit me," Toby frankly admitted, as they stood there, and looked about them.
The house itself had once been quite an extensive, and perhaps costly affair, with two wings, and a spacious hall in the center. That was long ago, for now it was in the throes of dissolution, a mere wreck of its former self, and fit only for bats, owls, and rats. Doors hung on a single hinge, and shutters had been torn off long ago by gales, leaving the paneless windows gaping beyond. Moss streaked the rotten roof, and parts of the porch had given way under accumulated snow piles in previous winters.
As Toby said it certainly was gloomy enough, and one did not need to have a very vivid imagination to picture the tragic scenes that were said to have been enacted here many years ago, when the place was a regular Eden, with flower beds and outbuildings on all sides.
"Gives you the creeps, all right," admitted George.
"Now, for my part," Elmer remarked just then, "I kind of like the feeling it makes pass over you. And as few people have visited here for the last ten years, I'm glad you asked us to look around with you, Chatz. Let's go inside."
There was no trouble about finding a place of entrance, for there were plenty of the same, some originally intended for this purpose, and others the result of decay while the old mansion lay here year after year the sport of winds and storms, winter and summer.
They wandered around from room to room, viewing the wreck of what had once been a very fine house.
"Looks to me like there might be some truth in that story about the Judge making this a regular prison for his young and pretty wife," Elmer announced as his opinion, after they had been pretty well through the lower story, and were climbing the shaky stairs to the upper floor.
"Why, yes, there were actually bars across the windows in that last room!" declared Chatz; "it's just such a place as I've always had in my mind whenever I got to thinking about haunted houses. You could imagine anything might happen here. Right now, if it was midnight, we could watch and see if there was any truth in all those stories about the ghost of the Judge's young wife storming around here, going through all that terrible scene again. I'd give something to be able to learn if she does come back to visit the scenes where she was so unhappy."
"Here, you'll have uth all shaking like we had the ague, if you don't stop that thort of talk," said Ted, apprehensively, and when he thought no one was looking, rubbing the back of his hand across his eyes, as though something connected with the sad story of the old-time tragedy had brought unbidden tears there.
"Well, perhaps you may have just such a chance, Chatz," said Elmer, suddenly, as though he had made his mind up.
"Tell me how," requested the Southern boy, trying to control the eagerness that burned within his soul when he heard this said.
"You remember that we'd about made up our minds to spend the Thanksgiving holidays in camp somewhere, just to have another little outing before winter dropped down on us?" Elmer went on.
"Yes, that's right, we did," muttered Toby, who was almost as much interested in the matter as Chatz.
"And where could we find a better place for spending those few days than right here in the dense woods close to the Cartaret house? There's everything to be had that the heart of a camper might wish; and if you're a ghost hunter, why, here's a splendid field for your activities."
"Elmer, will you do that much for me?" asked Chatz, earnestly.
"Much more, if the chance ever came along, and you know it, Chatz,"
replied the scout master, warmly. "So, what do you say, shall we consider that settled, boys?"
All of them held up a hand, which meant that they voted in the affirmative.
"But," interposed the Great Objector, "we mustn't forget that there will be several other fellows of our troop along with us on that little outing; and p'raps they mightn't just fancy camping so close to a mouldy old ruin, where the owls and bats fly around nights, and lots of other unpleasant things are apt to crop up."
"Oh! we know Lil Artha, Ty Collins, and Landy Smith well enough to be able to speak for them, too," Elmer ventured; "and the chances are when they hear what we're aiming to do they'll be as wild as Chatz here to investigate."