"Wow, did you ever see the like of that now!" cried Lil Artha.
"What were they, Elmer?" asked Chatz, who had really been too startled to think fairly.
"Bats!" replied the scout leader, promptly.
"I supposed as much," declared Chatz, "and as you remarked just now, they always seem to like a building said to be haunted."
"Well," remarked the tall boy, "sometimes I've had the fellows hint to me that I had bats in my belfry; but sure not that many. Why, I reckon there must have been well-nigh a thousand in that gay bunch, Elmer."
"I guess there were, more or less," replied the other.
"And now what?" asked Chatz.
"Let's look further here before we go into the house itself," the scout master made reply.
So they went from one end of the deserted mill to the other, peering into every place where it seemed there might be the slightest hope of discovering their missing comrade.
Elmer even entered a small room off the main floor, and which had possibly been used as an office when the grist-mill was in business.