They made a sort of detour in approaching the spot where all that noise announced a busy lot of boys covering the ground with shell-barks and other varieties of choice nuts.
"Whee! looky over there, Chatz; ain't that the house you c'n see through the trees? I never thought I'd ever have the nerve to come up here, and break in on the enchanted ground given over to hobgoblins and spooks and owls ever so many years."
When George said this in a low and rather shaky tone he clutched the arm of the Southern boy, and pointed toward the left. Of course Chatz eagerly followed the line of his extended finger; for he had been wishing to catch the first glimpse of the haunted house for several minutes back.
"Yes, that's it, all right, George," he replied, with a sighing breath, as though something he had long yearned to see was now before him.
"Come on, you fellows back there," said Elmer, who did not like to have them lagging so; and accordingly George and Chatz hurried their steps.
It was certainly anything but a cheerful place, for a fact. The trees were very much overgrown, and the undergrowth had year after year increased its hold until it would have been difficult to force one's way through this, only for wandering cows having made paths which could be followed.
"Elmer, I c'n see 'em workin' like beavers over there!" whispered Toby, who had forged alongside the leader, still burdened with that package which the others believed must contain some new fangled contraption of his connected with the science of aviation.
The five scouts gathered in a group, being careful not to expose themselves in a way to draw attention. They could see a boy in a chestnut tree, and plainly hear the rattle of nuts from the opened burrs, whenever he switched the branches with the long pole he was carrying, secured somewhere in the woods near by.
"Did you ever hear it hail nuts like that in all your born days?" gasped George as they stood there, sheltered by the bushes and watched operations.
"Oh! listen to him talk from the other side of his mouth, fellows?" Toby muttered. "George has seen a big light; he ain't a doubter any longer, you notice. He hears the rattle of the nuts, and sees 'em falling like hail. Talk to me about beavers and busy bees, that crowd would take the cake for business. Look at that one climbing to the very top of the hickory tree to get the best nuts that always grow up high. There he starts in slashing, and it's like a regular bombardment on the ground. If they get away with all that lot I'll die of a broken heart. There never was, and there never will be again, such a bully chance to lay in a big winter's supply of nuts in double-quick time. And I never did like to take other people's leavings."