"Particularly a mare," added Toby, as he hurried away; but they noticed that he cast many side glances at the surrounding dense foliage as he went in the direction of the spot where they had left Nancy and the wagon when approaching the grove of nut trees, as though he did not wholly fancy finding himself alone amidst such weird surroundings.
Once the wagon was brought up it did not take the scouts long to get all the sacks of nuts loaded. When they saw what a splendid showing the collection made it caused a fresh outbreak of congratulations all around.
"There never was such a grand lot of nuts brought into town from the day the first cabin was built away back!" declared George, who could not see any reason to throw cold water on this positive fact, with the evidence plainly before him.
"That's what comes of having an idea," remarked Toby, proudly; "if I hadn't engineered this plan we might have spent a hard day in the woods, and only brought home a single bag to show for it. Just look at that wholesale lot, will you?"
"Yeth, and we're all ready to thay you did it with your little hatchet, Toby; it taketh you to hatch up plans, thure it doeth," admitted Ted.
"Wonder what's keeping Elmer?" Chatz observed, as he turned to look toward the house, glimpses of which they could catch through small openings in the dense growth of trees; to immediately add: "there he comes right now."
"Hope he found what he was looking for," George ventured, and nothing further was said in regard to the matter.
Elmer quickly joined them. Chatz looked keenly at his face, and fancied that he could detect something like a faint smile there; but even if the scout master had made any sort of discovery on his last visit to the haunted house, he did not seem ready to take his chums into his confidence.
"Well, that looks like something, boys," he remarked, as he surveyed the great load of filled bags that occupied nearly every bit of space in the wagon bed.
"Oh! we believe in doing a wholesale business when we get started," laughed Toby; "the only thing that's bothering me is where Chatz, Ted and George can find room to sit. Guess they'll have to fix it so as to stretch out on top of our load."