So it was arranged, and the ghostlike figures ranged themselves in a semi-circle in the woods.
“Halt!” cried Bob Grenwood, through the megaphone. “As you value your lives, halt!”
He spoke in a low tone, and in amazement the four Pornell students stopped short. Then Sedley caught sight of the figures with the glow upon their faces and he set up a yell.
“It’s ghosts!”
“Ghosts?” repeated Carey.
“Ye—yes—don’t—yo—you see ’em?” And Sedley’s teeth commenced to chatter. “Oh, I wish I wa—was ba—back to Pornell!” he wailed.
“They aren’t ghosts,” growled Plunkett. “This is a trick!”
“They look like ghosts!” gasped Carey, who was as much of a coward as Sedley.
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” said Roy Bock. “It must be some of the Putnam Hall cadets—or else some of our own crowd.”
“Halt!” cried Bob again, and his companions repeated the command. Then, as the Bock crowd stopped, the cadets surrounded them, so that none of them might slip away.