"Well, I declare, who would ever have believed it?" they heard him saying, for again the riot was beginning to die out, men were brushing themselves off, while a few others, less fortunate than their companions, were being pulled out of the moat surrounding the castle, which evidently held some water, for they appeared to be dripping wet, though taking it all in good part.
"What have you guessed, Hugh?" demanded Arthur, knowing from the manner of the scout master that he had apparently solved the mystery.
Hugh was laughing now. The strained look had passed from his young face. It seemed to him like a jump from the sublime to the ridiculous.
"If you fellows will look over to one side to where that man was turning the handle of some sort of box just as if he might be an organ grinder, you'll guess what it all means," Hugh told them, pointing as he spoke.
Cries of wonder and comprehension immediately arose from Alec and Arthur, though even then Billy and Stallings did not seem to fully grasp the facts.
"Motion-picture actors at work!" exclaimed Alec.
"Oh! did you ever hear of such a thing?" gurgled Billy, at the same time beginning to lose the haunted look on his face.
"Sure thing!" added Arthur, grinning now. "That chap is the camera man—-what is it they call it, a cinematoscope or something that way. He's been grinding like mad while all that battle on the walls was taking place. And I can see him laughing from here, as if that last scrap pleased him a whole lot."
"Well, if that don't beat everything!" said Monkey Stallings, in mingled awe and delight. "To think of a company finding out about that queer old imitation castle, and coming all the way up here so as to stage one of their Shakespeare plays around it!"
"And look at all the actors they've gone and fetched along with them, will you?" Billy went on to say. "Why, there must be scores of men and women there, all dressed in fancy costumes. Gee! it must cost rafts of money to stage just one of those dramas."