Alec looked, and sniffed disdainfully.
"Here's where we're up against it good and hard, fellows," he remarked, softly. "The question is, do we want to stand for that couple of greasy hoboes keeping us company while we camp out here in the deserted castle? Everybody say his mind, and majority rules, you know."
"Excuse me, if you please," muttered Arthur, with a shudder. "I'd sooner sleep in a pigpen than alongside such human animals as those unclean hoboes."
"Why," remarked Billy, aghast at the thought, "they might rob us of our blankets; or worse, of our precious grub, which would be what I'd call a calamity without equal."
"We've just got to bounce them, that's plain," said Monkey Stallings.
"Hugh, you remember what you the same as promised me?"
"Oh! if you think you can start something that will rid us of the pair," the scout master told him, "go to it right away. If you want us to help, say the word, Monkey."
Already the other was feverishly attacking his pack, which he had tossed upon the ground. He soon found what he was looking for, to judge from the satisfied exclamation that passed his lips.
"Tell us what you've got there, Monkey," urged Alec.
"Yes, that's do," added Billy, anxiously, "because we want to be on our guard. If it throws a scare into those tramps it might work just as bad with some other fellows I know, unless they were warned beforehand. Show your hand, Monkey, please."
"Oh! shucks! it's only a sort of wild-goose call I tried to make from directions I read in a little book," confessed the ingenious one. "It don't seem to imitate a wild honker much, but say, I c'n make the most unearthly sounds come out of this hollow bone you ever listened to. Why, it nigh about freezes my own blood when I try the call in the pitch dark. Now watch and see what happens."