“Huh! it’s too serious a business to do much laughing,” grunted Billy.  “I’m just itching all over to see how it comes out.  There, that must have been the signal to start.  I can see some of the men beginning to make an awful smoke with the apparatus they’re handling.  What a good imitation of the real thing it is!”

“Whoopee! listen to the big swords clashing inside the castle, will you?” cried Monkey Stallings.  “Say, we’re missing great stunts, believe me, in having to stay out here.  I’ve got half a notion-----”

However, Monkey did not finish the sentence, whatever rash notion was flitting through his active mind.  Possibly he had indulged in a wild dream that for one of his climbing abilities it might prove feasible to reach a window above, and by thrusting his head through the aperture see something of the wonderful things going on in the passages where the crowd was thronging.

It was the fact of Hugh looking meaningly at him that caused Monkey to stop in the midst of his sentence, for he saw by the expression on the face of the scout master that Hugh would not permit any meddling.  The enormous expense and labor attending the taking of that picture must not be wasted through any injudicious act on the part of himself or one of his chums.

As the minutes passed the confusion became almost a riot, so it seemed to Billy.  The shouts of the fighting men grew hoarse with constant repetitions, for naturally they had to give vent to their emotions, or else much of their efforts would have lacked in the genuine feeling.  How those swords did whack and beat upon each other as slowly but surely the defenders of the castle were being cut down one by one!

It was terribly realistic, too, with the vast volumes of smoke rising up in billows, and here and there what seemed to be a red tongue of fire shooting through the appalling waves of black vapor.

Presently, as the boys understood, matters would reach a climax.  This was when the hero knight attained the goal for which he was striving so valiantly.

Then he would be seen attacking the fastened door furiously, while inside and out that ominous smoke curled in wreaths about him.  In the end, just when it seemed as though all would be lost, of course, the knight must batter his way in through the broken door, and the dashing rescue would be complete.

Hugh was beginning to feel nervous, and with a reason.  While his chums’ were wholly wrapped up in observing the numerous exciting incidents that fell under their observation, and connected with the work of the laboring players, the scout master had made a sudden discovery that worried him.

It was a very small matter, and would never have been noticed by any one whose training had not been that of a scout, accustomed to observing everything happening around him.  But small matters may become deciding factors.

The wind had shifted all of a sudden, and besides coming from a new quarter was rapidly growing in violence.  Hugh knew this from the way the smoke had turned and was now sweeping toward the southeast.  This fact, while trifling in itself, might, as he well knew, assume a terrible significance when it was remembered that a dozen industrious supers were playing with fire, and causing it to appear that the whole wing of the castle were enveloped in flames, real or make-believe.