As they drew near the stockade that had been built of heavy planks all around the works where labor troubles had possibly been of frequent occurrence, the boys could see that men were watching their approach, crouching on some sort of platform that gave them a chance to see over the barricade.
“Oh! there are some of the strikers lying about here, for there’s a man right now, hugging his knees as though he might be suffering terribly!” declared Bud.
“I see another—two, three of them!” burst out Alec, in a voice that trembled; “and, Hugh, what do you think, there’s a little child playing over there alongside—yes, it must be a woman. Oh! I wonder if the poor thing is dead, and the baby doesn’t know it?”
“No, for I saw her raise her arm, then, to pull at the child,” said Hugh. “We must attend to her first of all. But while you’re heading that way I’ll go straight on a little, and try to get in touch with the party in command of the guards back of the stockade,” and waving his white flag, the scout master strode bravely forward.
“Stop where you are!”
This harsh order came from the barricade, and at the same time a number of heads appeared in view over the top of the heavy planks forming the stockade around the buildings of the cement works.
It did not need the sight of the Winchester rifles in the hands of these men to tell Hugh they must be the guards who were responsible for the shooting. He knew that in the main these men were hardened, desperate fellows, who possibly made it their business to hire out to companies needing such kind of help, for it always brought big pay, and a certain sort of excitement which they craved.
Of course Hugh obeyed immediately. He did not want to dare them to fire on him or take unnecessary chances simply because he was carrying a flag of truce. Besides that he was now close up to the heavy barricade, and in a position to do what little talking he had in view.
As he ran his eye along the top of the fence he concluded that there must be some sort of platform on the other side, built so that the guards could crouch behind the shelter, and at the same time be in a position to suddenly show themselves in case they felt that it was necessary to shoot.
Hugh also decided that the man near the middle must be the one whose gruff voice had uttered that significant command. Yes, there was that about him to designate the big man a leader. Even as Hugh was making up his mind as to this he heard once more the booming of the heavy voice that rasped unpleasantly on his ears.
“Now, who are you, and what d’ye want here, anyway?”
“We are Boy Scouts from Oakvale,” the boy immediately hastened to tell him, “and we happened to be in camp only a couple of miles away. When we heard the shooting we hurried over, thinking that we might be of some assistance, that’s all.”
“As how?” demanded the captain of the armed guards, harshly.
“Why, you see, all scouts are taught the first principles of taking care of the wounded; and prompt action in that way often saves a person from bleeding to death. Some of my comrades are busy right now over in the settlement, and we’ve come here to ask if you have any objections to our carrying off any others who have been hurt, and are lying helpless close by.”
Hugh said this without trying to give any offense. He could easily guess that he was speaking to a man with very little or no feeling in his heart for the ignorant foreigners who had rebelled against a reduction in pay, and were making trouble for the rich owner of the works. To this captain of the guards, they were only so many “dagoes” and he believed in treating them pretty much as animals.
Still the law might choose to investigate this shooting, and it would be apt to go hard with him if he were accused by these boys of having refused to let them assist those unfortunates who were bleeding to death.
The man was shrewd enough to see that, which fact doubtless made him answer Hugh as he did.
“Oh! so far as that goes none of us here have any objections to you carrying ’em off, and fixin’ ’em up the best way you can,” he called out, with a short, nervous laugh. “They would have it, and forced us to fire. It was our lives or theirs. They rushed the gate with guns and knives flourishing. We had to fire, or it would have been all over with the lot of us. You hear what I’m saying, don’t you, boy?”
Hugh thought it wise to repress his feelings of indignation. It would never do for him to boldly tell this man, that as far as he had seen, all of the wounded had been shot from the rear, which would indicate that they were in flight at the time of being injured.
“Yes, I hear you, sir,” the scout master replied; “and I thank you for giving us permission to do what we can for these poor fellows.”
“Oh, that’s all right, boy!” continued the man, “and I hope you’ll warn ’em not to come near this works again if they know what’s good for ’em. The men that are in here want to work at the wages the strikers refused. They threw up their jobs, and if they try to trespass on the company’s property, they do it at their peril. We’ve got the law back of us, and you tell ’em so, kid, hear that?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Hugh, though he certainly did not mean to be made the mouthpiece of this bragging guard leader.
“My men had orders to shoot low, and I don’t reckon that any of the poor fools have been killed; but it’s their own fault, anyway. When a mob of hundreds of wild men and women rush a little party of a dozen men, it ain’t no time for being over-particular where you send your lead. Go on, then, and do what you want. I’ve heard a heap about you scouts; let’s see if you do know anything about taking care of the wounded.”
Hugh waited for no more. With that permission he was satisfied none of them would be fired on by the guards in hiding behind the stockade.
Turning, he immediately hurried back to where he had left the other fellows. They had done what they could to staunch the blood that had been flowing from a nasty wound. The woman was weak and, Hugh feared, in a bad way.
As soon as the scout master arrived he examined to see what the others had done, for neither Bud nor Alec pretended to have had anything like the practical experience that Hugh did in this first aid to the injured business.
“We can better that some,” he told them, “and I think it would be wise to go at it before you try to carry her to the field hospital, where Arthur can get busy.”
Both of the other scouts were only too willing to do what they could; and making all the speed possible, Hugh soon had matters fixed to his satisfaction.
“Now, since you’ve already placed her on the stretcher, see if you can lift and carry her, boys. I’ll stay here and try to do what I can for the others.”
It required a considerable effort to raise the woman, for she was quite stocky in build, though short of stature, as is usually the case with natives of certain parts of Italy. Fortunately, however, Alec and Bud were sturdily constructed boys, and prided themselves on their muscular ability; so that they presently managed to stand erect, each holding an end of the poles forming the sides of the litter.
“Be as quick as you can, fellows!” Hugh called out after them as they started off. “If you feel too tired, send a couple of the others in your place.”
Immediately Hugh started to see what next could be done. He had never before been thrown in close contact with so much human suffering and misery, and it was little wonder that his heart throbbed with pity as he saw that there were still several more forms lying there on that terrible field where they had fallen.
One man seemed to be huddled up as though he might be actually dead. Hugh hardly dared look toward him, for up to that time the boy had never been brought face to face with the grim reality of death.
There were two others, however, who were moving, and toward these he hurried. One was holding himself up with his arms, and seemed to be anticipating relief. Perhaps he may have seen that the poor woman had been carried away on a stretcher; and he hoped for the same treatment himself. He looked from time to time in deadly fear toward the stockade from whence that murderous fire had leaped out, under which he had fallen.
It turned out that he was terribly injured about the legs. Hugh immediately jumped to the conclusion that scattering buckshot fired from a riot gun must have been responsible for those many ugly wounds. He remembered what the captain of the guards had said about giving orders to “shoot low”; and Hugh decided that this fact alone accounted for the many injuries to the lower extremities of the strikers.
He bent over the man and tried to see if there was anything that could be done then and there to help him. Finding that none of his wounds looked very serious, and deciding that fright and the sight of blood combined to make him weak, Hugh felt that he could leave him and hurry on to the next victim.
“They will be back soon and carry you to the shacks,” he told the man, at the same time giving him a reassuring nod and a smile, which doubtless did more to buoy up his spirits than any spoken words, which he may not have understood at all.
The next man, who lay there on the ground groaning, Hugh found to be in a serious way indeed. He had been shot in the back, though just how near the bullet had gone to a vital part could only be found out by a careful examination later on.
These boys were hardly fitted to undertake any such serious job as this. Their knowledge of surgery was confined to setting broken limbs or binding up wounds; they knew exactly how to go about stopping the flow of blood in case anyone happened to cut themselves with an ax or a knife; they could resuscitate a comrade who had come within an ace of being drowned; they could undertake to assuage the pain caused by colic or ptomaine poisoning, and all such things; but when they came upon a case where a bullet had passed through a man’s body, it was time to wait for the arrival of a regular surgeon.
Hugh now began to look anxiously for the return of the two scouts with the handy, if crude stretcher. He believed they had had ample time to go all the way to the foreign settlement and be well on the road back.
To his satisfaction he caught sight of them on the run; and evidently Alec and Bud did not mean to turn their office over to any of the others, for they had taken it upon themselves to return in person.
Hugh hardly knew which of the two men should be carried off first. They were both seriously hurt, and it was a toss-up which one needed attention more than the other.
So Hugh decided to send the man whose legs had been so badly peppered by the scattering buckshot. Arthur could do all that was necessary for him, whereas Hugh feared that the other man would have to wait until some help came from town. They could carry him to where he would not be lying in the glaring sunlight; so that he could be given a drink of water, or something to keep his strength up.
“Here, help me lift this man on your stretcher, boys,” said Hugh, as he beckoned them over.
“How about those other two we see yonder?” asked Alec.
“One is badly hurt, shot through the body somewhere,” replied the scout master; “and the other has not stirred, so far as I have seen.”
“Oh, my stars! do you think that he’s really dead?” asked Billy, who was not as rosy-cheeked as usual, Hugh noticed, though not wondering at all that this should be the case.
“I don’t know, but I’m afraid of the worst,” Hugh told him. “I haven’t been over to him so far, but expect to go as soon as you get started. Now, take hold, and be easy, boys, with this poor chap.”
The man groaned as they moved him, but he bravely tried to smile back when he saw Hugh nodding to him in that friendly and comforting way. Then the litter was once more raised with an effort, and away the burden-bearers went as fast as they could.
“Keep in step, both of you!” called out Hugh. “It makes the going a whole lot easier for you!”
After they were well on their way, Hugh cast a comprehensive glance around him. He heaved a genuine sigh of relief when he made sure of the fact that except for the striker who had been shot through the body, and the other still form, the open field seemed to be clear of all evidences of the harvest that had followed the sowing of the seed of strife.
The boy shut his teeth hard together. He disliked going over to find out the condition of that motionless, huddled figure; but duty was a thing Hugh Hardin never allowed himself to disregard, no matter what pangs it might bring in its train. So he started straight toward the object of his solicitude, determined to know the worst, no matter what the cost was to his feelings.
“Perhaps I don’t wish old Doctor Kane was here, though, to help us out,” Hugh was saying to himself with a sigh, as he walked forward, and mentally figured how much of the heavy responsibility would be taken from his young shoulders could the genial old Oakvale physician be present to take charge.
As he drew near the huddled figure of the striker, Hugh felt his heart grow cold with dread. Then suddenly hope revived, for he believed he had detected a slight movement on the part of the man.
“He may have only fainted from fright after all, or been struck by a passing bullet and knocked unconscious,” the boy was telling himself eagerly as he increased his pace until he was almost running.
In this fashion, then, he arrived on the scene, and bent over the figure lying there on the ground. Gently, Hugh turned him over, but strange to say he did not see any sign of a wound.
He dropped down beside the man and placed his ear close to his chest. Immediately he discovered that his heart was beating, faintly it is true, and with a peculiar flutter, but at least he was alive.
Hugh had a canteen along with him, which had been filled with cold water before they started from their camp. This he now made use of, and sprinkled some of the contents on the dark face of the foreigner.
“He’s coming to his senses!” Hugh told himself, with a sense of great relief, “and there’s a mark on the side of his head that may have been made by a passing bullet; either that or else he tripped and, in falling, struck himself there. But I saw his eyelids quiver then; and there, they opened part way! I believe he’s going to be all right yet.”
Why, the boy felt so relieved that it might have been thought he was hovering over one of his beloved chums instead of an unknown foreigner whose language he could not understand. But he was a human being in distress, and scouts are taught never to stop and consider more than this when a necessity calling for prompt aid faces them.
When he sprinkled a little more of the water over the man’s face, the puzzled black eyes were looking up at him. Evidently the poor fellow wondered what had happened to him. Hugh knew that his chums would soon be returning, and that minutes were therefore precious to him.
“Can you get up?” he asked, making a beckoning movement with his hand which the other could hardly fail to understand.
He struggled into a sitting position and stared around. When he saw the figure of the other wounded man he shivered violently. Doubtless once again he was passing through the horror of that dreadful minute when the mob in flight was fired on by the guards, and shrieks of pain and fright arose all around him, followed by darkness as he fell.
Then he looked toward the frowning stockade so near by, above which the heads of the curious guards could be seen, as also their guns.
“Get up, and go to the rest of your people,” said Hugh, making gestures with his hands, and ending up with pointing in the direction where he knew the settlement lay.
The man must have understood him for he hastened to scramble to his feet. There were a few loud jeering remarks from the stockade as the guards discovered that, after all, the one man considered dead had come to life in a wonderfully miraculous fashion, after the scout had done something or other.
There were even some threats made which Hugh hardly imagined could be seriously meant. At the same time the boy had the nerve to walk behind the striker when he was hurrying off, in this way actually interposing his body between him and the men who carried guns, and who were just then looking upon all of these foreigners as enemies to be harshly treated.
When Hugh had thus seen the frightened fellow safely out of range of the stockade, a friendly patch of trees interposing, he discovered Alec and Bud coming back with the empty stretcher.
He was at the side of the badly injured man when they arrived, and assisted in getting him on the stretcher. Bud meantime must have taken a nervous look around, for he hurriedly asked:
“Where’s the other, Hugh, the dead man?”
“Oh, that was him you saw hurrying off,” replied the scout master, with a faint smile. “It turned out that he had been only knocked senseless by a fall or something in the shape of a clipping bullet that struck him on the head. I brought him to his senses by using a little water, and started him off.”
Bud gave a chuckle at hearing this.
“Say, they’ll get your name in the papers yet if you don’t watch out,” he told Hugh. “‘First aid to the injured,’ eh; seems to me that when a scout can bring the dead to life, he’s got a heap beyond that point. But I’m just as well pleased; it’s a whole lot better to have him step out for the camp than it is for us to lug him there on this old stretcher. I’m getting blisters on my hands already; but all the same I’m game to keep on to the finish.”
Nor would he let Hugh even “spell” him at the poles when the other offered to do so; it was one of Bud Morgan’s oddities that he never wanted to give anything up on which he had started, no matter how unpleasant a task it may have turned out to be.
“I’m going along with you this time, you know,” ventured Hugh after he had helped them raise their burden, which seemed to be the hardest part of the job; “so far as I can see there’s no more wounded lying around here. Perhaps we haven’t run on all of them yet; others may have fled in different directions, and we can look for them to show up from time to time, some of them perhaps with wounds that need attention.”
Bud and Alec exchanged glances.
“Why, Hugh, that’s just what has happened already,” said the latter, quickly.
“Do you mean there have been more wounded strikers come into the camp since I left it?” the scout master demanded.
“Three of the same,” Bud answered, “and I tell you Arthur has got his hands more than full with all the bandaging and such things. But he’s doing it in great shape, though when I see the regular old field hospital we’ve got over there I feel that help from the city can’t get around any too soon.”
“I wonder if the news of the battle has been wired or carried in any way?” Alec remarked, as he trudged along, holding to one of the poles with each hand.
“I’m going to make sure it is,” replied Hugh, “by sending a scout to the nearest telegraph station as soon as I get to the camp. Some of these poor people are in a serious way, and for one I don’t propose to take any more responsibility on my shoulders than I can help.”
“Goodness knows we’ve done enough as it is,” said Alec, though that notion would never have prevented Alec from exerting himself right along to continue the good work indefinitely.
As they finally arrived at the settlement, a crowd came out to meet them. Many swarthy faces glowed with half-hidden fires, and Hugh could see that there was only a spark needed to start the slumbering passions into some desperate deed of retaliation.
He hoped that when the news of the riot reached the authorities, they would send the militia to take charge, and place all those guards under arrest until it could be ascertained whether they had acted within their rights in shooting as they had done.
One woman acted as though on the verge of going crazy. She must have been the wife of the man they were now bearing in. Indeed, only for Hugh preventing it, she would have thrown herself upon the form of the badly injured striker. When she fought like a wildcat to break past Hugh, the latter appealed to the padrone, who had come bustling up.
“Keep her away, unless you want the man to die right here!” Hugh told him. “Don’t you see he’s so badly hurt that he mustn’t be touched?”
The padrone grasped the situation, and closing a hand on the woman’s arm he led her away, at the same time speaking to her sternly. After that she no longer tried to brush any of the scouts aside, for she had evidently been told that they were the best friends the strikers had, and were trying everything in their power to save lives and stop pain.
When Hugh looked around, he was really appalled at what he saw. There were some five who lay there on the ground, all of them groaning, and carrying on as ignorant people nearly always do when in great pain of body and distress of mind. Besides these there were a number sitting on the ground, surrounded by clusters of their people, all of them injured more or less severely.
The clatter of tongues was dreadful. It reminded Hugh of a certain windmill he had once seen in action, one of the real old-styled Dutch type, with the sails stretching nearly to the ground, and which made the most dolorous sounds when the mill was working rapidly in the freshening breeze.
Hugh had not forgotten what he had said to the two stretcher-bearers while on the way over with the last load.
“Ralph, step here a minute, will you?” he asked, and the other immediately complied, with a look of wonder on his face, for he could not imagine what was about to be sprung on him now.
Hugh was hastily writing something on a piece of paper torn from an old letter he had in his pocket.
“I am bothered about some of these wounded people, to tell you the truth, Ralph,” the scout master told him. “I’m going to pack you off to the nearest station on the railroad to send a message for me.”
“To the authorities, asking for help?” Ralph Kenyon queried.
“No, because that isn’t right in our line. The governor will learn all about it sooner or later, and do what he thinks best. What we need now most of all is a regular surgeon and a nurse or two. These poor people haven’t anything to help out in taking care of the sick or injured. And while on the way back I suddenly thought of something that might turn out to be of advantage. It’s in connection with the Red Cross.”
“Oh, Hugh, I think I know what you mean!” cried Ralph, in some excitement. “You were telling me that there was some sort of a state convention of those interested in Red Cross work being held in Farmingdale, which is only a few miles away from here, isn’t it, Hugh?”
“Just what it is, Ralph, and I understand that at the convention there was to be a regular field hospital equipment of an up-to-date motor ambulance with its surgeon and quota of Red Cross nurses. Now, if they could only rush that ambulance out here and carry some of the wounded strikers to the regular hospital, it would be a big thing, and take a terrible load off my mind.”
“Give me the message, Hugh; I’ve got plenty of money in my pocket, and will see it’s rushed through. What are you saying in it?” demanded the now eager Ralph.
“I’ve addressed it to the Red Cross at Farmingdale, and it’s sure to get to the right parties,” explained the scout master, as he handed the piece of paper over to the messenger. “What I said was simply this: ‘Terrible riot at cement works; many strikers shot down. Caring for them the best we can. Need help. Send surgeon, nurses and an ambulance. Hurry. Boy Scouts of Oakvale.’ Now get on the move, Ralph, and see how quick you can deliver the goods!”
“I noticed where the station on the railroad was at this place,” Ralph called back over his shoulder, with a ring of triumph in his voice; for as a true scout it was his duty to take note of all such things, in case the knowledge became an important factor through the course of events.
Hugh saw him start on the run and felt satisfied the errand would be properly carried out—that is, if the operator at the station had not been given orders to refuse messages, which was hardly likely.
The old padrone had seen these wonderful boys doing so much for his people, and no doubt he considered that their impromptu field hospital would stand as a credit to their scout training. He hovered around all the time Arthur and Hugh worked, adding some finishing touches to what had already been done.
Finally, when he could no longer restrain the feeling that was in his heart, the padrone seized upon their hands and pressed them vigorously, while in his broken English he tried to tell them how grateful he was for their coming.
Surely those boys, and the others as well standing near by, must have felt that they were amply repaid for any trouble they had taken thus far, when they saw how this tough-looking old foreigner actually had tears in his eyes as he tried to tell them that their noble work was appreciated.
“Everything seems to be going on decently but one case,” Hugh was saying to Arthur, “and I’m afraid that poor fellow is in a bad way.”
“It all depends on what course the bullet took after it started in,” said the other scout, seriously. “It would be next door to a miracle if it skipped striking any vital part. But that can only be determined after probing, and it may require an examination with the X-rays to locate the bullet, which, you know, didn’t pass out again.”
There was little time for talking, however. Their patients required so much attention that it kept them on the move almost constantly. Of course, the other scouts were only too willing to assist to the extent of their ability; but lacking the practical experience of Hugh and Arthur, their powers were limited at the best.
What made it hard was the inability of the foreigners to understand what was needed, and to supply these wants after they did comprehend. Their miserable shacks seemed to contain next to nothing, and when Hugh had made the padrone realize that more cotton or muslin was required, it was only the merest luck in the world that one woman happened to have a few yards fresh from the store laid by, which she ungrudgingly brought forth.
About this time Ralph made his appearance again. Hugh could see from the satisfied look on his face that he had succeeded in his errand.
“Got it off all right, did you, Ralph?” he asked.
“Yes. The operator didn’t like the idea of sending it at first. I think the people at the works must have telegraphed a tame account of the fight, so as to have the news broken gradually. But I told him he would be held accountable if any of the wounded died, and might end his days in prison; so he finally agreed.”
“I hope he wasn’t saying that just to get rid of you?” ventured Hugh.
“Oh, I was smart enough for that,” chuckled Ralph, nodding his head, sagely. “I just waited around after telling him that I was a telegrapher, too, and I heard him send her O. K. Depend on it, Hugh, your message is being delivered in Farmingdale right at this minute, I make a guess.”
“Then it shouldn’t take them more than an hour at the most to get over here,” remarked the tired scout master. “Granting that they mean to come, which I certainly hope turns out to be so.”
“Well, we’ve sure done our duty all right, Hugh,” asserted Ralph, who was breathing hard, as though he had actually run both ways.
“And that’s all any scout can do, I should say,” added Billy Worth, who had hurried over to hear what Ralph had to report, for the others knew the nature of the errand on which he had been dispatched.
“Yes, no one can blame us for anything that happens now,” Hugh declared. “All the same, I’ll be glad to see that Red Cross ambulance turning up here.”
“You’re worrying about that poor fellow who’s been shot through the body, Hugh?” suggested Billy. “The padrone put a guard around him to keep his wife away. She wants to just throw herself on him, and shriek. My stars! but they’re a queer lot, ain’t they? But they’ve got feelings as much as any of the rest of us. Listen! wasn’t that a motor horn blowing then?”
“Sounded more to me like a cow mooing, Billy,” said Ralph. “There’s the identical animal right now over in that yard yonder, tied to a tree.”
Billy looked in the direction in which Ralph pointed, and then laughed.
“Guess that’s one on me, Hugh,” he remarked, “but then I’m not to blame for feeling nervous over things, with all this responsibility shoved onto our poor shoulders.”
“No one’s blaming you a bit, Billy,” he was told; “in fact, we’re all doing our duty in a way that couldn’t be beaten. Some day later on we’ll look back at this happening and wonder how we ever managed to survive the ordeal.”
Billy was looking around as though he wanted to make sure the coast was clear before he said something he had on his mind.
“Hugh,” he said, lowering his voice unconsciously as he spoke, “I happened to glimpse something while I was nosing around the settlement here that gave me a bad feeling, because it means serious trouble ahead for these ignorant strikers if they push it any further.”
His mysterious words, of course, aroused the natural curiosity of the other.
“Come, what are you hinting at now, Billy? No one’s going to hear what you say, so out with it,” he told the stout chum.
Nevertheless Billy had to take another look around before he would consent to explain.
“You know, Hugh,” he began, “I’m rather fond of studying human nature, and this chance was too good to be wasted, so while some of you kept shop and treated those of the wounded who’d allow it, I just prowled and snooped and saw how these wretched foreigners make a job of half living, for that’s all it amounts to, say what you will.”
“Less talk, Billy, and get down to facts,” the scout master advised, knowing how the other loved to hear himself chatter.
Billy laughed good-naturedly and then proceeded without the least sign of being in the least put out by the rebuke.
“Well, I only wanted to explain how it came I was poking around that way. Most of the people are clustered about where the wounded strikers are lying in your emergency hospital, so I wasn’t interfered with even when I looked inside some of the awful shacks. Gee! but they’re bare of the commonest comforts of life, as we know them.”
“I could have told you that without looking, Billy; but you discovered something, you are trying to tell me; what was it?”
“In one shack I had the nerve to enter, so as to say I’d done the thing up brown, there was what seemed to be a carpenter’s bench, and a few tools lying on the same. But, Hugh,” and here Billy twisted his head around again to look right and left, “it wasn’t any ordinary work somebody had been doing there at the time the shooting started in.”
“Move along, Billy!” implored the other, as though he feared the other might be about to start off on another long-winded explanation.
“There were some things besides tools on that bench, Hugh, things that looked like foot sections of gaspipe!”
“Well, what of that?” demanded Hugh, though the color partly left his face; “how do you know but what one of the strikers was a machinist employed by the owner of the works and that he chose to do some of his work at home?”
“I’ll tell you, Hugh,” continued Billy, his voice sinking to almost a whisper, “I had the curiosity to pick up one of those sections of iron gaspipe, and I want to say right now when I saw a fuse sticking out from the end of the same I put it back again in a hurry!”
“What’s that?” exclaimed Hugh.
“Hugh, they’ve been making some sort of bombs or infernal machines there, meaning to blow up the cement works, with the strike-breakers and guards in the same!”
When Billy said this he and the scout master stood there exchanging horrified looks, and for the moment incapable of giving further utterance to the thoughts in their minds.
Hugh shut his teeth together with a snap, as though his mind had been suddenly made up.
Billy knew that there would be no shirking, for when the leader of the Wolf Patrol saw his duty clear before him he never allowed anything to stand between himself and its accomplishment.
“Come, you must show me that identical shack, Billy,” he announced.
“But hold on, Hugh,” hoarsely whispered the other, “if some of those men saw us go in there they’d believe we were connected with the detective squad, and trying to get them sent to prison. Why, they’d be furious enough to murder us.”
Hugh realized that there was indeed need of caution. These ignorant and explosive foreigners could not be reasoned with by one who was unacquainted with their language. There may be times when signs will not answer to cool the heated blood of men driven to extremes by what they feel to be a gross injustice.
“Billy, you’re right, and we must first of all get the old padrone to accompany us. If, as you seem to fear, those things turn out to be real bombs, then his are the hands that must put them in water so as to forever destroy their destructive properties. Come along with me, Billy.”
It was not difficult to find the padrone, for he was hovering near where the men were groaning, with Arthur and an assistant doing all they could to ease their sufferings.
Hugh managed to explain, partly through signs, that he wanted the padrone to go with him. After that Billy led the way straight to the rude shack he had by accident entered, and in which he had found such suspicious things being made.
As soon as Hugh set his eyes on the three-foot sections of old gaspipe he knew Billy had sensed the truth. One of the bombs was apparently ready for use. It had a short fuse at one end, and looked terribly suggestive.
“You see what some of your men have been thinking of doing,” Hugh said to the old padrone, as he held up this iron bomb.
The other showed all the signs of being both astonished and angry. Billy wondered if such an enterprise could have been going on all this time in the settlement and one so wise as the padrone not know it.
“It is bad biz!” the padrone said in a husky voice, as he, too, picked up one of the metal tubes and examined it; “some of my men they be near crazy with mad. When they see the children cry for be hungry they no care what they do to get what you call even. It is the strike-breaker they hate, you understan’.”
“But this will never do, padrone,” said the scout master. “Once they start to using bombs and they lose the sympathy of the community. You understand what that means. If your men even hope to win this strike they must be held in and kept from violence. So far it has all been on the other side, and that is going to gain you many friends. The owner of the works will find that he has to call it off and give you living wages. Do you understand that?”
The padrone nodded his head violently.
“Whatever you tell me that will I do, for I know you scouts ver’ good friend to the workingman,” he hastened to say.
“All right,” Hugh told him promptly, “then first of all get a bucket of water, and soak every one of these things in it so as to render them harmless.”
“Here’s just what you want, right in this corner,” remarked Billy, pointing to a half barrel used as a tub, and which was more than two-thirds full of suspicious looking water, but which could be made useful to “pull the teeth” of the dangerous bombs.
The padrone not only dumped the gaspipe infernal machines in the tub but followed with every article connected with their manufacture that he could lay hands on.
“Now, tell what you want me do next?” he asked Hugh, as though he meant to leave no stone unturned in order to follow out the orders of this energetic young Boy Scout whose coming with his comrades had meant so much for the people under his care.
“You know who the men are who have been doing this black work, padrone?” Hugh asserted, looking the old man straight in the eye.
For a few seconds the old man wavered, and then unconditionally surrendered.
“Si, young sigñor, I know,” he admitted.
“All right, padrone,” said Hugh, sternly; “I want you to go and find them, and make them swear that there shall be no more of this sort of black work. Everything depends on how you manage to control your people through this crisis. You will win, if you get them to behave.”
“I will promise it shall be so,” said the old man, hurrying away.
Hugh and Billy returned to where they had been standing at the time the latter made his astonishing disclosure that had resulted in their action; and they could see the padrone talking earnestly to some of the men.
Just then Arthur called to Hugh to come and give him his advice about something he was doing in connection with one of the men, who had finally consented to have his injured shoulder treated. Up to that time he had stubbornly held out, and seemed to be suspicious of these boys, as though he feared that they would not do the right thing. The extreme pain, however, had finally brought him around, or else the wise old padrone had told him he was taking many more chances by waiting than he would in having his wound dressed, even by amateur surgeons.
From one thing they went to another, so that they were kept constantly busy. In the midst of it all, Billy discovered a woman carrying a sick child straight to where Hugh and Arthur were engaged.
“There’s a compliment for you fellows, and a feather in your caps,” he told the others. “At first they were afraid you didn’t know the first principles of surgery, and they’ve been watching you like hawks. Now the women are running to fetch any sick kids they may happen to have at home, for the wonderful doctors to examine and prescribe for. Look solemn now when you make your diagnosis, fellows; you’re making reputations that are bound to go ringing down the ages. Doctor Blake and Doctor Cameron of the Boy Scouts of Oakvale to the front. Here she is. Now, listen to the poor mother chatter like a poll-parrot, would you?”
Even if they could not understand one word she said, there was no difficulty whatever in knowing what the woman wanted. She held out the sick child, and there was a beseeching look on her face.
Hugh hardly knew what to do, but he had common-sense in plenty, and urged on by the confident Billy, he proceeded to take a professional look at the youngster. Then he nodded toward Arthur, as though he fancied that two heads would be better than one in a case like this.
“I’d be on the safe side in saying that it’s eaten something that doesn’t agree with it,” ventured Doctor Blake, solemnly.
“Just my idea to a fraction,” added the second amateur physician.
Upon that Hugh opened his little medicine kit, and taking out a phial proceeded to fix up a remedy which he knew was excellent for cramps and indigestion. It would do no harm, that he knew for a fact, and there was a fair chance of its taking effect. It certainly pleased the anxious mother, and she went away with a satisfied look on her swarthy face.