AN EMERGENCY HOSPITAL.
“Listen!” said Bud Morgan, “I just heard the padrone here, who is in
charge of these foreigners, say that man with the gray mustache is Mr.
Campertown, who owns the cement works. They’re not feeling very kindly
toward him, and perhaps it’s as well that he comes here protected by a
sheriff’s armed posse.”
“But what d’ye think they mean to do?” asked Billy Worth.
“Take charge of the situation,” replied Hugh, promptly. “It may be the
governor has been appealed to by some one, and has given the sheriff
authority to order the guards out of the barricade. He may even be
meaning to arrest them on some charge or other.”
The two big touring cars stopped close by, and the man who seemed to be
in authority strode up to the spot where the scouts, as well as Dr.
Richter, stood. He gave a glance toward the emergency hospital under the
oak, and his look was grave as he addressed the surgeon.
“Where do you come from, Doctor?” he asked, noticing, of course, the
fact that the ambulance was marked with that significant Red Cross that
told its story better than mere words could have done.
“From Farmingdale,” replied the Red Cross surgeon, “where a convention
was in progress when we received a wire sent by these fine boys here,
begging us to come and relieve them from the duty of taking care of the
many who were injured in the riot that resembled a massacre.”
The gruff-looking sheriff raised his bushy eyebrows and surveyed Hugh
and his comrades with sudden interest.
“You don’t mean to tell me these kids were handling such cases when you
came on the scene?” he demanded, with an incredulous stare.
“Certainly—and nobly,” the other assured him. “Not only have they taken
the first necessary steps to stop the loss of life blood, but they have
made that very good stretcher, and carried several of the badly injured
from the front of the plant over here under the shade of this tree. The
lads are deserving of the greatest praise.”
“I am certainly surprised, and pleased as well,” said the sheriff,
nodding in the direction of the boys. “Were there any fatalities,
doctor?”
“I understand none up to the present,” replied the surgeon. “We have,
however, several cases so serious that I would not like to predict a
favorable outcome, though everything possible will be done to pull them
through. They were shot _in the back_!”
It seemed to Hugh that when Dr. Richter made this last startling remark
he looked straight at the man with the white mustache, who, still
sitting in one of the automobiles, had been listening earnestly.
“What’s that you say, Doctor; shot _in the back_? That’s bad!” was what
the sheriff exclaimed. Hugh, watching Mr. Campertown, saw that he had
turned pale and moved uneasily.
Just then Hugh noticed there was a handsome little chap of about three
years of age close beside the rich owner of the plant; he imagined that
it might possibly be a grandchild, for Mr. Campertown seemed to be a man
of at least fifty. How it happened that he had brought the child with
him on such an errand fraught with danger Hugh could not guess; but it
happened that just then the sheriff took it upon himself to explain this
part of the mystery.
“This is Mr. Campertown, the owner of the plant,” he told Dr. Richter.
“He was on the road when his car broke down, and as we came along and he
heard about what had happened up here he asked us to bring him with us.
We mean to stop this foolish business before more blood is shed, if we
have to bundle out every one of those hired guards, and take charge of
the safety of the plant ourselves. The majesty of the law must be
upheld, no matter who suffers.”
With that he reëntered his car, and both vehicles moved off toward the
works, leaving the strikers talking excitedly among themselves.
Evidently many of the most turbulent among them were for trying to wreak
summary vengeance on the man whom they held responsible for the
shooting. It took considerable fervid oratory on the part of the
discrete padrone to convince them that such a step would be a most
foolish one, since it must alienate public sympathy, and result in
landing some of them in jail.
Dr. Richter paid no more attention to what might happen over at the
plant. It mattered nothing to him if those armed guards were thrust out,
and told to depart. He was concerned only with the taking care of the
wounded strikers, and of the women who had also been in the crowd when
that murderous fire was turned upon them after they had been warned to
disperse, and had not moved fast enough to please the armed bullies who,
from their defenses, had opened upon them with such disastrous results.
“If we must open an emergency hospital here,” remarked Dr. Richter to
Hugh and Arthur, who stuck close to his side, “we ought to find out if
there is any sort of suitable building in this collection of shacks and
small houses.”
“I was going to mention the fact, Doctor,” suggested Hugh, “that I saw a
frame building which I think must be used for a school. It seemed to me
that it could be made to serve the purpose, if cleaned out in a hurry.
Shall I sound the padrone about it?”
“If you will, Hugh,” replied the other, with a smile, which showed what
faith he had in the ability of the young scout master to accomplish
things, founded on what he had already seen done.
It was quickly arranged with the old padrone, who set a number of women
to work cleaning out the little schoolhouse. When this had been
accomplished they could remove the most dangerously wounded to its
shelter, and then even though a storm should come on they would not be
exposed to the weather.
Meanwhile Dr. Richter was making preparations for removing several of
the other injured strikers to the hospital at Farmingdale, where they
could receive the proper treatment free of all expense.
In this labor he was ably assisted by some of the scouts, and it was
settled that Nurse Arnold, as the older and more experienced of the
attendants, should accompany the ambulance with its load of suffering
humanity to the distant city.
“I think you put a flea in the sheriff’s ear, Doctor, when you told him
these people were shot when they were running away,” Hugh remarked, as
they stood and watched the ambulance move along the road, to come back
again for another load later on.
“That was just what I meant to do,” replied the other, seriously. “I
wanted to impress the fact on him to start with, that it was not a
battle, but a massacre, for as far as we know all the injuries are on
the side of the strikers. Then again, it struck me that a wealthy man
like that Mr. Campertown, who is a millionaire I believe, ought to pay
more attention to what is being done in his name. Why, some of these
women could have torn his clothes off if the padrone had not kept them
in subjection. They glared at the owner of the works like tiger-cats,
and I could see their hands working as if they longed to lay hold of
him.”
Hugh turned and looked at the several figures still lying under the
tree, and a big sigh welled up from his very heart.
“I certainly hope,” he said, “that what Mr. Campertown has seen here
to-day will open his eyes to what his duty is toward those who work for
him. He has seen how horribly these people have to live even with the
wages they used to get; and he must realize that it means almost
starvation for them to take what has been offered lately.”
“Yes, if he knew what was best for him he would do what some other
employers have done—even be satisfied to suffer a temporary loss rather
than cut the wages of their faithful employees. I know several
big-hearted men who have done that same thing. They say they can stand a
loss for a time, but their men could not. It would hardly be safe for
Mr. Campertown to wander over this way while the strikers are so
furious, or to let that handsome little grandson of his get away from
him.”
“Then that was his grandchild?” asked Arthur. “He seemed to be as pretty
a three-year-old as I ever saw. Even the dago women were staring at him,
and then looking at their own ragged and dirty children as if comparing
the lot of the two classes.”
Hugh felt a thrill pass over him when he heard the surgeon say what he
did. He, too, had been very much taken with the rosy-cheeked little chap
who sat in the big touring car alongside the owner of the cement plant.
It gave him a bad feeling to even think of harm befalling such a fine
lad through the desire for revenge on the part of some of these men or
women who had seen their kind shot down in cold blood by the paid
deputies of this same rich man.
“I hope it will never come to that,” he remarked.
“You never can tell what some of these hot-blooded foreigners will do,”
the surgeon replied. “They might think to get even with Mr. Campertown,
or it is even possible they would try to make better terms with him by
hiding his little grandchild, and bargaining that way. It’s a common
occurrence over in their country to kidnap people, and hold them for a
ransom.”
Just then Hugh happened to see Alec beckoning to him to approach, and so
he wandered over to where the other was standing along with Bud Morgan,
both of them having the air of fellows who had come upon a mystery.