SCOUTS HEED THE CALL TO DUTY.
“They’ve gone and done it after all, Hugh!” exclaimed Alec Sands, as he
turned a rueful face toward the scout master.
Nor was Alec the only one who looked puzzled and worried, for other
faces showed positive signs of pallor. Hugh himself was not entirely
free from experiencing the deepest anxiety since he knew only too well
how men’s passions can run away with their better judgment.
“That was a regular battle, as sure as anything,” said Arthur Cameron,
shuddering as he recalled how terrible those last cries had sounded,
fraught as they were with what seemed to be fear.
“And all that shooting wasn’t for nothing, either,” added Bud Morgan.
“When I saw the kind of men those armed deputies were, I knew there
would be something doing if the strikers tried to break their way into
the cement works to get at the men who had taken their jobs. They did
just what I thought they would.”
“What can we do, Hugh?” asked Ralph Kenyon.
Ah! that was the question—what would it be safe for them to try and do
under the conditions? That was the problem Hugh was tossing about in his
mind then and there.
He knew what chances there were for trouble unless they could in some
way convince the ignorant foreigners that they were friends. Should the
angry men discover them coming up from the rear, their first thought
would naturally be that they had been caught in a trap, and that these
fellows in khaki uniforms must be members of the State Militia seeking
to surround them.
In that case the strikers would either fly madly, or believing
themselves in a trap, they would start an attack, determined to break
their way through.
Hugh knew that the chances were many of them were armed. Those who did
not have firearms of some sort would carry the favorite weapon of their
type, the stiletto, and unable to properly make them understand that
they came only as friends who wanted to assist their wounded, the
bewildered and furious mob might turn upon them like so many mad wolves.
If ever the scout master found himself up against an occasion when he
had need of deep thinking, that time was the present.
“The fighting seems to have been short and swift,” remarked Bud Morgan;
“and from that we can guess that it must have been the guards who won
the scrap.”
“Yes,” commented Billy. “If the strikers had managed to break through
the gates that are in the stockade surrounding the cement works, as
we’ve been told, they’d be yapping still, as they chased every
strike-breaker around. No, they were up against a harder proposition
than they reckoned on, and that last volley scattered the mob like
sheep.”
“But think of those who must have been shot down,” said Arthur Cameron,
with a look of deepest pity on his face. “Their friends have run away
and deserted them; and the men in the works will be afraid to come out
so as to do anything for them; so there the poor chaps must lie,
bleeding to death it may be for want of a little attention.”
He looked appealingly at Hugh as he said this. The scout master knew
what was in Arthur’s mind. He understood what a fascination the subject
of “first aid to the injured” had been of late to Arthur, and what
signal advances he was making in his studies along this line, with an
expressed determination to some day become a regular surgeon like one of
his uncles.
Still, Hugh wanted to be very sure that he was doing the right thing
before he gave his consent to advance in the direction of the disputed
territory now given over to anarchy and bloodshed.
In the absence of Lieutenant Denmead, the complete charge of the troop
was placed in his keeping, and the responsibility weighed heavily on
Hugh. Humanity called on him to accept the opportunity that had suddenly
opened up before him; on the other hand, his duty to his chums, as well
as to those many parents at home in Oakvale, demanded that he take no
unnecessary risks.
The picture which Arthur’s words had conjured up, of poor fellows lying
there in danger of bleeding to death because there were no helping hands
stretched out to aid them, gave Hugh a cold feeling in the region of his
heart. Had he only himself to think about, he would have cast discretion
to the four winds, and hurried away on his mission of mercy, regardless
of any peril to himself.
Feeling that the responsibility was too much for him to decide alone and
unaided, the scout master turned to that solution always available, and
which divided the burden, share and share alike.
So he turned hastily on his chums, saying earnestly:
“I can’t find the answer to this thing by myself, fellows, and I want
you to decide it for me. Had some of us better start across and try to
do something for those who may have been wounded in that fight? When the
news gets to the city I suppose the authorities will send out hospital
nurses and attendants; but they might take hours in getting on the
ground. Ought we go or stay here; that’s what I want you to settle, and
I’m not going to tell you what I want to do. Every fellow who believes
it to be our duty as scouts to try and help those poor foreigners, hold
up his hand.”
He was thrilled to see that there was not a single dissenter; for every
hand instantly went up, and when Hugh feebly added, “Contrary no, hold
up a hand!” there was not one to be seen.
Hugh sighed with relief. It was just what he wanted, hoped for, and was
delighted to have come about. At the same time he felt secret fears lest
something terrible follow their forward move.
The next step was to select those whom he knew could be of the greatest
good in the work they laid out to attempt. Not every scout has the
necessary nerve to hover over a wounded person, and play the part of
nurse or doctor; some boys are afflicted with weak nerves, and feel sick
at the sight of blood; others are clumsy by nature, and hardly capable
of attempting the washing of ugly wounds, with the subsequent binding up
of them.
“I want five to go with me,” said Hugh, decisively. “Arthur for one,
then Billy, Ralph, Alec, and let me see, you can make the fifth one,
Bud. Gather any old bits of cotton or linen you can find, for our supply
in the medical kit may soon be exhausted. And hurry, above everything
else.”
All this talk and exchange of ideas had taken but a few minutes. As not
only the chosen five scouts but their comrades as well jumped at a
lively rate to get things ready, another brief interval sufficed to
complete the job.
“We’re ready, Hugh!” announced Alec Sands, who looked as though he felt
under heavy obligations to Hugh for picking him out as a member of the
life-saving corps.
Once upon a time Alec had fought the rising star of Hugh Hardin with all
his might and main; for he had had ambitions of his own to be supreme in
the councils of the Oakvale Troop of Boy Scouts. After many serious
encounters in which Alec generally got the worst of it, he had bowed to
necessity and admitted that Hugh was better fitted for the position of
leader than he could claim to be.
Since that time the two boys had come to know each other better, and
were now the warmest of friends. Alec formerly had shown some ugly
traits of character; but these were pretty thoroughly overcome after he
turned over that new leaf; and latterly he had developed a popularity
among the members of the troop second only to that of Hugh himself.
“Then let’s be off,” the scout master called out. “We must do some tall
running, because there are two miles between us and the cement works,
and more than that by way of the road, Farmer Stebbins said. But the
running will be easier if we keep on to the main pike, and take that the
rest of the way.”
Those who were to be left behind hated to see them go, for they envied
the fortunate five selected to accompany Hugh. Crushing down the feeling
of keen disappointment as best they could, they gave the little group a
parting cheer.
“Good luck, boys, and here’s hoping you’ll be equal to everything that
you run up against!” called out Ned Twyford, who also made it a point to
secretly promise himself that from that time on he was going to take
considerably more stock in that “first aid” movement, because here was a
plain example of what great value a knowledge along those lines would be
to any scout.
Along the road the six boys ran like greyhounds, leaping and bounding
with the exuberance of young blood fresh after a good night’s rest. They
were following in the tracks of the band of strike-breakers whom they
had seen pass the camp on the previous day.
As he ran, Hugh was turning it all over in his mind. He arrived at the
conclusion that the new workers must have been smuggled into the works
without the knowledge of the strikers; but in some way the truth had
become known in the morning, and this was what had brought about an
attack in force, followed by the shooting, and the flight of the mob.
All was as silent as death ahead of them, and Hugh considered this an
ominous sign. Had the foreigners come back for their wounded, they must
have made some sort of outcry, and the lack of such sounds could only
mean an absence of care for those who had probably been shot down, and
now lay there suffering.