HARD AT WORK.
“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.