CHAPTER XIII.

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.