CHAPTER VIII.

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.