CHAPTER IV.

THE WORK OF THE SCOUTS.

“Where was this that you saw the discharged guards?” asked the scout master, after Ralph had made his report.

“Over on the other side of the plant,” came the reply. “You see I was just prowling around, curious to discover what lay there, because none of our fellows had bothered taking a look at that side of the stockade, and I wanted to know how they meant to defend it in case of a rush from one or two hundred strikers.”

“That was all right, Ralph,” Hugh told him; “though it’s a wonder you didn’t get a hail from one of the sheriff’s posse and be asked what business you had looking around.”

“To go on with my story, Hugh, I want to say that I don’t think much of that same posse of the sheriff. Why, he’s just picked up a lot of ordinary men in a hurry, and armed them with guns and badges to back him up. They might fight all right in a pinch, but let me tell you they would never be able to guard that plant against a troop of wideawake Boy Scouts. Why, we could creep in on ’em while they dozed at their posts, and first thing they knew it would be ‘hands up everybody; you’re IT!’”

Hugh laughed at hearing Ralph speak in this strain. He knew that the other was considered an unusually clever scout, for which his love of the woods and former business of hunting and trapping game had especially fitted him.

“Well, that’s a good word for all scouts you’re giving, Ralph,” he said. “And so it was while you were sizing up the watchfulness of the new guards that you discovered the presence of the old ones, was it?”

“Yes, I happened to be in a position to drop down in the brush at the time, and they didn’t glimpse me for a cent,” continued Ralph, with an unconscious touch of pride in his voice. “They were all eyes for the plant, and I could understand they didn’t want to be seen by anybody.”

“Perhaps they’d forgotten something, and were returning to get it?” suggested the scout master, in order to draw the other out.

“Not much,” was Ralph’s vigorous protest, “they acted too suspicious for that, I tell you, Hugh. If they had wanted to get something in an open and aboveboard way why wouldn’t they walk straight up to the gate and send word to the sheriff?”

“It does look a little that way,” admitted Hugh thoughtfully.

“If you asked me straight from the shoulder what those sneaks were meaning to do,” continued the active scout, “I’d say they expected to steal something they knew was in the plant—something worth while at that. For all we know they may be crooks who took up with the offer of big wages when Mr. Campertown’s manager sent word to the agency he wanted guards.”

“Perhaps break into the safe of the company, which they think may hold enough money to pay them for their trouble; that’s what you mean, is it, Ralph?”

“Something along those lines,” came the answer.

“It may turn out that way,” Hugh told him a little dubiously.

“Sounds as if you didn’t take any too much stock in my guess, Hugh?”

“Well,” remarked the scout master, “when you stop to consider that the sheriff of the county is in charge of the plant now, and has his posse standing guard with orders to shoot any trespasser on sight, it doesn’t strike me as reasonable.”

“But what would you think might be the reason for their coming back, then?” demanded Ralph, somewhat disappointed because the scout leader had failed to back him up in his theory.

“I can only give a guess at it,” mused Hugh. “It seems to me as if the explanation might be connected with the disgust and anger of these guards at losing their fat job. They may have talked it over, and sent these three back to prowl around to see if something couldn’t be done to start trouble between the posse and the strikers.”

“Whew! I didn’t think of that!” exclaimed Ralph. “If such a thing happened it would sort of gloss over their own crazy act in firing on men when their backs were turned, wouldn’t it? If the sheriff had to fight to hold his own after discharging them, it might make the public excuse their terrible blunder. Hugh, there may be a whole lot in what you say.”

“You didn’t try to follow those three guards, of course, Ralph?”

“Well, hardly,” grinned the other scout. “It was broad daylight, and, while I’m a fair hand at dodging after any fellow, I knew they’d get on to me right away. I just lay there in the bushes and watched ’em go along. But, Hugh, they sheered away from the plant before they got out of my sight, so I’m sure they never walked up to the gate and made any request.”

“There’s one thing I can do to try and keep the peace,” ventured Hugh, as though his own suggestion might still be in his mind.

“What might that be?” inquired the other, curiously.

“Try and have a talk with the old padrone,” the scout master informed him. “You know he can understand English all right, and he speaks it after a fashion. If he were put on his guard I think he would warn his men that they must not under any conditions be drawn into a dispute with armed parties pretending to be members of the sheriff’s posse, for these men may try and play that smart game, you know.”

“Here comes Dr. Richter, Hugh, and he’s got some pleasant news for you, if that smile on his face stands for anything.”

The Red Cross surgeon quickly joined the two chums.

“Things are already beginning to take a turn for the better,” he announced.

“Do you mean that the ones who are so badly wounded will have a fair show to recover?” asked Hugh, feeling as though the burden that had been weighing so heavily on his own heart was being lifted.

“Well, that was hardly what I meant,” admitted the other, “though so far as I can say just now there’s a fighting chance for them all, and with reasonably good luck we’ll pull them through. But I’ve just had a few lines from Mr. Campertown over at the plant.”

“Something about the wounded men, I venture?” remarked Ralph.

“Just what it was,” the surgeon acceded. “It must be that the sight of them lying here on these old faded blankets stirred him more or less, especially when he remembered that they had once been his faithful workers, and that it was through the agency of men hired with his money that they came to get these severe injuries.”

“Then he had a proposal to make, sir?” asked Hugh, guessing as much from the way in which Surgeon Richter spoke.

“He mentioned in his brief note that he would like me to have some of you boys come over to the works; that there were a number of good cots we could have, together with all the clean sheets and blankets needed to give the wounded comfortable beds while they were in our temporary hospital. I sent word back that I was going to gratefully accept his offer, and thanked him for it.”

“Mr. Campertown is getting his eyes opened,” observed Ralph, dryly. “Seeing such terrible things is going to make him think a whole lot different from what he’s been doing.”

“I only hope it does,” said Hugh, sincerely.

“If such a thing comes about,” remarked the surgeon, with a positive ring to his voice, “you Boy Scouts will have had a whole lot to do with the industrial rebellion. He was highly pleased with what he heard about your carryings-on here. The sheriff told me that when I saw him last. I really think he wants to have a chance to talk with you, Hugh, and so if I were you I’d be one of those to go over after these things.”

“Thank you, Dr. Richter, I will,” replied the scout master, who naturally felt a little thrill of elation when he heard these words of sincere praise from the lips of one he thought so highly of as the Red Cross surgeon. “Ralph, will you pick out half a dozen of the fellows to accompany us, while I hunt up the padrone? While I’ve got that other thing in my mind I’d better put the padrone on his guard.”

“All right, Hugh; meet you a little later at this tree. I’ll pick out a husky lot, so they can carry the cots if they happen to be heavy. It was right decent of old Campertown to make this offer, I take it. He’s seeing a light, all right; and if things keep on working as they seem now, better times are coming for these poor dagoes.”

Ten minutes later Hugh joined the impatient group that was waiting for him under the tree in question. They immediately started toward the plant, and quickly arrived at the gate.

Here they found a man on guard, who had evidently received orders to admit any of the wearers of the khaki who might appear, for he stepped aside and waved them inside the stockade.

Besides Ralph and Hugh there were Billy Worth, Tom Sherwood, Jack Dunham, Bud Morgan, Blake Merton and a boy who went by the name of “Whistling Smith.” The last mentioned had not been in camp at the time Hugh and his five chums hurried in the direction of the scene of battle; he and another scout, Monkey Stallings by name, a fellow who delighted in doing all sorts of acrobatic feats, had arrived later in the morning, having hiked all the way from Oakvale since early dawn.

To enter the works they had to pass through the office. Here they found Mr. Campertown, and seated on a chair was the merry-faced little chap, whose smile had already captivated most of the boys who had seen him. Reuben Campertown, Hugh had learned, was the only child of the rich man’s dead son, and evidently the apple of his grandfather’s eye.

The millionaire greeted them with a smile. Hugh realized that at such a time Mr. Campertown looked vastly different from what he had believed him to be before, when that gloomy and even stern expression had marked his face.

“I’m glad you came, boys,” he told them, and his eyes rested longest on Hugh, as though he had somehow learned that much of the credit which the Red Cross surgeon had given to the scouts for their knowledge of “first aid to the injured” was to be credited to their efficient leader.

Mr. Campertown himself proceeded to show them where the supplies he had mentioned in his note to Dr. Richter could be found; and the cheery-looking little curly-headed chap held fast to his hand all the while.

“Take what cots you think you can use, boys,” the owner of the works told them. “Take also this pile of sheets and blankets. Tell the surgeon I do not expect them back again. It is as little as I can do to try and repair some of the mistakes that have occurred in connection with this unfortunate business.”

The boys started to carry off the cots needed first. Hugh had found out that in all they required four, with the necessary sheets and blankets.

“The padrone will open his eyes when he sees all this coming in,” remarked Billy Worth, who had loaded himself down with a cot and some of the other things.

“By the way,” Mr. Campertown said, turning to Hugh, and looking a little confused. “I find that my manager laid in enough provisions for a long siege. Now that things have taken on a new look, I’d like to get rid of some of this unnecessary food. There’s a heap of supplies you boys can take over to the Red Cross surgeon with my compliments. He may find something in the lot he can make use of for his patients. I hope so, at any rate.”

Hugh felt like giving a hurrah, though he resisted this impulse and only smiled as he thanked the other. According to his way of thinking this wealthy man was having something of a revolution come about within him. All his ideas in connection with the abyss that should exist between an employer and those who worked for him for wages were in danger of being transformed.

“It must have been that pitiful sight of those wounded men that did it,” Hugh was telling himself; “that and the dark looks on the faces of the men and women in the crowd. He never dreamed what was going to happen to him this day when he started out with his little grandson for a ride in his car. I hope it’s going to be a red letter day for Mr. Campertown, that’s all.”

As the boys could not carry all the cots, supplies of bedding, and the heap of groceries as well, they gladly promised to come back for a second load. Hugh was about to also pack some of the hams and other things over to the settlement when Mr. Campertown laid a detaining hand on his arm.

“Please stay here with me while your comrades are gone,” he said pleasantly. “I want to ask you some questions about your organization. Tell me what you have done in the past? This is not the first time you boys have managed to stretch out a helping hand to those who needed assistance?”

Thrilled by this request, Hugh was only too happy to obey. He knew he could relate a number of things connected with Oakvale Troop of Boy Scouts that would prove interesting to Mr. Campertown. And all the while he hoped to be able to work in a few words that might serve to make the rich man consider the wisdom of bridging the chasm that lay between himself and his former employees.

The boys returned and carried away the rest of the stuff. Still Hugh and Mr. Campertown sat there in the office and talked. The little boy had gone to sleep in his grandfather’s arms, with his curly head resting on that protecting shoulder. Every time the owner of the plant looked down at his rosy face a tender expression could be seen on his own usually stern countenance.

“The sun rises and sets for him in that child,” was what Hugh told himself. He wondered what it might mean to Mr. Campertown if anything happened to deprive him of this one consolation in his declining years, since the boy’s parents were both dead, he had told Hugh.

The scout master in that hour of time had told the master of the works a great many things in connection with what he and his chums had done in times past. His narrative was extremely modest, and to listen one would be inclined to think Hugh had no more to do with these exploits than the lowest scout in the troop; but Mr. Campertown could read between the lines.

Hugh was thinking of taking his leave when the gentleman startled him by asking a question.

“Would you mind telling me, Hugh, who the Red Cross nurse is I noticed assisting Dr. Richter; the one with the color in her cheeks? I had just a glimpse of her face, and somehow it seemed strangely familiar, though I don’t seem able to place it. What is her name, my son?”