The manly looking young fellow who answered to the name of Hugh Hardin was patrol leader and assistant scout master. This could easily be learned by any one at all familiar with the various devices used by Boy Scouts to designate rank. On the left sleeve of his coat, just below the shoulder, he had first of all two white stripes, and underneath that a red first-class scout badge.
Hugh, as well as a number of other members of the Oakvale Troop, had for some time been authorized to wear certain medals signifying that at some previous date they had been instrumental in saving human life at the risk of their own.
If the reader does not know under what stirring conditions these medals, typifying the Boy Scout Roll of Honor, were earned, he can have the pleasure of reading all the particulars in previous books of this series, as lack of time and space prevents our mentioning them here.
Besides the leader of the Wolf Patrol there were present on this occasion Billy Worth—the stout member—Alec Sands—who had once been Hugh’s most bitter rival for honors, but since heading the Otter Patrol he had grown to be very chummy with him—and Buck Winter.
They attended Oakvale High School and were dismissed about half-past one in the afternoon. They thus had considerable advantage over the boys and girls in the lower grades.
Indeed, at the late hour in the spring afternoon mentioned, numerous little folks were heading homeward in knots, having just been given their freedom. Hugh and his three companions had stopped to chat, having met by accident at that point where traffic was congested—the wagons from the mills crossing in one direction and many big and little cars swinging around various corners.
Somehow or other that particular spot always had a peculiar sort of fascination for Hugh. It had tragic memories, too, for on several occasions serious accidents had occurred here, owing to the speed which some drivers persisted in making while approaching the dangerous crossing.
When Buck Winter, the boy who surpassed most of his chums in animal photography, spoke to Hugh about the dim prospect of anything being done in the matter of improving certain glaring defects in the government of the town, the scout master frowned and shook his head.
“I never saw anything hang fire like this,” he remarked, at the same time watching what was going on close by with keen interest. “There’s that crossing over yonder, and some other bad places where children pass over several times a day—it ought to be protected but it isn’t. An officer should be stationed there morning, noon and night, to see that traffic slows up when the children are going and coming from school.”
“That’s right, Hugh,” burst out the impulsive Billy, whose heart was just as big as his waist was expansive, “and some of these fine days there’s going to be something awful happening here! It’ll wake this sleepy old town up! For one, I don’t believe in waiting till your horse is stolen before you think to lock the stable door. ‘A stitch in time saves nine,’ they say.”