“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.”