“I’m going along with you this time, you know,” ventured Hugh after he had helped them raise their burden, which seemed to be the hardest part of the job; “so far as I can see there’s no more wounded lying around here. Perhaps we haven’t run on all of them yet; others may have fled in different directions, and we can look for them to show up from time to time, some of them perhaps with wounds that need attention.”
Bud and Alec exchanged glances.
“Why, Hugh, that’s just what has happened already,” said the latter, quickly.
“Do you mean there have been more wounded strikers come into the camp since I left it?” the scout master demanded.
“Three of the same,” Bud answered, “and I tell you Arthur has got his hands more than full with all the bandaging and such things. But he’s doing it in great shape, though when I see the regular old field hospital we’ve got over there I feel that help from the city can’t get around any too soon.”
“I wonder if the news of the battle has been wired or carried in any way?” Alec remarked, as he trudged along, holding to one of the poles with each hand.
“I’m going to make sure it is,” replied Hugh, “by sending a scout to the nearest telegraph station as soon as I get to the camp. Some of these poor people are in a serious way, and for one I don’t propose to take any more responsibility on my shoulders than I can help.”
“Goodness knows we’ve done enough as it is,” said Alec, though that notion would never have prevented Alec from exerting himself right along to continue the good work indefinitely.
As they finally arrived at the settlement, a crowd came out to meet them. Many swarthy faces glowed with half-hidden fires, and Hugh could see that there was only a spark needed to start the slumbering passions into some desperate deed of retaliation.
He hoped that when the news of the riot reached the authorities, they would send the militia to take charge, and place all those guards under arrest until it could be ascertained whether they had acted within their rights in shooting as they had done.