It developed that they had camped within a couple of miles of a large plant or cement works where a couple of hundred men, mostly foreigners, had been employed.
On account of dull times the owner of the works had thought fit to reduce the wages of his employees, and in consequence there had been a strike.
As so frequently happens in such cases where feeling runs high, the owner of the plant, upon finding that his old men would not return to work, hired guards to protect the buildings, while he imported a new lot of strike-breakers whose presence excited the foreigners and promised trouble.
The boys in camp had learned something about this, and Hugh Hardin was seen to listen many times when certain sounds came on the wind blowing from the quarter where he knew the plant was located.
Finally, one morning shortly after breakfast they had heard the sound of numerous gunshots, and much loud shouting. This told them what they had been fearing must have happened, and that a terrible battle between the strikers and the guards had come to pass.
Scouts above all things are always looking about for opportunities to make themselves useful to their fellow beings; and it now occurred to Hugh Hardin that they would never forgive themselves if they did not proceed to render “first aid to the injured” to any of the wretched foreigners who may have been shot during the riot that had taken place.
Accordingly, after consulting with his chums, the scout master selected five of whom he wished to accompany him on his errand of mercy. Of course, in picking these members of Oakvale troop, Hugh considered their availability along the line of knowledge of surgery in its first principles as well as their ability to handle a stretcher in case such should be needed.
So they had hastened across country and arrived on the scene to find that their worst fears were realized. Several badly wounded men had already been helped back to the settlement where these foreigners lived in shacks and even tents. Others, to an unknown number, were said to be lying on the ground where they had fallen at the time they tried to rush the guards, who shot them down by a murderous fire.
Besides Hugh Hardin and his stout, good-natured chum, Billy Worth, there were present Arthur Cameron, said to be the best hand at surgery in the troop, Alec Sands, Bud Morgan and Ralph Kenyon.
They had managed with the aid of a rude stretcher made from a mattress tick obtained from the padrone of the foreign settlement to carry the last of the badly wounded strikers to the temporary field hospital which had been started under a tree. There were a couple of women patients as well, for in that rush toward the gates of the stockade surrounding the cement works, the women had urged on their husbands, just as the Amazons outvied all others during the Revolution in Paris long ago.