Here the six boys had labored, and tried to do all they could to relieve the suffering of those wretched victims of the riot, some of whom were injured so badly that Hugh and Arthur feared for their lives.
Wisely foreseeing that they had a greater task cut out for them than it would appear lay within the province of Boy Scouts, with their limited knowledge of surgery, Hugh from the beginning had determined to seek assistance.
It happened that just then the Red Cross movement in the State was receiving an impetus, and those deeply interested in the advance of the cause of mercy were holding some sort of a convention in the city of Farmingdale, not a great many miles away from the pitiful little field hospital which Hugh and his mates had organized under such discouraging conditions.
Hugh understood that at this convention there was to be shown one of the very newest motor ambulances, together with its regular traveling doctor and two nurses of the Red Cross.
It was feared that those in charge of the works might delay sending off an account of the battle, and hence help would be slow in coming. Accordingly, Hugh Hardin, with his accustomed zeal, had conceived the idea of telegraphing direct to the Red Cross at Farmingdale. He had explained in brief language what a terrible condition of affairs prevailed, and begged that they dispatch their new motor ambulance forthwith, in order to save the lives of several whose cases were beyond the limited capabilities of the scouts.
As the boys, though never slackening their arduous duties, had been watching eagerly for much more than an hour after this urgent message had been dispatched, it can easily be understood why they should hail the appearance of that oncoming ambulance with hearty cheers.
“There, you can see the surgeon all in white sitting beside the chauffeur!” exclaimed Alec Sands, as they gathered in a cluster and anxiously awaited the coming of those who would relieve them from the weight of care pressing so heavily on their young shoulders.
“Yes, and I c’n also see two nurses, also in snowy garments, peeping out back of the surgeon,” added Billy Worth.
The foreigners were wildly excited. Of course most of them had never before set eyes on a Red Cross ambulance, and they hardly knew whether they should allow the strangers to take their wounded away, or to resist them. They rushed this way and that, all the while talking at a furious rate, until as Ralph Kenyon, who had always been a lover of the woods, declared it reminded him of a crow caucus, where a thousand birds cawed and scolded and clamored.
The ambulance drew up close to where the six scouts stood, as though the one at the wheel recognized them as being in authority; or it may be the surgeon saw the significant signs of a field hospital in the figures scattered on dirty blankets under the shade of that wide-spreading oak.