Meanwhile Dr. Richter was making preparations for removing several of the other injured strikers to the hospital at Farmingdale, where they could receive the proper treatment free of all expense.
In this labor he was ably assisted by some of the scouts, and it was settled that Nurse Arnold, as the older and more experienced of the attendants, should accompany the ambulance with its load of suffering humanity to the distant city.
“I think you put a flea in the sheriff’s ear, Doctor, when you told him these people were shot when they were running away,” Hugh remarked, as they stood and watched the ambulance move along the road, to come back again for another load later on.
“That was just what I meant to do,” replied the other, seriously. “I wanted to impress the fact on him to start with, that it was not a battle, but a massacre, for as far as we know all the injuries are on the side of the strikers. Then again, it struck me that a wealthy man like that Mr. Campertown, who is a millionaire I believe, ought to pay more attention to what is being done in his name. Why, some of these women could have torn his clothes off if the padrone had not kept them in subjection. They glared at the owner of the works like tiger-cats, and I could see their hands working as if they longed to lay hold of him.”
Hugh turned and looked at the several figures still lying under the tree, and a big sigh welled up from his very heart.
“I certainly hope,” he said, “that what Mr. Campertown has seen here to-day will open his eyes to what his duty is toward those who work for him. He has seen how horribly these people have to live even with the wages they used to get; and he must realize that it means almost starvation for them to take what has been offered lately.”
“Yes, if he knew what was best for him he would do what some other employers have done—even be satisfied to suffer a temporary loss rather than cut the wages of their faithful employees. I know several big-hearted men who have done that same thing. They say they can stand a loss for a time, but their men could not. It would hardly be safe for Mr. Campertown to wander over this way while the strikers are so furious, or to let that handsome little grandson of his get away from him.”
“Then that was his grandchild?” asked Arthur. “He seemed to be as pretty a three-year-old as I ever saw. Even the dago women were staring at him, and then looking at their own ragged and dirty children as if comparing the lot of the two classes.”
Hugh felt a thrill pass over him when he heard the surgeon say what he did. He, too, had been very much taken with the rosy-cheeked little chap who sat in the big touring car alongside the owner of the cement plant. It gave him a bad feeling to even think of harm befalling such a fine lad through the desire for revenge on the part of some of these men or women who had seen their kind shot down in cold blood by the paid deputies of this same rich man.
“I hope it will never come to that,” he remarked.