A true Scout is always on the alert.—Sure Pop
THE MAGIC BUTTON'S WARNING
"He's gone!" Bob and Betty stared at each other. For a moment the whole thing seemed like a dream, and they hated to think of waking up.
"But itwasreal!" Bob turned the magic button over and over in his hand, glad to have something left to prove the reality of their new friend, something they could still see and touch.
"We can't wear that button, though," Betty reminded him. "We've got to earn it first. What shall we do with it?"
Bob stuck it into his deepest pocket. "I'll hang on to it till Sure Pop comes back—if he does come back. Oh, hello, Joe!"
Joe Schmidt, a wiry boy of Bob's own age, but fully half a head shorter, turned around and gazed up at the Daltons' porch.
"Why, hello, Bob! What are you doing?"
"Nothing." Bob ran down the steps and began talking with Joe. In fact, the two lads were so busy talking that they did not see George Gibson till he purposely bumped into Joe's back with a sudden "Hey, there! Get off the walk!"
Joe bristled like a ruffled sparrow. "Let's see you throw me off!" When George good-naturedly took him at his word, Joe clinched with him and managed to get a half-Nelson hold on him. Joe always went at things in dead earnest, anyway. Bob and Betty, laughing and shouting, hopped gleefully around the swaying wrestlers, Bob yelling encouragement to George, and Betty yelling just as hard for Joe.
Suddenly—was it just Bob's imagination?—something seemed to give a wiggle in his pocket—then a warning flop. It must be that magic button!
Bob jumped, gave a snort of surprise, and jammed his hand into his pocket. What had got into the button anyway?
Then an idea flashed across his mind—perhaps the Safety button was trying to warn him. To be sure, if the wrestlers went down hard on the cement sidewalk, it might mean a broken skull! In his hurry to get them off the walkand over on the grass, Bob lost his head. He made the mistake of trying to do it by force; he caught hold of George's elbow, and got a sharp dig in the pit of his stomach for his pains.
"Hey, fellows—danger!" he yelled, when he could catch his breath. "Get over on the grass—look out!"
His warnings came too late. George, much the bigger of the two, got a hip-lock on Joe, and, forgetting everything else in his struggle to "lay him out," gave a sudden heave that sent Joe sprawling on his back. His head struck the sidewalk with a thud.
That was all. Joe lay like a lump of lead.
"He'sdead!" screamed Betty wildly. She threw herself at the gasping George. "You—you'vekilledhim!"
George, puffing and blowing from his struggle, held her at arm's length. A big policeman suddenly came around the corner. "Here, what's all this?" he asked sternly, bending over the fallen wrestler.
"He struck on the back of his head," spoke up Bob. "They were wrestling—just in fun, you know—and Joe struck his head on the sidewalk. Is—is he dead?"
"Small thanks to you young rascals if he isn't," growled the officer. "Crazy Indians, wrestling on a cement walk! Where does he live?"
He lifted the limp body in his arms and hurried to the Widow Schmidt's modest little cottage with the green blinds and the neatly scrubbed doorstep. George and Bob, feelingvery sick, trailed sadly along after him; they hated to think of the look that would come into the Widow Schmidt's motherly face. Joe was all she had in the world.
Betty, womanlike, was first to think of the doctor. Almost before the policeman had reached Joe's side, she was running to the corner drug store as fast as her feet would carry her. The druggist would know where to reach a doctor with the least delay—she could telephone.
It seemed ages before the fluttering lids opened and Joe's black eyes looked out on the world again. "No bones broken," said the doctor at last. "Half an inch farther to the right or left, though—"
He stopped, but the twins understood. Silently they gripped Joe's hand as it lay helpless on the bed, nodded to George, and the three tip-toed out of the hushed little room.
That night, before Bob and Betty went to bed, Sure Pop came back. He found the twins sitting with their heads together, studying Bob'sHandbook of Scout-Craftas if their lives depended on learning it by heart in one evening. Bob still lacked a few months of being old enough to join the Boy Scouts; he had long looked forward to his coming birthday, but it had never meant so much to him as now.
Sure Pop nodded and smiled as he saw the familiar handbook. "Good work!" he said. "All true Scouts are brothers, you know. Well, how about the 'three keeps' of the Scout Law? Did you find them as easy as you thought?"
Bob and Betty grew very red. They did not know what to say.
The Safety Scout saved them the trouble. "Joe's better tonight," he told them, comfortingly. "I've just come from there, and the doctor says he'll be up again in a day or so. What shall we do tomorrow, friends—begin hunting for adventure and planting Safety First ideas?"
Bob looked at Betty and swallowed hard at a lump in his throat. Somehow this wise little Sure Pop knew everything that happened!
"I think," said Bob, frankly, "we really planted one today!"
All true Scouts are brothers.—Sure Pop
Sure Pop
THE LIVE WIRE
Sure Pop saw, the moment he laid eyes on Bob and Betty next morning, that they had made up their minds to earn a magic button apiece that day.
"Where shall we go for today's adventure?" was the first question.
The Safety Scout laughed. "We probably shan't have to go far. Once a Scout's eyes are really open, so that danger signs other folks wouldn't notice begin to mean something to him, why, adventure walks right up to him. It walked right up to you two yesterday, but you didn't read the signs till too late. Being a Scout, remember, means doing the right thing at the right moment. Nowlet's start out and walk a few blocks, and see what danger signals we come across that other folks are overlooking."
Just as they opened the gate, Mrs. Dalton came to the door. "Bob! Come here a moment, please. I want you to take a note over to Mrs. Hoffman's for me. Their telephone is out of order."
She lowered her voice as she handed him the letter, and added, "Who is that out there with Betty?"
"Oh, that's one of the Scouts. We're going out for a little practice scouting."
Mrs. Dalton knew how eagerly Bob had been awaiting the day when he could become a Boy Scout. She trusted the Scouts and was glad to have Bob and Betty spend their vacation time in scouting. She little guessed that the three friends were to start an order of Safety Scouts which even fathers and mothers would join.
Bob hurried back to Betty and Sure Pop. "Can you wait while I run over to Mrs. Hoffman's with this? All right, I'll be back in no time!"
Hurrying though he was, he looked both ways before he crossed the car tracks, for already the habit of "thinking Safety" was growing on him. He reached Mrs. Hoffman's in record time, delivered the note, and raced back toward home.
As he slowed down to catch his breath, he met a crowd of yelling youngsters "playing Indians." Several of them wore Indian suits. One, dressed as a cowboy, tried to ropehim as he passed. This gave the Indians an idea, and they came howling after Bob, waving their tomahawks and promising to scalp him. Two yelping dogs joined in the chase.
Bob grinned and broke into a long, easy run which soon shook the redskins off his trail. But at a sudden delighted whoop from the enemy he stopped and looked back.
"Hi-yi!" yelled the biggest Indian. "Look at that telephone wire on the ground! Come on, let's chop it off and use it to bind the palefaces to the stake."
Pellmell across the street swarmed the little fellows, each bound to get there first. But Bob was too quick for them. Hatless, breathless, he threw himself between the Indians and the swaying wire. "Get back!" he roared. "That's no telephone wire—it's alive! Keep back, I say! You'll be killed!"
It was no easy thing to stand between the youngsters and the deadly wire. They were laughing and yelling so hard, and the dogs were barking so wildly, that at first Bob couldn't get the idea of danger into their heads. He fairly had to knock two or three of them down to keep them from hacking at the wire with their hatchets. Would they never understand? "I won't forget this time, anyway!" muttered the boy, gritting his teeth as he remembered the "three keeps" of the Scout Law.
Up ran one of the dogs, capering around with sharp, ear-splitting barks, and tried to get his teeth into Bob's ankle.When Bob tried to kick him away, of course the Indians and cowboys yelled harder than ever. The dog stumbled and fell across the electric wire—gave one wild yelp of pain—and lay there kicking and struggling, unable to jerk himself loose. Worst of all, he had landed in a puddle of water, so that the electric current was pouring straight through his twitching body into the wet earth.
At last Bob managed to drive all the boys back out of harm's way, only to see one of the cowboys rush for the dog with a cry that tore at Bob's heartstrings.
"It's Tige! Oh, Tige!—poor old Tige! Let me go! I'vegotto save my dog!"
Bob had grabbed the little fellow and held him tight. "Too late, old scout," he said, with tears in his own eyes as he saw the dog kicking his last. "Tige's done for, I'm afraid. Keep back, there—that wire will get you too!" For the boys were crowding nearer again.
"Who has a telephone at home?" asked Bob.
"We have," said one of the larger boys.
"Then run home quick, call up the Electric Light Company, and have them send their repair crew. Tell them a live wire has killed Tige and may kill the boys if they don't hurry. Tell 'em it's at the corner of Broad Street and Center Avenue. Run!"
While he waited for the repair wagon, Bob managed to get the boys lined up in all directions, where they could mount guard over the danger zone. Then he stood guardwith the rest, and they succeeded in keeping all teams and passers-by from running into danger till the repair men came.
It seemed a long while before the clatter of hoofs and the rumble of heavy wheels told him the rescue party was coming at last. He jumped with surprise when the repair wagon dashed around the corner and pulled up beside the curb, for there beside the driver sat Sure Pop, the Safety Scout! Puzzled by Bob's long stay and hearing the gong as the wagon hurried up, he had decided to come along.
Ten minutes later the live wire was back in place, the repair crew had clattered off again, and a little band of mourning Indians and cowboys had carried poor Tige's body over to his master's back yard, where they buried him after a solemn funeral service. Only a dog—but the tears they dropped on his little grave were very real and sincere, for he had been a jolly playmate and a loyal friend.
Bob was very sober as he walked home with Sure Pop. "Wish I could have saved Tige, somehow!"
The Safety Scout laid his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Bob, you did just right. You remembered the 'three keeps' this time—you kept wide awake, kept cool, and kept your mind on one thing at a time. No Scout could have done more. If you had risked touching that wire, it would have cost a good deal more than the life of a dog, I fear. It's important to know whatnotto do, sometimes. RobertDalton, I'm proud of you! Here—you've earned it this time, sure pop!"
He reached down into his pocket, pulled out the Safety button, and fastened it in Bob's coat lapel. The boy flushed with pride as he lifted the magic button to his ear. And never had words thrilled him more than those which greeted him now—for two of them were new words which his own quick wits had earned:
"Safety First!" whispered the button, clear and sweet as a far-away bugle call. "Good Work!"
Safety first—not part of the time, but all the time.—Sure Pop
Carrying a ladder
BETTY EVENS THE SCORE
All through supper time Betty schemed and plotted.
"I certainly am proud of the way Bob won his," she said to herself. "But I've never been behind Bobyet, and that magic button's going to be twins before tomorrow night,somehow!"
The hot summer sun woke her early next morning, and she hurried downstairs to be through breakfast before Sure Pop came for the day's adventures.
"Where do we go today?" she asked Sure Pop an hour later, dancing up and down and looking wistfully at Bob's new Safety button.
"Sorry, friends," said the Safety Scout, "but I can't bewith you today. I'm due for a little outside scouting duty—something you twins aren't quite ready for yet."
"Oh, say!" Bob's face fell. "What are we going todothen, all day alone?"
"Do?" laughed the merry Colonel, waving them goodby. "Why, you'll be out scouring the neighborhood for new adventures, I fancy. And as for Betty, if I'm any mind reader, she has something up her sleeve sure enough!"
Sure Pop was right, as usual. Bob fussed around the yard awhile, managed to open a box of crockery out on the back steps for Mother, and soon rambled off to see what new adventures he could find in the name of Safety First.
Betty spent most of the morning in the kitchen, helping Mother. As soon as Bob was off again after lunch, she began to roam about the yard, eyeing everything like a hawk. Soon Mother saw her picking up the boards Bob had pried loose from the box and scowling at the ugly nails that stuck up where little feet might so easily be stabbed by their rusty points. These she carefully bent down with a big stone.
"That's one on Bob, anyway," said Betty to herself, and went on looking around the yard.
Her eye roved upward to the bright geraniums on the sill of Mother's window upstairs. "Mother," she called, "have you ever readBen Hur?"
"Why, yes, Betty—a long time ago. Why?"
"Don't you remember how that loose tile from Ben Hur'sroof—the one he tried to snatch back as he saw it fall—struck the Roman soldier on the head, and how Ben Hur went to prison for it? Well, what about those flower pots up there?"
"Why, Betty!" cried her mother, more puzzled than ever. "Ben Hur—flower pots—what is the dear child talking about?"
Betty laughed. "I read in the paper last night that one of the big hotels has put up signs in every room, and they say:
PATRONS—ATTENTION
Please do not place articles of any kind ON WINDOW SILL (bottles and chinaware most dangerous). They may fall or be blown into the street, causing serious if not fatal accidents.
"That's because a flower pot fell from an upper window on a woman's head. Baby's sand pile is right below your window, and one of the flower pots might fall while she was out there playing. A sudden draft could do it, or a door slammed hard. Do you mind if I fasten them on with wire so they can't fall? Then I'll do it right now before anything happens!"
She had just finished the job to her satisfaction, and was looking about for something else, when Mother called softly: "Betty, if you'll keep a lookout and let me know if anybody comes, or if Baby wakes up, I'll take a nap."
Betty was pleased. Here was a fine chance to play housekeeper. Mother left a soup bone simmering over one burner of the gas stove, and a steam pudding bubbling away over another, and went upstairs for her nap.
Betty tiptoed to the little sewing-room, next to the kitchen, and looked in. Baby was sleeping. Then she softly shut the kitchen door and sat down in the dining-room to read. Suddenly a shower came up, and out she ran to close the windows in the kitchen and the sewing-room, where the rain was pouring in.
She had hardly begun reading again when she heard Bob clatter up the back steps, tear through the kitchen in search of his raincoat, and hurry out again. The wind was blowing hard and swept through the open kitchen, banging the dustpan against the wall like a fire alarm gong.
Betty read on. Presently she looked at the clock and sprang to her feet. "Why, how long Baby is sleeping today! 'Most three hours and never a peep. I wonder—"
A faint whiff of gas from the kitchen made her turn pale with dread. Then it flashed into her mind what must have happened—that sudden gust of wind had blown out the gas! As she ran to the kitchen, she realized that she had caught the same faint smell several times before. "Oh!" she sobbed, "what if Baby—"
Mother, sound asleep upstairs, was roused by a crash from the kitchen, a shriek from Betty, and the sound of a shattered window-pane; for Betty, finding that the outsidedoor stuck fast, had hurled a frying-pan through the window. Then she ran to the sewing-room as the life-giving breeze poured in through the broken pane.
Startled, bewildered, still only half awake, Mother stumbled to the kitchen and found Betty, with the unconscious baby in her arms, groping her way toward the dining-room. Snatching them both up and rushing toward the open air, Mother landed in a heap on the front porch, Betty and the baby on top of her. And then—oh, glorious sound!—came a feeble little cry from Baby, and they knew she was safe after all! There Father and Bob found them a few minutes later, laughing and crying and hugging each other by turns. Betty's quick wits had saved the day.
Mother was telling the whole story that evening, not forgetting the rusty nails and the flower pots—two risks which neither Father nor Mother had ever thought of before—when a sturdy little figure in a Safety Scout uniform paused at the door and listened with a shrewd twinkle in his eye.
It was Sure Pop, who had looked in to say good night to the twins. He caught Betty's eye, beckoned her into the hall—and when she came back to the supper table, Bob's sharp eye caught the gleam of a Safety First button overherheart, too.
Betty had evened the score!
Safety scouting begins at home.—Sure Pop
LITTLE SCHNEIDER'S FIRE ALARM
Ever since the twins had earned their Safety First buttons, they had been looking forward to the Fourth of July, and on the eve of the Fourth came an adventure far more exciting than any they had expected.
The lights were out in Bob's and Betty's rooms, and Bob had just dropped off to sleep when the clang of the fire bell brought him out of bed in a hurry.
As his feet struck the floor, his ear caught the rattle of gravel on the window. The room was half lighted by a ruddy glow, and looking out he saw Sure Pop standing below his window.
"Come on to the fire!" the Safety Scout called up to him. "Perhaps we can do somebody a good turn. Bring Betty along, if your mother doesn't mind."
Bob got dressed first and hurried in to help Betty. Her teeth were chattering with excitement, and she could hardly button her clothes. "Where is the fire, Bob?"
"I don't know exactly—a mile or two north of here, I think. Come on—Mother says you may go, if you'll stick close to me."
The two clattered down the back stairs and joined Sure Pop.
"Bother that shoe string, anyhow!" panted Bob as they scampered off to the fire.
"Better stop and tie it up," advised the Safety Scout. "It'll trip you the first thing you know."
Bob thought otherwise. A couple of blocks farther on, however, he stepped on the dragging string, caught his toe on a loose board in the sidewalk, and sprawled headlong. But Bob was game. Up he jumped, gave Sure Pop the Scout salute, and said, with a grin, "Sir, I stand corrected." Then he tied the shoe string by the light of a street lamp, winked at Betty, and the three ran on.
The fire was farther away than it looked, and not till they had reached the hilltop did the size of the blaze fully show itself. "Goodness!" cried Betty. "The German church is gone, and Turner Hall will be next. And look at all those little houses in a row—they won't last long atthat rate!" Then she stopped and coughed, for the air was full of smoke and soot, both from the burning buildings and from the fire engines.
Everywhere was noise and confusion. Half-dressed men and women stumbled over the fire hose as they hurried along with their arms full of household articles, trying to save everything they could.
A frightened sob fell on Betty's ears. She turned to see a chubby little baby boy, toddling along barefooted in his nightie, the tears rolling down his fat cheeks. "Mama!" he sobbed. "I want my Mama!"
"Oh, poor little thing!" cried Betty. "He's lost!" She caught the scared little fellow up in her arms and wrapped him snugly in the folds of her loose cloak. "Don't cry, honey. Betty'll find Mama for you!" And she cuddled and petted him till he stopped crying and lay still in her arms, peering out at the spreading flames with wondering eyes.
"I'm going to find his mother for him," said Betty. "He's scared half to death!"
But Sure Pop caught her arm as she started away. "Wait, she'll find him."
Sure enough, before long a young woman came running wildly from house to house calling out, "Karlchen! My little Karlchen! Where are you?"
The little fellow popped his head out from under Betty's cloak with a squeal of delight. "Mama!" he cried in hissoft baby voice. "Mama!"—just that one happy word, over and over, as his mother pressed him to her breast.
The look on her face was thanks enough for Betty. Somehow the fire did not seem so dreadful to her after that.
"How'd it start?" Bob asked a fireman who was binding up a split in the bulging canvas hose.
"Fellow dropped a lighted match in a coat closet—house next to the church," puffed the fireman, who was breathing as if he had run a mile. He gave the hose a parting kick and hurried to join his comrades down the street, where the flames were fiercest.
"The same old story," said Sure Pop, soberly. "Hold on! What's that?"
Bob and Betty looked up at the little old-fashioned window in the cottage across the street. A small black-and-tan dog was standing on his hind legs inside the room, pawing and scratching at the window pane.
Sure Pop put two fingers to his lips and gave a piercing whistle. The dog answered him, barking wildly and running back into the smoke-filled room, then to the window again, as if trying to call their attention to something or somebody in the room with him.
"There's somebody in there!" cried Bob. "Come on, Sure Pop—wait here for us, Betty!"
As they ran, the two splashed into a pool of water in a hollow of the sidewalk. Sure Pop dipped his handkerchief in this and tied it over his nose and mouth. Bob didthe same. Then the smoke of the burning cottage swallowed them up.
Remembering the dangers of a draft, Sure Pop carefully closed the door after them, and stopped Bob from kicking a hole in the window at the head of the stairs. They knew which room it was—the farthest window from the front door—and flung themselves against the door so hard that it burst open and they fell headlong into the room. The little black-and-tan dog, barking more wildly than ever, had heard them coming and was dragging with all his might at something on the bed.
Bob and Sure Pop, half choked with smoke, ran to the bedside. There lay a little girl only five or six years old. Yes, she was breathing!
Just then the hungry flames burst in through the flimsy closet door and came licking along the ceiling. Bob's eyes smarted and burned, and his lungs felt as if they would burst. He remembered his Boy Scout studies in First Aid, though, and threw himself beside Sure Pop on the floor, where the smoke was not so thick. Together they dragged the little girl to the window.
Bob put his lips close to Sure Pop's ear. "Shall we jump?"
Sure Pop shook his head. "Too risky. We'll try the stairs."
With the little girl held close between them, their bodies shielding her from the flames, the two groped and stumbleddown the short flight of stairs, fairly falling through the whirlwind of flame that swirled upward from the first floor. Scorched, singed, with their clothing afire in places, they fought their way back to the street—safe!
Betty ran forward with a glad cry and flung her arms around her twin. "Bob! Oh, Bob, I thought you weregone!"
Just then they heard a shout as a frightened little family group came running up, and a roughly dressed laborer snatched the little girl and kissed her till her eyes opened and she smiled.
"Good Schneider! Nice Schneider!" said her small brother, patting the dog, who was wagging his tail almost off for joy.
"Nice little Schneider—he took—care—of—me!" exclaimed the little girl between kisses. And the father gathered up the little dog in his arms and kissed him, too!
As the tired Safety Scouts opened the front gate half an hour later, the boom of a cannon roared out, somewhere on the other side of town, and the twelve o'clock bells and whistles joined in an echoing chorus.
Sure Pop raised his hand with a tired smile. "Midnight!" he cried. "Hurrah for the glorious Fourth!"
Don't let a careless match cost a dozen homes.—Sure Pop
"CHANCE CARTER'S WAY"
BOOM! It was the distant roar of some Fourth of July cannon which had escaped the watchful eye of the police.
Bob Dalton stirred uneasily and flopped over in bed. The morning sun was shining straight into his eyes.
By the time the twins were dressed and downstairs, Sure Pop was waiting for them in the back yard. He, too, had slept late after the excitement of the fire.
"I had hoped for a holiday today," he said, "but I can see there's going to be plenty of scouting for me to do, even on a 'sane Fourth,' so I'm off on my rounds. How are you two going to spend the day?"
"Going over to where the fire was, as soon as we've had our breakfast," said Bob. "Looks from here as if Turner Hall's still smoking."
Betty was fingering the Safety Button in Sure Pop's lapel. "What are you doing, Betty?" asked the Safety Scout, with a twinkle.
"Turning your button right side up," Betty told him.
The merry little Colonel laughed and explained: "I have to wear it wrong side up each day till I've done my One Day's Boost for Safety."
"Oh," said Bob. "Same as the Boy Scouts wear their neckties outside their vests till they've done the day's good turn to somebody?"
Sure Pop nodded. "That one little rule is the biggest thing in the whole Scout Law," he said. "The Scout who lives up to that test—doing a good turn to somebody every day, quietly and without boasting—will be classed alongside the greatest Scouts the world has ever known. Bring me yourHandbook of Scout-Crafta moment, please, Bob. Listen to this from page 7, now:
"'Another way to remind himself is to wear his Scout badge reversed until he has done his good turn. The good turn may not be a very big thing—help an old lady across the street; remove a banana skin from the pavement so that people may not fall; remove from streets or roads broken glass, dangerous to automobile or bicycle tires'—tosay nothing," added Sure Pop, "of the danger to barefooted boys and girls, or to folks with thin shoes! Don't you see, Bob and Betty, how every one of those good turns happens to be a good turn for Safety as well? I told you a few days ago that all true Scouts are brothers; aren't we all working toward the same end, after all?"
Bob and Betty saw the point. They turned their Safety buttons upside down as Sure Pop waved them goodby, resolving to get them right side up at the very first chance that offered.
They found their father on the front porch reading the paper, taking solid comfort in the fact that Bruce's Mills were closed for the day. "I want you to help me with a little work out in the yard," he said, "as soon as you've had your breakfast." So it was almost one o'clock before Bob and Betty set out for the scene of last night's fire. Just across the river they met Chance Carter and George Gibson, bound in the same direction.
The German church still raised its steepled head toward the sky, but its roof had fallen in, and Turner Hall was a mass of blackened ruins. Parts of the walls were still standing, swaying as if ready to topple over any moment. Off in one corner the blackened timbers and jumbled bits of furniture were stubbornly smoldering.
The four stood and looked. "Just think!" said Betty softly. "All that from just one little careless match! Guessthatman won't light a match in a coat closet again."
"Pshaw!" scoffed Chance Carter. "That wouldn't happen once in a thousand times."
"How many matches do you suppose are scratched in the United States every second?" asked Bob, shortly.
"Oh, a couple of hundred, I suppose."
"Ten thousand, Chance,every second. And every match is a possible fire. Sure Pop told me last night that one third of the fire losses are due to carelessness in handling matches. And the fires in this country cost us over a million dollars every day—twice that, counting the cost of fire departments."
"Whew!" Even reckless Chance looked impressed.
"When you get into the Boy Scouts," Bob reminded him, "you'll find out whattheythink about fooling with fire. A real Scout never leaves his camp fire till he's dead sure it's out. Even after there's no fire left that he can see, he pours water on it and all around it to guard against its rekindling. A Scout who isn't careful about such things is looked down on by the others as not of much account."
"Well, I don't care; there's such a thing as being too careful. I wish we had the old-fashioned Fourth of July back again. This sane Fourth business is too tame for me!" Chance strolled off to the far corner of the smoking ruins and began climbing around in the half-filled basement.
George winked at Betty. "Can't teachhimanything," he chuckled. "He was born careless and he'll die careless, I guess. Look at him, now—poking around where thoseloose bricks may cave in on him any minute. We can't say anything, though, or he'll get mad. Chance Carter always has to have his own way."
"It's a wonder the police aren't guarding this place," said Bob, anxiously. "Guess they've got their hands full elsewhere." He scowled as he watched his reckless friend jumping from one charred timber to another, never noticing how the crumbling walls tottered with each jump.
"Whether he likes it or not," he said finally, "I'm going to get him out of there. It's too risky. Hey, Chance! Look out—that wall's coming over!" His voice rose in a startled shout.
"Aw, I guess not—" Chance got no further. The overhanging wall, swaying on its wobbly base and loosened by his sudden backward jump, toppled over on him in a shower of bricks and mortar. "Chance Carter's way" had come to grief again!
"Too late—again!" muttered Bob, grimly, diving into the cloud of dust that hung over the spot where Chance had disappeared. For a picture had flashed into his mind—the memory of how he had failed to warn the wrestlers in time only a few days before, the picture of Joe's terrified face as his head crashed on the cement sidewalk. Why hadn't he warned Chance in time?
A groan from the wreckage told where the boy lay half buried under the fallen wall. "Got me that time!" he muttered, through his set teeth. "Guess my leg's broken."
A shadow fell on the two and Bob looked up to see George's white face gazing down at him. "What can I do, Bob?"
"Have Betty run for a doctor, or telephone. Chance is badly hurt. Help me lift this rubbish from on top of him." The boys worked fast but carefully, lifting one brick at a time, till Chance was free. To their dismay he could not move.
"It's this leg." He touched his left, just below the knee. "I felt something break when the wall hit me. Perhaps the other's broken, too—I don't know."
Very carefully Bob ripped the clothing from the injured leg. Then he put one hand gently on the spot Chance touched, and the other hand just below it, and lifted the leg slightly. There was enough movement at the broken point so that there could be no doubt. The other leg proved to be badly bruised, but not broken.
Bob carefully moved the broken leg back into the same position as the right one and piled his coat and George's around it so it would stay in shape. He brought the suffering boy some water in his hat, and the three waited for the doctor.
"He said he'd come right away," reported Betty, hurrying back from the telephone. "But, Bob, it isn't safe to stay down there—no telling when that other chunk of the wall may fall on all three of you. Shall I try to push it over from the inside?"
"Goodness, no, Betty! Keep as far away from it as youcan. Well, we'll have to get him out of here, some way. You run back to that first store, please, and get half a dozen good strong strips of cloth about a foot wide and two or three feet long—anything that will do to tie his leg up to the splints. George, you bring over a few of those pieces of flooring that are not too badly charred to use for splints. There!"
He laid a long piece of flooring along Chance's left side, from below his foot clear to his armpit, and chose a shorter board for the inside splint. He arranged the two coats so that they would pad the broken leg where the boards came up against it, and tied the splints firmly, but not tightly, in place. Then Bob slowly gathered his groaning friend in his arms.
"Sorry to hurt you, old fellow, but we've got to get you out of here. You take his legs, George,—gently, now. So! We can climb out along that cave-in on the street side if we take it easy. Up we go!"
Better be safe than sorry.—Sure Pop
Sure Pop and his scouts
THE TWINS MEET BRUCE
Chance Carter, lying helpless on the stone steps of Turner Hall, was wondering if the doctor would ever come. Bob and George did their best to ease his pain, while Betty gazed anxiously down the street.
"Why doesn't that doctor come?"
"Surely he knows where we are, Betty?"
"Yes, I told him Turner Hall, and he said, 'Why, Turner Hall burned down last night, little girl.' And I told him I knew it, and that we were waiting right beside what was left of it."
"Hm-m-m! Something must have happened to him then; he could have walked it in less time than this.If he doesn't come pretty soon, we'd better call up the police department and have them send the ambulance. We can't wait here much longer."
While they waited, an idea popped into Bob's head.
"Look here," he said, "somebody else is likely enough to get hurt here, just the way Chance did. I believe we'd better put up a sign. I'll get some paper from that store."
So Bob hurried around to the store and got some wrapping paper and nails and borrowed a pencil and hammer. He worked fast, the shopkeeper looking curiously over his shoulder while he lettered this sign:
DANGER!These walls may fall on you any moment.One leg already broken here today. Keep out.SAFETY FIRST!
Bob had just finished the lettering when a big automobile came purring along in front of the ruined building. The chauffeur was in uniform. The big man inside looked almost lost among the cushions, so roomy was the machine. At a word from him, the car slowed down, and he scanned the ruins sharply. Bob knew him in a moment for Bruce, the great mill owner, one of the richest men in the city.
"Hello, what's this? What's this?" Bruce stood up inthe car when the little group on the steps caught his eye. In a twinkling he was out of the automobile and bending over the groaning boy, while Bob and George and Betty told him what had happened.
"Tut, tut!" snapped the great man whose mills gave work to thousands of men, the twins' father among them. "This won't do at all! If the doctor won't come to him, we must get him to the doctor." Pushing aside the chauffeur, he lifted Chance into the car and on to the deep, comfortable cushions as easily as if he had been a child of two instead of a lad of twelve and big for his age.
"Now, jump in, the rest of you," he said, "and we'll take him over to Doctor MacArthur's."
Betty climbed in and George followed. The chauffeur took his seat and looked around at Bob, waiting. "What's the matter now?" asked Bruce, impatiently, as Bob lingered on the step.
"It's those walls," answered the boy. "I hate to leave them in that shape—somebody else will be getting hurt just as Chance did. I'd better put up the sign. You folks go on, please, and I'll follow on foot."
The mill owner shook his head. "Put up your sign and come along. We'll wait."
Bruce looked sharply at Bob's sign as the boy nailed it up in place, but said nothing. Bob climbed into the waiting automobile, and the big machine rolled smoothly, silently to the doctor's office.
Doctor MacArthur, surgeon's case in hand, came out. He was a little gray man—gray-haired, dressed in a gray suit, with keen gray eyes that seemed to take in everything at once.
"Who put those splints on?" He jerked out the words like a pistol shot.
"I did," said Bob, reddening; for the doctor's tone made him feel that he must have bungled his work.
Swiftly the doctor bared the leg and laid a deft finger on the exact spot of the break. "Simple fracture," was his verdict. "Bone badly splintered, though—would have come through the skin in short order if you hadn't got the splints on when you did. Where does he live?"
He took George's seat and George climbed over beside the chauffeur. On the way to Chance's house, he insisted on knowing how Bob had learned to give First Aid to the injured.
"So you're a Boy Scout, eh?" Another keen glance from those sharp gray eyes.
"N-no, sir—but I'm going to be."
"Eh? How's that?"
"He isn't quite old enough yet," explained George. "You have to be twelve or over to join the Boy Scouts. I'm one—but Bob knows a heap more about it already than I do," he added frankly.
"Ha! Well, I'll have to change my opinion of the Boy Scouts, young man. I always took it for granted they were a sort of feeder to our regular army—playing soldier,you know. But if this is the kind of work they turn out, I don't know but I'll join myself."
George got out when they reached Chance's house, and helped the doctor carry the injured lad up the steps. "You needn't wait for me," he told the twins, "I'm going to stay a while."
"Come in and see me some time," Doctor MacArthur called back to Bob. "I want you to tell me more about your First Aid work! See you later, Mr. Bruce."
"Home, Jennings," said Bruce. "And be quick about it—I'm late."
Bob leaned back against the cushions and studied the grim, square-jawed face of the great man whom everybody was so anxious to please. So this was the way he looked at close range, this self-made, stubborn man of millions who always managed to bend every other man in his line of business to his own iron will! As he looked, Bob felt it was no wonder they all feared him—feared and followed.
For Bruce was the man who, more than all the others put together, was responsible for keeping Safety First work out of the mills in his line of business. Hundreds of men were killed and thousands injured every year in the great string of mills of which Bruce's was the head. Over and over it had been pointed out to him that the same Safety First work which had saved thousands of lives in other lines would save them in his line as well. But he was stubborn, iron-willed.
"You're wasting your time," was all he would say. "No theories or new-fangled notions inmymills."
Because Bruce said this, all the other mills hung back, too. There were reasons. They knew Bruce.
All this Bob knew from talks he had had with his father about the risks of working in Bruce's mills. He understood it better, now that he was face to face with Bruce himself.
All too soon, to the twins' way of thinking, the automobile drew up in front of Bruce's big stone house. The mill owner wasted no words. Jumping out, he waved his hand to the three, said to Jennings, "Take them wherever they want to go," and hurried up the walk.
The eager face pressed against the big bay window disappeared, the front door flew open, and a sweet little fair-haired girl threw herself into Bruce's outstretched arms. "Daddy! What made you so late? Here I've been waiting and waiting—"
"Bonnie!" That was all the twins heard as the big automobile bore them away toward home. But the way he said it, and the way he caught his little daughter to his big, broad chest, told Bob and Betty all they needed to know about the soft spot in the millionaire's heart.
What did his great house and his mills and all his money amount to, after all? He would gladly have thrown them all aside rather than have the slightest harm come to his Bonnie; for her mother had died when Bonnie was only a baby, and the little girl was all Bruce had left in the world.