They stood together for a moment, puzzled and silent, trying to figure out what it could mean. The two women were quiet. So far they had had nothing to do with the attack on Jack. In the distance, perhaps a hundred feet or so away, they could hear the men, whose clothes Jack and Pete had taken, cursing and demanding that their property be returned.
"Keep quiet, you!" Dick Crawford called to them. "You'll get your things when you've given some account of yourselves and we're ready to give them to you. If you make any more disturbance around here, you won't get them at all. Remember that!"
A deep silence followed, and Pete laughed.
"Guess that scared them some, Dick," he said. "I don't think they'd fancy the idea of going back to the city that way. In funny papers, if a man loses his clothes, he always fetches up with a barrel. But I always did wonder where he found the barrel!"
Dick looked doubtfully at the little heap of clothing.
"I don't suppose we ought to leave them out there without any clothes at all," said he. "But I do think, after the way they've acted, that we've got a right to look and see if there are any weapons. They would be useless, in any case, after the wetting they've had, but—"
He picked up the coats of the two men and shook out the pockets. Sure enough, a pistol fell from each, and from one there also dropped a black mask.
"That doesn't look very well for them," he said. "I think, Tom, you'd better go to a telephone and see if you can get Captain Haskin to meet us here. He or some of his railroad detectives may know something about these people."
Tom hurried off at once to obey the order, for such it was, though Dick, as he almost always did, had put the order in the form of a simple request. Then Dick looked more carefully at the things that had fallen from the pockets.
"Hello!" he cried, suddenly. "Say, Jack, look here! Here's a letter postmarked from Woodleigh. That's where you came from, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is!" cried Jack, on the alert, as always, at a sign of any sort from the town where he had spent his boyhood.
"I think we've got a right to open this," said Dick, "though looking at letters that aren't addressed to one is pretty small business, as a rule. However, when people do the sort of thing that these fellows so nearly got away with tonight they don't have a right to expect decent treatment from others."
He looked grave when he had finished reading.
"This letter seems to concern you, Jack," he said. "It's from a lawyer up there, and it's addressed to a man called Silas Broom, at the General Delivery window of the post office in the city here. It says that the boy Jack Danby, about whom Mr. Broom was making inquiries, left Woodleigh some months ago, and has since, it is supposed, been working near here. Now why does anyone want to know about you? And why does this fellow Broom, if that is really his name, have to hear this? He is a great scoundrel, whatever his name is."
"You quit callin' my husband names. Who are you, I'd like to know?"
The older woman emerged suddenly from the hut, in time to hear Dick's last words, and she faced him now like a fury, her arms akimbo, and her eyes snapping. She looked around suspiciously, too.
"Where's Silas?" she asked, angrily. "What have you done with him? Ain't those his clothes there?"
She snatched the clothes up in an instant. Before Dick, who was astonished by her appearance, could check her she had torn the coat from his hands.
"Silas!" she yelled. "Where are you, honey?"
"Here I am—out in the woods," cried her husband, frantically. "They've stolen my clothes, Carrie. Get 'em, and bring 'em here, will you?"
"Comin'!" she called, and darted off with surprising speed, considering her weight and the terrible exhaustion that had seemed to afflict her when she was being brought ashore from the launch.
Dick and the two Scouts were laughing, although a bit ruefully, as she vanished.
"I can't touch a woman," said Dick, sadly. "I'm afraid I'll have to admit that I'd like to—but I guess she could lick me at that, if she was put to it. Is that the one you dragged ashore, Jack?"
"That's the one!" said Jack. "It's a wonder she didn't drown the two of us. But she certainly seems to have recovered pretty completely."
"It's bad business," said Dick, frowning. "Those fellows will get away now. The only hold we had on them was that they didn't have any clothes. Now they'll make tracks, and all ye can do is to tell Captain Haskin what they looked like and what they did. I think we look pretty foolish, myself."
Just then the girl, who had won Jack's admiration by her courage when she was in real danger and by her reproof of the others when they had shown their ingratitude, stepped into the firelight, fully dressed. She did not look at all as if she belonged with the others. She was more refined, gentler, and sweeter in every way. Dick Crawford stared at her in astonishment. Jack had told him about her, but, since seeing the others, he had thought that Jack had made a mistake in praising her.
"I beg your pardon," he said, speaking to her as she stopped and looked about her, evidently puzzled by the absence of her companions. "But I'm afraid we'll have to ask you to tell us what you can of the people you were with. You are not related to them, are you?"
"No," she said. "No, indeed! I came with them because they promised to show me how to reach a certain person for whom my father has been searching for a long time. Then, of course, there was the fire on the launch. But even before that they had kept putting me off, and I didn't like the way they were acting at all. Where are they now?"
"I wish I knew!" said Dick. "However, we can talk more about them later. I think that now the best thing we can do is to get you back to the city. Your father will meet you there, I suppose, won't he?"
"Yes," she said. "My father is not at all well, and he is quite an old man. We are staying at the Hotel Lincoln. I came with them alone, though father didn't want me to, because they were so very positive that our chase was nearly over."
"I think it's my duty to tell you," said Dick, "that these people who were with you seem to be a very bad lot. They made an attempt to kidnap this boy, who helped to save the lives of your whole party, and we have every reason to suppose that they are associated with a gang of thieves who have a grudge against him. I think you had better let us take you back to your father. And if you will follow my advice, you will have nothing more to do with any of them. They will only lead you into danger and trouble."
Dick was anxious to question the girl further, but she was much shaken, and in no condition to tell him anything more. So they all went back to town together, and Dick himself acted as Miss Burton's escort to her hotel.
"I will follow your advice," she promised him. "If any of those people try to see me again, I will refuse to have anything to do with them. But won't you come to see us, and perhaps you will be able to help us in our search?"
"I'll be glad to do that," said Dick. "But if those people approach you again, it might be better to pretend that you still trust them. Don't put yourself in their hands in any way, but try to get them to talk to you. In that way you may be able to get valuable information that would otherwise not be available at all."
Captain Haskin, the head of the detective service of the railroad on which Jack Danby's bravery had averted a terrible wreck, was much concerned when he heard the story of the rescue and the ungrateful conduct of those whose lives had been saved.
"We've got to look after Danby," he said. "He's an important witness for us, and if he turns up missing, it's going to be more difficult to get a conviction, though perhaps not impossible. But I think there's more than that in their attempt to get rid of him."
"What do you mean, Captain?" asked Dick Crawford.
"Why, I don't know, my boy. But these people are not loyal enough to one another as a rule to lead them to run such risks as these villains have encountered just to get rid of a witness who may be damaging to some of them who have been captured. When one or two of them are caught, those who escape are usually so glad to get off free themselves that they disappear and make no effort to help those who were not so fortunate. The fact that they have kept after Danby this way is very suspicious."
"Well, I happen to know," said Dick, "that there are people who seem to have a grudge against Jack, or at least who have an interest in maintaining a mystery that exists as to his birth. I don't like to talk about that as a rule, because it's his own-business, but I'd better tell you. He does not know his real name, or who his parents were, and it is the ambition of his life to discover them. Since he came away from Woodleigh, attempts have been made to find out what has become of him, and a man who was concerned in an attempt to rob me of a considerable sum of money that I was carrying for my employer is one of those who seems most anxious to find out all about Jack. He knows the secret of his birth."
"That would explain," said the detective, "the whole business at once. Now, you see, you've given me something to work on. The railroad can't feel at ease until all the men concerned in that plot that so nearly wrecked the Limited the other night are safely in jail. It isn't that we're vindictive, but when men are ready to imperil the lives of the passengers on the trains we run, it isn't safe for us to let them be at large. They may make another attempt, and there is no way of being sure that the next time we shall be able to stop them. It was all a matter of luck that blocked their plan before—and we can't trust to luck in such matters. It might cost a hundred lives to do so."
"Well, if we can help you in any way, you can depend on us to do anything in our power, Captain. I think any of our boys in the Scouts would do anything for Jack Danby, and, of course, we want to do anything we can to help the railroad safeguard its trains, for the sake of all the people who have to ride on them."
"The most important thing right now is to see that nothing happens to Danby. They have been so bold and so determined in their efforts to put him out of the way already that I am afraid they are not likely to stop at the two attempts. One thing seems very curious to me. The man who carried him off from the camp was entirely willing to kill him—planned to do so, didn't he?"
"So Jack says. And he is not the sort to be scared by idle threats."
"Just so! But now here is a queer thing. These people that tried to carry him off to-day used the same boat as the man who took him from the camp. Presumably they would have served him the same way as the other scoundrel would have done. And yet they seem also to want to get in touch with Jack himself—and not for the purpose of killing him.. It looks as if they were working at cross purposes—as if they did not know that the boy who foiled the train-wrecking plot and the one they have lost are one and the same. Don't you see?"
"I certainly do! Say, this is a confused affair, isn't it?"
"It's like a Chinese puzzle. But we'll work it out somehow."
When his work was done the next day, Jack Danby found Dick Crawford waiting for him.
"Jack," said the Assistant Scout-Master, "I don't want to raise any false hopes in you, but I think we're on the verge of finding out something about you—about who you really are, and all that."
"How, Dick? I'd give anything if that were true!"
"We were awfully stupid not to think of it last night, Jack. You know that pretty girl, that Miss Burton, who was on the burning launch? She wasn't like the others—we all saw that. She wasn't their sort at all! Well, she said she was with them because she believed that they were going to be able to lead her to someone that her father had been searching for."
"You mean I might be the one they were looking for, Dick?"
"I don't know, Jack, but it looks possible. Not that she might not be looking for someone else. But she was with these people, and one of those men had a letter about you from the lawyer up at Woodleigh. I don't believe they really meant to lead her to you at all. I think that there are people who are spending their time in making it impossible for those who are really interested in you to get any trace of you."
"Then why should they have told her they could find me, if it really is I she's looking for?"
"They might think it better to fool her, Jack, than to let her deal with people who would treat her honestly. If she thought they were helping her, and trying to earn a reward, if there is one, she and her father would be unlikely to go to anyone else. And as long as they could convince her that they were doing their best they would be in complete control of the situation, you see."
"That certainly sounds as if it might be right, Dick. What do you think we'd better do?"
"Go and see Mr. Burton and his daughter right away. I'm certain of one thing: that girl is all right. She's true and honest, no matter what sort of people may have deceived her and have induced her to fall into their plans and ways. She thinks she's doing the right thing. Depend on that!"
"I think you're right about her, Dick. I thought she was different from the others at once. She was so plucky and so cool, and she helped Pete all she could when he swam ashore with her, instead of getting frightened and making it harder, as the old woman did. She was all right."
"Well, we'll go there right away. They're at the Hotel Lincoln. That's the best hotel in town, you know, so I guess they're people who are pretty well to do."
They had not long to wait at the hotel before they were asked to go up to the suite of rooms occupied by Mr. Burton and his daughter.
The girl, who looked much better, naturally, since she had had a good rest, and a change of clothing, greeted them with a good deal of friendly interest, but her father, who walked with a stick, seemed to be querulous and inclined to distrust them.
"A fine lot of people we've run into since we've come here!" he said. "Molly, who are these people?"
"Mr. Crawford warned me against Broom and his wife, father," she said. "I told you of that. And this is Jack Danby, who helped to save us all from the launch."
"Well, what do you want? What do you want?" asked Mr. Burton, peevishly. "Money? I'll give you some—but don't come bothering me!"
"I don't want any of your money, sir, and neither does Danby," said Dick, indignant and surprised by this reception. He looked at the girl. She seemed to be as angry as he was himself, and had flushed until her face was a bright pink. He thought she looked even prettier than before, but she also looked frightened, as if, while angry, she dared not provoke her father further by seeming to resent what he said.
"We came here," said Dick, facing the old man, "because we have an idea that we can help you in your search. You are looking for a boy, are you not?"
"Yes, yes!" said the old man. "It's a wild goose chase—we'll never find him! It's a cousin of Molly's—my daughter—and my nephew. A worthless young scamp, probably, even if he's alive. No use looking for him—let him stay lost, I say! He's less trouble that way."
"The reason I say that I think we may be able to help you, sir, is that we think the gang that had your daughter with them yesterday are on the trail of the boy you are looking for. Can you not tell us what you know of his movements?"
"I don't see why I should! You're probably just another of the blackmailing crowd that's been after my money since I was fool enough to allow myself to be persuaded to look for the boy. He was stolen from my brother's house when he was a very small boy. We had reason to suspect a man who had a grudge against my brother. That's the only clue we have."
"That's not worth very much by itself, sir. But it happens that I know of a boy who was mysteriously brought up by an old man. He knows nothing of his parentage. But he does know, and his friends know, also, that there are people who know all about him, and that these people are very anxious to keep him from learning the truth about himself. And these people who have been trying to locate this boy lately are connected with the ones who were with your daughter last night—people with whom no young woman ought ever to be trusted by her father!"
Dick was furious by this time at the way in which Mr. Burton treated him, and he forgot, for the moment, the respect due to age and infirmity. He regarded Burton as a careless father, who should be made to understand that he had been criminally careless in allowing so beautiful a girl to be left in the power of wretches like those who had been on the boat when it took fire, and he had no mind to be polite and diplomatic.
"Get out of my room, you impudent young rascal!" shouted Mr. Burton when he realized what Dick was saying. "Don't you think I can see through your game, eh?"
He shook his stick threateningly at Dick.
"I'm not afraid of you, sir," said Dick. "I told the truth, and I think you know it. We're not going to stay here—but I warn you that you may be sorry before this business is cleared up. You'll trust a scoundrel like Broom, and yet, when we come to you with an offer to help you in your search, you insult us!"
Molly Burton, frightened and distressed by the turn matters had taken, tried to make peace, but her efforts were of no avail. Her father ordered the two of them out of his rooms, and they could do nothing but go.
"Well, we didn't gain much by going there," said Dick. "I'm sorry I lost my temper, Jack, but it would have been pretty hard not to, when he was talking and acting that way."
"I wonder if he can really be my uncle, though, Dick. I don't know that I'd be so crazy to have him for a relative, but I would like to think that pretty girl was my cousin!"
"She's all right, isn't she, Jack? But we have gained something, at any rate. We've got some sort of a starting point. Now, if we can get Captain Haskin to help us, we may be able to start with the time when you turned up at Woodleigh, and trace some of Old Dan's movements. In that way, you see, it may be possible to get at the truth. It's a little more than we knew before we went to see them, at any rate."
"I think if we could see Miss Burton alone, Dick, she would treat us better, and tell us anything she knew."
"I'm sure of that, Jack. I'll try to see her, too. It seems wrong to try to do anything of that sort without letting her father know, but we haven't any choice. He certainly wouldn't allow her to see me if he knew that she was planning anything of that sort. I'll try that in the morning."
But in the morning when Dick went to the hotel, he was told that Mr. Burton and his daughter were gone, and that they had left no address. No one at the hotel could give him any idea of where they might be found, and they had left no orders, it was said, about the forwarding of any letters that might come for them. Dick, resourceful as he was, felt that he was facing a blind wall. There was nothing more for him to do. He could only wait, and trust that chance, or the detective abilities of Captain Haskin, would enable him to pick up the trail again.
Jack Danby, needless to say, was bitterly disappointed when he heard what Dick had to tell him the next evening, after his fruitless effort to see the Burtons again. Jack had never wavered in his belief that some time he would settle the mystery of his birth, that had worried him ever since he had been able to understand that he was set apart from others. To see a chance now and then just as he felt that he was about to read the secret have that chance vanish, was doubly hard. It was worse than if he had never had the hope of success.
But he tried hard not to let Dick Crawford see how badly the incident made him feel. Dick had done what he had for the best, and he had honestly thought that there was a chance for Jack's great ambition to be realized. He felt as disappointed as did Jack himself.
"Gee, Jack," he said, "who'd ever guess that a sweet girl like that would have such an old curmudgeon of a father? He's the limit! But there's nothing we can do right away. I think Captain Haskin will be able to find out where they came from, and where they've gone to without any trouble—that's the sort of thing detectives are supposed to be able to do."
"But if the old gentleman won't help us at all it's going to be pretty hard to get anything done. I've seen crusty old fellows like that before. When they've been deceived in a person it takes a long time before they're willing to trust anyone else—and, of course, you can't blame them so very much, at that.
"I'm not going to give up, Dick, anyhow. I'm surer than ever now that the secret of who I am is worth a lot of trouble, and I'll find out what it is if I never do anything else!"
"At that rate you're bound to win, Jack. Keep on trying."
Captain Haskin, though he took no one into his confidence as to just what he was doing, impressed Dick and Jack alike as a man who, once started, would never drop any undertaking until he was successful. He might not always succeed, but failure in his case would never be due to lack of effort. So they were not surprised when he came to them a day or two after the Burtons had left town and told them that he had what might be a valuable clue.
"I want you to come to the theatre with me," he said. He smiled as he said it. "That may seem like a frivolous thing to do when we are at work on a mystery of this sort, but you'll see what I mean when we get there."
Dick and Jack, who liked the railroad detective and trusted him implicitly, were certainly surprised, but they made no bones about accompanying him. He had called for them at Dick's house, where Jack was spending the evening, and he said he wanted Tom Binns and Pete Stubbs to be along, too. So they rode with him in the automobile which he was using, and picked up the other Scouts.
"I don't believe you ever saw the particular theatre I'm going to take you to," he said, when he had all four of them in the car. "It isn't much of a theatre, even for a moving picture place. It's a little place over near the river, and the films are cheap and not very good. But you'll see why I picked it out later."
It was a long ride, after they had picked up Tom Binns, even in the detective's big car. As they rode, Haskin kept looking around behind him.
"I've had a queer feeling two or three times to-day," he said, "that I was being followed. I've shadowed so many people in my time that I'm pretty well acquainted with the ways of doing it, and I must say I don't like the look of things. Those fellows are desperate enough to do anything at all, but if they're actually shadowing the detective who's in charge of the efforts to run them down and catch them they've got even more nerve than I thought was possible."
Two or three times, now, as they made their way along, at a slow pace by Haskin's direction, those in the car got a glimpse of a smaller automobile that seemed to hang pretty persistently on their track. They were evidently never out of sight of the occupants of the other car for very long.
"I suppose they know what they're doing," said Haskin, finally, "but what their game is, is beyond me. I'm not trying to hide from them or anyone else. I don't see why they should want to track me down this way. Go ahead, full speed, now! We'll give them a chase for it, if they're looking for that."
It was not long before the car pulled up in a dirty, tumbledown street near the water front, before a shop that had been turned into a moving picture theatre. Haskin paid their way in, and they found themselves in a darkened hall and the pictures were being thrown on to the screen as they entered.
"One of the things these people do to attract people to their theatre," explained Haskin, as they took their seats, "is to have a film made every week right here in the district where it is to be shown. For instance, this week they are showing a picture that was made on the river front a few days ago. People come and think that perhaps they'll see themselves or their friends in the 'movies.' It's lots of fun for them, you see, and it's a good idea for the company that invented it."
Jack and Dick suddenly began to understand.
"Is there anyone we know in the pictures, Captain?" asked Jack.
"That's what I hope, Jack. What I do know is that there is a section of the film that shows three of the men who tried to wreck the train the other night. They are talking with some other men, and it is because I think that one of these others may be this man Broom that I want you to see it and identify him, if you can. Then, you see, we can send out his picture and have a much better chance of catching him."
Haskin had looked around carefully before he spoke. He had no idea that there would be anyone around who would be able to make head or tail out of what he was saying, but he was trained to take chances only when he had to. But there seemed to be no one near except a sleepy, slouchy sailor in a seat immediately behind him. The man had been drinking, and his heavy breathing convinced Haskin that he was harmlessly asleep.
But the next time he looked around the sailor was gone. He must have moved very quietly to escape the notice of Haskin, and he was just passing out through the door when the detective saw him.
"That's bad business!" he said to himself. "It was mighty careless of me. I ought to have known better, certainly, than to talk that way, even if there didn't seem to be anyone around to hear me. I only hope he didn't understand, or that he really is what he seems to be—just a sailor on a spree."
They had a long and tedious wait for the time to come when the all-important film should be begun. What was reeled off first had little interest for any of them. The three Scouts all liked the moving picture shows well enough, but they preferred the other kind, the sort shown in the better houses uptown, and they could not get up much interest in the pictures that seemed to delight those who were seated all about them.
The place grew constantly more and more crowded. It was evidently a popular diversion near the river, and the attraction of the local scenes film, with the chance that any spectator might suddenly find himself a part of the performance, was what pleased them the most and attracted the greatest attention.
At last it was time for that particular film to be begun. It was quite a long one, as it turned out, and it was not until a number of pictures had been shown that Haskin suddenly leaned forward and pointed to a little pier, beside which a motor boat was bobbing up and down.
Jack, with a gasp, and a queer little thrill running up and down his back, recognized three men who stood by the boat. They were quarreling about something, and were by no means still, but there was no mistaking them. They were three of the men that he had seen in the little station on the night that the attempt to wreck the Limited had failed. And, from the edge of the screen, another man was walking toward them.
"There," said Haskin, "that's the fellow I want you to watch. Is that Broom? If it is—"
He couldn't finish. There was a sudden sputtering by the film. The lights went out—only to give place to a dark, red glare near the film. And, at the same moment, there was a wild shriek from the back of the hall—"Fire!"
The lights winked on again in a moment, and then went out and on again, alternating for two or three minutes, so that at one moment the little, crowded theatre was black as ink and the next as light as day. Most of those in the audience were women and children, and they were in a panic in a moment.
"Come on, Scouts!" roared Dick Crawford. "If they don't stop crowding and pushing, not one of these people will get out of this place alive."
The three Scouts knew what to do and how to do it. They were prepared for this as well as for any other emergency. They were, perhaps, the only cool-headed ones in the place. Adding their voices to Dick's, and with Haskin to help them, they managed somehow to restore some sort of order. They fought their way through the packed aisles, and, though the fire was gaining, back by the film, they made the people pass out in good order. Great as was the peril, not one of them flinched.
Jack Danby, in the center aisle, had to bear the brunt of the wild rush for the door, but he managed to keep the people from piling up against the door, and so making a human dam that would have kept everyone from safety. One or two men, and the braver of the women, inspired by the actions of the Scouts, pulled themselves together, and helped them, and before the flames had made much headway, everyone, it seemed, was out. But Jack Danby remembered seeing a child fall just before the last group had gone through the door. He did not see it outside, and, despite protests from all who saw him, he made his way back.
The lights had gone out for good now, but there was plenty of chance to see even in that grimy, smoke-filled place, by the fitful glare of the flames that were reaching out and licking up the seats and the tawdry decorations now. And he had not very far to go before he found what he was looking for—the body of a little girl who had fallen and been overcome by the smoke. He picked her up and with little difficulty carried her out to the street, where a fireman took her from him.
The firemen made short work of the blaze, and Haskin, with the four Scouts, walked away and reached the automobile, which had been forced to move several blocks on account of the fire.
"That fire wasn't any accident," said Haskin, gravely. "Now I know why those fellows were following me. They were afraid of something of this sort. My heavens, what cold-blooded scoundrels they are! They were willing to wreck that train—now they took the chance of killing everyone in that little theatre to keep me from seeing that film—and, I suppose, with the idea that they could get rid of me and the most dangerous witness against them at the same time, and by a single blow."
"Do you really think they did that?" cried Dick, shocked by the idea.
"I think so, yes. But it's one thing to think so, and to say that I think so, and it's quite another to prove it. That's the trouble! But I'm going to try pretty hard, and I'll fix the blame on them and see that they go to jail for it if there's any human way of doing it. It's a pity they succeeded as well as they did. They've destroyed that film, and it would have been mighty useful as evidence against them, let me tell you!"
"Is there no duplicate?"
"I'm afraid not. But we'll try, anyway. There's no harm in that."
The next morning Jack Danby, arriving at the factory, found Pete Stubbs already there, for it was his duty that week to arrive a little in advance of the rest of the boys, and open up. He was wearing a glum face.
"Gee, Jack, here's a peck of trouble," he said. "I got down here and found that Mr. Simms, the big boss, and Mr. Carew, the manager, had been here since five o'clock."
"What's wrong, Pete?"
"I dunno, for sure, Jack, but I heard somethin' bein' said about a strike. And there ain't a man here yet!"
"Well, we're not on strike, Pete. I guess we'd better get busy and do our work just as if there wasn't anything wrong. Thenwe'llbe all right, anyhow."
They were busy for a few minutes, as the other office boys and the clerks began to appear.
"Keep quiet about anything you know or suspect, Pete," said Jack, warningly, as the rooms began to fill up. "It's all right to tell me, but you'd better let the others hear anything there is to be known from Mr. Carew. He'll tell us all, probably, when he gets ready."
But the morning was well advanced before the conference in Mr. Carew's room was over. There was an unusual silence about the big factory. None of the machinery was running, which was sufficiently out of the ordinary to excite a lot of talk and gossip, although Pete gave out none of the information with which he was almost bursting. Finally, however, Mr. Carew came out.
"This company," he said, when everyone had turned in silence to face him, "has done business for a good many years and has never had any sort of trouble, until now, with any of the people who have worked for it. Now, unfortunately, some malcontents among the hands here have spread their ideas, and a strike has been called. We have tried to reason with the men, but they have quit work, and this factory will be closed for at least a week, beginning to-day."
"Gee, Jack, that's just what I was afraid of," said Pete, his face falling. "That means a week's wages gone!"
Murmurs arose from all over the room. But Carew, a smile on his face, held up his hand for silence, and went on.
"The company has no intention of making you suffer," he said. "Your wages will go on just the same, and we will simply consider this week's lay-off as a sort of a vacation. That will be all for now. You will get notice when it is time for you to return to work."
There was a wild cheer then. A week's wages meant a great deal to most of the boys and clerks employed in and about the factory, and the revulsion of feeling when they learned that they were not to lose their pay was enough to justify even a louder cheer than they gave.
"Danby and Stubbs," said Mr. Carew next, "I wish you'd wait when the others go, and come into my office. I want to talk to you."
They waited accordingly, and when they went into Mr. Carew's room they found Mr. Simms, the president of the company, waiting there with the manager.
"This is very serious business, boys," said Mr. Simms, gravely. "A strike is one thing, and if the men stopped at a strike they would be entirely within their rights. Unfortunately, some of them, bad workers, who had been threatened with dismissal, and others who were discontented, for one reason or another, have succeeded in stirring up a lot of hard feeling. And there is no telling what may happen."
"Do you think they'll try to put the place on the bum, sir?" cried Pete, the irrepressible, his eyes flashing.
Both the men laughed, though their faces showed that they were too worried to do much laughing.
"I certainly hope they won't attempt anything of the sort, for their sake, as well as ours, Pete," said Mr. Simms. "If they were let alone, our old men, even if they were to go on strike, wouldn't make a move against the company's property. But these rascals who are leading them want to make it impossible for them to back down and come back to work. And I am afraid that there are no lengths at which they would stop in the effort to injure us."
"Here is the point, boys," said Mr. Carew. "We know, from past experience with you, that you are trustworthy, and loyal to us. Now, what we want to do is to get through this strike with as little trouble as possible. We don't want any shooting, as there might be if we brought in armed men to guard the property. What we want is to prevent any attempt to destroy the place by getting ample warning of anything that is tried."
"And you're going to let us look out for them?" cried Pete. "Gee, that's great, Jack! We can do it, too, can't we?"
"The idea we had," said Carew, "was that you boys, and perhaps some of your companions in the Boy Scouts, being used to tracking and trailing in the woods, could keep a better watch than our regular watchmen. They are faithful enough, and would mean well, but what we are afraid of is that a lot of clever scoundrels could get inside and set the place on fire before they knew it. They wouldn't expect boys to be on the lookout, and we can arrange to have the place protected amply if we can have a few minutes warning. In that way the plans of the violent ones among the men would be blocked, and at the same time there would be no danger of bloodshed, or of anyone being hurt. I would rather lose a year's pay than have a man of them all injured."
"And I a year's profits, or a good deal more," said Mr. Simms. "Understand me, boys, we want you to do this in a way that will not get you yourselves into any danger. Simply stay here tonight, after, the place is closed up. Mr. Carew and I and a few other men will be inside, but we don't want to show ourselves. I am having telephones put in all over the factory, with instruments out in the courtyards, so that you can get word to us without delay if you see anything suspicious. Now suppose you run home and get your Scout uniforms. We will have plenty to eat here, and we will have cots rigged up for you, too, so that you can sleep in the day time."
"This is almost as good as being in the militia, isn't it, Jack?" said Pete, as they hurried out.
"I think it's a lot better, Pete. In the militia, if there's a strike, the men sometimes have to fire into a crowd, and a lot of foolish people who don't mean any harm may get hurt or killed. I'd hate to have to do anything like that. I suppose it's necessary, but I'd feel like a murderer if I'd ever fired into a crowd that way, I know."
"Well, this is going to be a great lark, anyhow, Jack. I'd rather do this than work, any day!"
"It may be pretty hard work before we're through, Pete. Look over there!"
They were leaving the factory then, and across the street was a crowd of men, in their working clothes, sullen and unhappy in appearance. Two or three men, dressed more like brokers than workmen, were passing to and fro among them, and leaving a wake of scowls and curses wherever they passed.
"Strikers!" said Pete. "Gosh, but they don't look like the crowd that we see coming to work every morning, do they, Jack? They look different—like wild men, almost."
"It's too bad," said Jack. "I'm mighty sorry to see them go out, because I know that they're treated as well here as they would be anywhere in the state, and a lot better than at most places. It's men like Big Ed Willis, who never wants to work at all, who make the trouble."
"Just listen here, young feller," said a big man, who appeared suddenly from behind them, "keep a quiet tongue in yer head about me. I'm Big Ed, I am, and I'll smash your ugly face in for ye, if ye don't look out! There's a strike on for higher wages and shorter hours here, see, and we don't want no scabs, man or boy, goin' into that factory."
"We're not in the union, Ed Willis," said Jack, unafraid. "We make our own rules about working or not working, and don't you forget it! You can beat me up easily enough, if you want to, but you won't be much of a man if you try it."
"For two cents I'd smash you in the jaw, so I would!" said Willis, blustering, like the true bully he was.
"Let the kid alone, Ed," cried another man, coming across the street. "He ain't in the union. I think we're fools to strike ourselves. Don't go to making no more trouble without you need to."
"I'll let you off this time," said Big Ed, a little abashed. "But see to it that you keep away from the factory over there."
"You mind your business and we'll mind ours!" said Jack. "That'll keep you plenty busy enough, Ed Willis!"
"Gee, I thought he was going to hit you that time, Jack," said Pete Stubbs. "I'm pretty small, and if I hit him he'd never know it unless someone told him, but I was going to smash him behind the ear with a stone if he tried that."
"He's all bluff and talk," said Jack, disgustedly. "If he does any fighting, it'll be by letting someone else strike the blows while he looks on from a place where he knows he won't be hit. There's lots of fighters like that."
They hurried on home then, and changed from the clothes they wore every day to work in to their Boy Scout uniforms. Each of them took, too, his axe and Scout knife, in case of emergencies, though it was hard to imagine any use they were likely to have for them.
"Look here, Pete," said Jack, when they had changed their clothes and were ready to start back to the factory, "if we go in the way we came out they'll see us, and they're likely to watch for us to come out again. That wouldn't be much use, so I think we'd better try to get back without being seen."
"How can we do that, Jack?"
"I know a good way. We'll go down to the freight yard and find a car that is going to be shunted onto the private track. There's a car-load of wagon wheels due to-day, I know, and the chances are that we can find that and hide in it. The men at the freight yard would never know, and when we got inside we could get out and the strikers wouldn't know we were inside at all."
"That's a fine idea, Jack. We'll do that. Say, that'll be a great joke on Ed Willis and those other toughs he's got on his side, won't it?"
"I'll bet they'll never guess we're inside at all, Pete!"
Both boys knew their way around the freight yards very well indeed. Both had been sent there a good many times by Mr. Carew to look up delayed shipments, that were needed in the factory, and, as a consequence, the men at work in the yards, knowing that they worked in the factory, were not suspicious when Jack began asking about the wagon wheels. They found the car with little difficulty, and, once they had discovered that it was to be shunted into the private spur of track leading into the factory within an hour or two, they did not hesitate to get inside and hide themselves in one dark corner of the car.
There was plenty of room for them, and they crouched behind a case of wheels, and told one another stories. It was good fun, they thought, and they only wished that it was time for their ride to begin.
"Listen!" whispered Pete, suddenly. "That sounds like someone fumbling for the catch of the car door, Jack."
It was dark in the car, and suddenly, there was a stream of light as the door was pushed cautiously open.
"Right, oh, Ed," said a hoarse voice, trying to be quiet. "We can shove the stuff right in here. Then, about midnight, we can get in and let it off. They'll never open this car up tonight, and they won't know the stuff's in here."
"Not unless it goes off as she bumps over the frogs going into the spur," said Big Ed Willis, chuckling. "But if she lets go then there'll be a pretty big explosion, just the same. May leave a bit of the factory standing, but it'll take them a long time to make repairs. It would blow Number Four shop and this car to smithereens, anyhow."
Horrified, but unable to make a move, the two Scouts saw three heavy boxes being loaded gingerly onto the car and hidden under some sacking.
"There!" said Big Ed. "That's a good job, well done! And it looks mighty neat. No one'd ever guess, just to look at that sacking, that there was enough dynamite underneath it to blow half the town up if it was set properly."
Scarcely had the two men closed the door when the Scouts made a simultaneous leap for it. But, as they moved, they felt the bump of the freight engine against the car and a moment later it began to move. It was too late for them to get off, and they could only sit and watch that pile of sacking, with its deadly secret beneath it, wondering if every moment was not to be their last. Every time the car jolted over a frog in the rail they jumped, wondering why the deadly stuff did not explode, and Jack was not ashamed to admit afterward that he was sick with fear during the whole terrible ride. But it ended at last, with the dynamite still safe and undisturbed, and they breathed great sighs of relief as they realized that the first and probably the worst of their perils was really over.
Mr. Simms was incredulous when they reached him and told him of what they had discovered, but the dynamite was a witness not to be discredited, and he had to believe when he saw that. With the utmost care it was removed and placed in water, and then they began to make fresh plans.