pleased when he had read its contents.

It was about two hours after the ambulance with its second load had departed from the camp that Ralph hurriedly sought Hugh, with the alarming intelligence that he had seen three of the discharged guards skulking along on the other side of the cement plant, as though they might have come back to make trouble of some sort.

CHAPTER IV.
THE WORK OF THE SCOUTS.

“Where was this that you saw the discharged guards?” asked the scout master, after Ralph had made his report.

“Over on the other side of the plant,” came the reply. “You see I was just prowling around, curious to discover what lay there, because none of our fellows had bothered taking a look at that side of the stockade, and I wanted to know how they meant to defend it in case of a rush from one or two hundred strikers.”

“That was all right, Ralph,” Hugh told him; “though it’s a wonder you didn’t get a hail from one of the sheriff’s posse and be asked what business you had looking around.”

“To go on with my story, Hugh, I want to say that I don’t think much of that same posse of the sheriff. Why, he’s just picked up a lot of ordinary men in a hurry, and armed them with guns and badges to back him up. They might fight all right in a pinch, but let me tell you they would never be able to guard that plant against a troop of wideawake Boy Scouts. Why, we could creep in on ’em while they dozed at their posts, and first thing they knew it would be ‘hands up everybody; you’re IT!’”

Hugh laughed at hearing Ralph speak in this strain. He knew that the other was considered an unusually clever scout, for which his love of the woods and former business of hunting and trapping game had especially fitted him.

“Well, that’s a good word for all scouts you’re giving, Ralph,” he said. “And so it was while you were sizing up the watchfulness of the new guards that you discovered the presence of the old ones, was it?”

“Yes, I happened to be in a position to drop down in the brush at the time, and they didn’t glimpse me for a cent,” continued Ralph, with an unconscious touch of pride in his voice. “They were all eyes for the plant, and I could understand they didn’t want to be seen by anybody.”

“Perhaps they’d forgotten something, and were returning to get it?” suggested the scout master, in order to draw the other out.

“Not much,” was Ralph’s vigorous protest, “they acted too suspicious for that, I tell you, Hugh. If they had wanted to get something in an open and aboveboard way why wouldn’t they walk straight up to the gate and send word to the sheriff?”

“It does look a little that way,” admitted Hugh thoughtfully.

“If you asked me straight from the shoulder what those sneaks were meaning to do,” continued the active scout, “I’d say they expected to steal something they knew was in the plant—something worth while at that. For all we know they may be crooks who took up with the offer of big wages when Mr. Campertown’s manager sent word to the agency he wanted guards.”

“Perhaps break into the safe of the company, which they think may hold enough money to pay them for their trouble; that’s what you mean, is it, Ralph?”

“Something along those lines,” came the answer.

“It may turn out that way,” Hugh told him a little dubiously.

“Sounds as if you didn’t take any too much stock in my guess, Hugh?”

“Well,” remarked the scout master, “when you stop to consider that the sheriff of the county is in charge of the plant now, and has his posse standing guard with orders to shoot any trespasser on sight, it doesn’t strike me as reasonable.”

“But what would you think might be the reason for their coming back, then?” demanded Ralph, somewhat disappointed because the scout leader had failed to back him up in his theory.

“I can only give a guess at it,” mused Hugh. “It seems to me as if the explanation might be connected with the disgust and anger of these guards at losing their fat job. They may have talked it over, and sent these three back to prowl around to see if something couldn’t be done to start trouble between the posse and the strikers.”

“Whew! I didn’t think of that!” exclaimed Ralph. “If such a thing happened it would sort of gloss over their own crazy act in firing on men when their backs were turned, wouldn’t it? If the sheriff had to fight to hold his own after discharging them, it might make the public excuse their terrible blunder. Hugh, there may be a whole lot in what you say.”

“You didn’t try to follow those three guards, of course, Ralph?”

“Well, hardly,” grinned the other scout. “It was broad daylight, and, while I’m a fair hand at dodging after any fellow, I knew they’d get on to me right away. I just lay there in the bushes and watched ’em go along. But, Hugh, they sheered away from the plant before they got out of my sight, so I’m sure they never walked up to the gate and made any request.”

“There’s one thing I can do to try and keep the peace,” ventured Hugh, as though his own suggestion might still be in his mind.

“What might that be?” inquired the other, curiously.

“Try and have a talk with the old padrone,” the scout master informed him. “You know he can understand English all right, and he speaks it after a fashion. If he were put on his guard I think he would warn his men that they must not under any conditions be drawn into a dispute with armed parties pretending to be members of the sheriff’s posse, for these men may try and play that smart game, you know.”

“Here comes Dr. Richter, Hugh, and he’s got some pleasant news for you, if that smile on his face stands for anything.”

The Red Cross surgeon quickly joined the two chums.

“Things are already beginning to take a turn for the better,” he announced.

“Do you mean that the ones who are so badly wounded will have a fair show to recover?” asked Hugh, feeling as though the burden that had been weighing so heavily on his own heart was being lifted.

“Well, that was hardly what I meant,” admitted the other, “though so far as I can say just now there’s a fighting chance for them all, and with reasonably good luck we’ll pull them through. But I’ve just had a few lines from Mr. Campertown over at the plant.”

“Something about the wounded men, I venture?” remarked Ralph.

“Just what it was,” the surgeon acceded. “It must be that the sight of them lying here on these old faded blankets stirred him more or less, especially when he remembered that they had once been his faithful workers, and that it was through the agency of men hired with his money that they came to get these severe injuries.”

“Then he had a proposal to make, sir?” asked Hugh, guessing as much from the way in which Surgeon Richter spoke.

“He mentioned in his brief note that he would like me to have some of you boys come over to the works; that there were a number of good cots we could have, together with all the clean sheets and blankets needed to give the wounded comfortable beds while they were in our temporary hospital. I sent word back that I was going to gratefully accept his offer, and thanked him for it.”

“Mr. Campertown is getting his eyes opened,” observed Ralph, dryly. “Seeing such terrible things is going to make him think a whole lot different from what he’s been doing.”

“I only hope it