order to attain their end.”

Mayor Strunk threw up his hands.

“I surrender, ladies!” he hastened to exclaim, with the air of a man who knew how to get in out of the wet when it began raining. “Just as you say, the time for delay has passed, and from this night forward you can count on me as being with you, heart and soul. That little girl, Anita Burns, is my own grandchild, some of you may remember, and if anything had happened to her could I ever forgive myself? I guess it needed something like this to take the scales from my eyes.”

Everybody looked happy when they heard the mayor say this. Really, it had been his system of procrastination that had kept matters from reaching a climax long before. No one professed to understand just why he should have acted as he did, since his position as mayor carried no salary with it.

Professor Marvin later on called upon Hugh, as representing the scouts of Oakvale, to outline the idea he had in mind of having the boys made assistant police, with authority to wear badges, and power to order arrests in cases of emergency.

The mayor was somewhat dubious about the propriety of so radical a proceeding.

“It would be almost revolutionary,” he observed, “but then we happen to know how well Hugh can be trusted to keep his troop under strict control, and they have before this amply proven worthy of the citizens’ full trust. I shall call a meeting of the town council for to-morrow night, and as many of you as can, be present; I’d be glad of your backing when this scheme is thrashed out there.”

So at last the uplift movement had come to Oakvale, thanks in part to Hugh Hardin and his fellow scouts.

CHAPTER IV.
WAITING FOR THE GOOD NEWS.

“For home protection! That’s the slogan, fellows, Hugh has given us. We’re going to take our coats off, figuratively speaking, you understand, and purify the atmosphere around the place we live in.”

When Billy Worth gave utterance to these rather boastful remarks he was standing, with a bunch of other fellows in khaki, near the building where the town council, as called together by the mayor, was still in session.

Undoubtedly the fathers of Oakvale were having a warm discussion, since they had been at it for more than two hours. Indeed, the scouts had held their meeting in the room under the church, and made all their arrangements for carrying out their part of the programme, if everything went smoothly as they expected. A goodly number of the energetic lads had immediately, after the meeting was adjourned, decided to hurry around to ascertain what had happened at the council chamber, to which citizens were admitted to the capacity of the room, but the line was drawn at fellows under the voting age.

“Yes,” Jack Durham immediately added, with his characteristic energy, “Oakvale is going to take its periodical bath, so to speak. This time we’ll scrub to the bone, and make an extra clean job of it.”

“The impudent drivers and chauffeurs must be made to respect the law, if fines and imprisonment will do the trick!” asserted Dick Ballamy, who, for a wonder, seemed able to turn his thoughts from fishing to a subject that was of far more importance.

“Huh! Not only that,” Sam Winter burst out impetuously, “but those sneaking dives known as ‘speak-easies’ have got to be squelched. Some people don’t believe any liquor is being sold in Oakvale just because we’re called a dry town. That fire the other day proved the foolishness of that joke, let me tell you, boys.”

“Just what it did!” declared Mark Trowbridge, who often lisped when he talked, an infirmity that was likely to follow him through life; “why, I thaw with my own eyeth two barrelth of bottleth half covered with a blanket, that had been carried from the cobbler’th thop.”

“Worse than that, even,” asserted Arthur Cameron in disgust. “I saw a man deliberately lift the cover, take out a bottle, and drain it there, with a dozen people standing around and laughing. Shows you how some of our laws are being made a joke. The police are aware of what’s going on, too; but they believe the sentiment of the town has heretofore been against enforcing certain statutes.”

“Well, they’re going to get a rude shock pretty soon, believe me,” said Billy. “Half an hour ago the mayor and Council sent for Chief Andy Wallis. He’s in there with them now, listening to the law being laid down. I reckon the Chief knows by this time that it’s going to be a clean town or we get a new head of police. The women have taken things in hand, and mean to purify the atmosphere, so that Oakvale boys and girls can breathe without being contaminated.”

“How fast the news spread all over town this morning,” observed Walter Osborne, the leader of the Hawk Patrol, a fine, manly looking fellow well liked by all his associates of the troop. “Why, my mother says they were talking of it in every store she visited, and father added that he was buttonholed half a dozen times by men who seemed chock full of the subject.”

“Old Doc Kane,” added Sam Winter, “carried the news wherever he went. He said it was going to be next door to a millennium for Oakvale, and that when the movement had exhausted its force he expected to have his business reduced one-half, because of the improved sanitary conditions that would prevail. That was one of the Doc’s little jokes.”

“He’s loaded to the muzzle with ammunition meant to boost the good cause along,” asserted another scout. “It’s among the mill people the good doctor does most of his missionary work. He knows how much a clean town means to fellows who haven’t comfortable homes to spend evenings in.”

“Of course, there’s no danger that the members of the town Council will try to dodge the question again, as they’ve done so many times?” Jack Durham was saying.

Billy gave a scoffing laugh.

“Not much they will!” he ejaculated; “with that wide-awake Mrs. Marsh present, backed by a lady who can strike out from the shoulder like Mrs. Beverly.”

“Besides,” added Walter, “don’t forget what Hugh told us about the sudden change of front on the part of Mayor Strunk. He saw a great light when he learned how his favorite little granddaughter had come near being run over by a team at that dangerous crossing of the three roads in town.”

“Then there’s another thing that’s bound to cut some figure in the decision of the town Council to-night,” said Billy. “Public sentiment has been aroused, and is at white heat. It seems as if everything combined to happen all at once, for this very afternoon old Mr. Merkle was knocked down by a speeding car that got away without anybody learning its number. He was badly hurt, and they took him to the hospital; but we’ve been told that the brave old chap, nearly eighty-five years of age, has sent a message of cheer to the ladies from his bed, telling them that he glories in being a martyr to the good cause.”

“Every fellow take off his hat to old Mr. Merkle, for he’s made of the stuff our Revolutionary fathers had in them when this country dared defy Great Britain,” and as Walter Osborne said this, each scout raised his campaign hat with a touch of respect for the grand old hero lying on his bed of pain, yet able to think of the reform movement that was sweeping through the town.

“Here comes Hugh now!” called out a fellow on the outskirts of the group.

“And he looks as if he felt