The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts, by Roy Rutherford Bailey

	PAGE
Introduction	1
Adventure Number
One: Bob Thirsts for Adventure and Gets It	3
Two: The Royal Signet Ring	9
Three: The Woman and the Wizard	13
Four: The Persistent Pigmy	21
Five: The Magic Button's Warning	27
Six: The Live Wire	32
Seven: Betty Evens the Score	38
Eight: Little Schneider's Fire Alarm	43
Nine: "Chance Carter's Way"	49
Ten: The Twins Meet Bruce	58
Eleven: "Just for Fun"	62
Twelve: Getting Down to Business	69
Thirteen: Dalton Patrol	74
Fourteen: Six Timely Tips	82
Fifteen: Twin Uniforms	89
Sixteen: Where Safety Was a Stranger	95
Seventeen: Giving the Other Fellow a Square Deal	102
Eighteen: An Adventure in Safety	110
Nineteen: One Day's Boost for Safety	117

THE SAFETY SCOUT'S PLATFORM

INTRODUCTION

Safety First—The Prevention of Accidents

Americans are realizing the need for preventing accidents. The general conservation and efficiency movements and the Workmen's Compensation Laws first directed the attention of employers to the needless waste of human life. The discovery that by the safeguarding of machinery and the education of workmen ninety per cent of the industrial accidents could be prevented, has proved the value of educational methods in Public Safety work, and the Safety activities of public officials, trade organizations, public schools, churches, and other agencies have been directed toward the prevention of accidents on the street, in public places, and in homes. Every phase of human life is affected by accidents, and their elimination means saving human life and the avoidance of destitution and misery.

The National Safety Council realizes the importance of educating school children in the principles of Safety; for they will be the future industrial workers and the representatives of public opinion; their interest must be aroused to practice and preach "Safety First" everywhere. Children can be taught to become alert to their own safety, and can influence their parents to a deeper realization of their responsibilities.

The National Safety Council has directed the preparation of this book and hopes that through its pages children will be brought to realize the manliness of caution, the importance of courtesy and consideration; that, in short, the Safety way is simply the right way of doing things; and that the efficiency, comfort, and happiness of many individuals will be increased by the practicing day in and day out of "Safety First."

SURE POP AND THE
SAFETY SCOUTS

ADVENTURE NUMBER ONE

BOB THIRSTS FOR ADVENTURE AND GETS IT

"Bully for Uncle Jack!" cried Bob, a stalwart lad just on the edge of twelve, excitedly waving a letter with a South American postmark. "What wouldn't I give to be with him on his exploring trips! Here, Betty, listen to this part about their fight with the natives!"

"Oh, don't, please!" said his twin, clapping both hands over her ears, but listening just the same. "I'm always so afraid Uncle Jack will get killed."[4]

"'This last scrimmage was one of the liveliest I've ever been up against. The warlike up-river tribes, it seems, mistook our native scouts for a war party and lay in ambush for us. Might have been worse, though. Our losses were two men killed and seven wounded—but of course that's only a fraction of what you wound and kill every day back there in the States.'"

"Why, what does he mean by that?" wondered Betty. "There's no war going on in this country, is there?"

"Not that I know of." Even Brother Bob looked puzzled for a moment. "No Indians left to fight! But say, Betty, Uncle Jack's life is just fairly dripping with adventure! Think of it—every day chock-full of thrills and narrow escapes—and adventures every time he turns around! Well, it won't be many years now before I can be a scout and explorer myself."

A yell from their playmates outside brought the twins to the street in a hurry. Bob's legs were longer, but Betty, quick as a cat, got there first.

"You're it, Bob!" "Bob's last, so he's it!" Like a band of savages the screeching boys and girls scuttled across the car tracks and around the corners, while Bob counted up to five hundred "by fives."

"Four hundr' nine' five, FIVE HUNDRED!" yelled Bob, and started to dash across the tracks, for he had caught[5] a glimpse of Jimmy West's new red boots disappearing under his grandmother's porch across the street. The sound of the wind in his ears as he ran drowned out the roar of the coming street car, and of course he had eyes only for those tell-tale red boots.

Another jump and Bob would have been under the wheels—but a strong little hand on his shoulder stopped him. The street car roared by with a startled clang of its gong, for the motorman had seen Bob too late to throw off the power.

Bob gasped in relief—then whirled around to see what had stopped him. And what do you think he saw, right there beside him in the street? Was it a scout—or a pygmy—or what?

He was old and snowy haired, but as fresh as a daisy and as spry as a cricket. His cheeks were as ruddy as Spitzenberg apples and his only wrinkles were the laughter wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. And such eyes! They were big and clear, and so bright that Bob could only look at them a moment and then turn away. It was like trying to stare at the sun.

He was tiny, but straight as a ramrod in his natty khaki uniform. And he was holding up his right hand just like the big policeman on the corner downtown. As he dropped it to shake hands with Bob, there was a sudden flash of green.

"Why, hello there!" Bob could scarcely believe his[6] eyes. "Where on earth did you come from? And who—who are you, anyway?"

"My name is Sure Pop!" answered the scout in a clear voice, like the note of a bugle. "I've dropped in on the United States on my second tour of scouting duty, and I hear you are thirsting for adventure. Well, you've had one, at any rate; if I hadn't grabbed you just in the nick of time—" He shuddered and hustled Bob back to the sidewalk.

"Thanks, old scout!" stammered Bob. "I didn't know there was a car coming, and you see I was in such a hurry—"

"I see!" said Sure Pop, dryly. "I see, Bob, but you didn't. How do you suppose a wee chap like me ever gets across the busy streets downtown?"

"Give it up!" said Bob, "unless you can fly!" And he gave a sly glance at the scout's square little shoulders, half expecting to see wings.

Sure Pop grinned. "No more than you," he chuckled. "So I keep my eyes and ears open. Folks who have no wings must use their wits."

Bob felt a bit uncomfortable to have his mind read so easily, and promptly changed the subject. "What a funny name you have—'Sure Pop'!"

"Well, 'tis a funny one, sure pop! That name was wished on me by a crowd of Borderland folk, and then His Majesty gave it to me for keeps."[7]

"Right—the King of the Borderland." The two had been walking toward the Dalton house as they talked. Now Sure Pop followed Bob up the steps and curled up in the big porch chair to tell him all about it.

"Once upon a time, some years ago, when I was a younger man than I am now," began Sure Pop, "I was standing on a corner in the largest city in the Borderland. It was noontime, and crowds of horsemen and chariots were dashing up and down the street.

"Suddenly I saw a youngster start over to my side of the street without looking either way. There was a chariot almost upon him when I held up my hand, as I did to you now, and yelled, 'Look sharp!' He stopped short—and those thundering wheels missed him by about an inch.

"He picked his way across the street, then, and held out his hand. 'That was a close shave,' he said. 'You've saved my life, Mr.—Mr.—' For of course he didn't know my name from Captain Kidd's.

"By this time quite a crowd of Borderland folk had gathered around us, and they all laughed and cheered and called me 'Sure Pop.' And one bold-eyed rascal threw up his pointed cap and shouted, 'Bully for Sure Pop!' and[8] ran off to tell the King. At that all the rest of the crowd clapped their hands, for though they laughed at the name they knew I had the right idea."

ADVENTURE NUMBER TWO

THE ROYAL SIGNET RING

Sure Pop paused in his story as Betty came dashing around the house. Like a shot the stranger jumped to his feet, and again Bob caught that sudden flash of green as he raised his hand in salute.

"Why, goodness me!" exclaimed Betty. "You seem to know me, but I don't know who you are—unless you are one of those Boy Scouts Bob is so crazy to join?"

"Not exactly Boy Scouts," chuckled Sure Pop with a wink at Bob, "unless you count us boys till we're ninety-nine years old! Girls are scouts, too, in my regiment."

"Now, Betty," warned Bob, "sit down here and don't[10] you dare interrupt, for Sure Pop's right in the middle of a story—and I think he's come to stay a while, haven't you, Sure Pop?"

"Sure pop! I'll stay as long as the King will let me," laughed the merry little scout.

"Well, after I got away from the crowd," he went on, "my eyes must suddenly have been opened to the thousand-and-one things that might happen even in Borderland to folks who didn't look sharp on the street, for on my way home I saved several others from getting hurt.

"The first was a careless little cabin boy, who went along whistling with his hands in his pockets. He slipped and fell plump in front of a chariot, and of course he couldn't jerk his hands out of his pockets in time to save himself. I grabbed him up in the very nick of time, or he'd have been smashed flatter than a pancake.

"And only a block farther on, I met a carpenter hurrying through the crowd with a ladder on his shoulder. Some one shouted to him, and he whirled around with never a thought of his ladder. The end of it would have hit a fat old banker squarely between the eyes if I hadn't been watching for that very thing and caught it as it swung. I went home and thought no more about all this, till that night, at midnight, I was summoned before the King."

"I was, sure pop! When I marched into the throne room it was crowded with richly dressed people. The King and[11] Queen sat on their thrones, and as I went toward them I had to pass between two long lines of trumpeters.

"Suddenly up went the silver trumpets, and the trumpeters blew a mighty blast. Let me tell you, it was enough to send the shivers down your spine, that trumpet call was! It seemed as if I never had climbed a longer flight of steps. But at last I found myself bowing before the King and Queen. The King, who wore a brand new uniform, just like this one I have on, beckoned a herald to his side.

"'Now hark to his words,' he said to me, 'and say if he speaks the truth.' And then the herald read aloud from a long white scroll, with scarlet seals on it, the story of how I had saved the young chap from the chariot that noon, and all about the cabin boy and the fat old banker I'd helped on my way home!

"'Does the herald speak truly?' asked the Borderland King. And all the rest strained their ears for my answer.

"'Sure pop, Your Majesty!' I replied before I knew what I was saying. At that he pulled from his finger a new signet ring, inked it with some magic ink, and motioned for me to hold out my right hand. How do I know it was magic ink? Why, it must have been, for the print it made has never faded. Look!"

Bob and Betty looked at the little scout's right hand, which he held up again like the crossing policeman downtown. And this is what they saw:

"'Hold it up,' commanded the King, 'where all can see!' And then the trumpets sounded again.

"'Long live Colonel Sure Pop, the Safety Scout!' cried the herald. The court wizard stepped forward, waved his hand and mumbled a few magic words over me, and—what do you think!—I found myself dressed in a brand new scouting uniform, the only one just like the King's!"

ADVENTURE NUMBER THREE

THE WOMAN AND THE WIZARD

Sure Pop, the Safety Scout, drew a long breath and watched the automobiles whirling recklessly down the busy street. "But say, haven't you twins had enough stories for one day?"

"Well, a single wave of the King's hand dismissed his people. Looking very sorrowful, he opened the great book in which he keeps the record of everything that happens over here in the New World.[14]

"He ran his finger across the page to the totals, and I saw that the first total ran clear up into the thousands—and the second one into the millions!

"'Colonel Sure Pop,' said the King, 'if only the thought you put into the mind of that lad you saved this noon, might be put into the mind of all America!'

"The King nodded. 'All the lives lost in all our battles,' he said grimly, 'are but a drop in the sea as compared with the slaughter of a single year in a single land!'

"'Oh, Your Majesty, let me go and teach them Safety First—now, before another life is thrown away!'

"'No, Colonel. Not yet. The time is not yet ripe. But—perhaps we can make a beginning. Come to me again tomorrow night, at midnight, and we shall see.'

"The next night I went to the throne room and found the King studying a big map. He had a red pencil and a blue one in his hand, and he pointed to a lot of red rings he had drawn on the map.[15]

"'Those,' he told me, 'are America's great mills. In them and the other factories, thousands upon thousands of workmen are killed by accident every year—by accident, Colonel, not in battle.

"'And that is not all,' the King went on. 'These blue lines mark the trails of the great iron horses—the railroads. Last year these iron horses trampled out thousands of lives in America alone. And all because the Americans haven't learned to think Safety!'

"That was too much for me. I pleaded with him to let me come straight to America and help end that awful suffering. But the King shook his head.

"'The more haste, the less speed, Colonel. Before you can help America, you must help yourself; and the quickest way to do that is first to teach Safety to our own people. Let me see you win your spurs here in the Borderland, and then—to America you go!'

"'Teach Safety to our own people?' I repeated, a bit puzzled. 'How ought I to go about it, Sire?'

"'Go through all the Borderland,' said the King, 'and muster an army of Safety Scouts. Train them to know signs that spell DANGER, as an Indian scout reads the signs of the trail. Teach them to report every danger signal they see—and they will teach their neighbors, and so the knowledge will spread. But above all, be sure your Safety Scouts are well chosen.'

"'Colonel of the Scouts,' said the King, shrewdly, 'the wisest are not always the safest. Have you never thought why it is "bad luck to go under a ladder"?'

"'True. But proverbs without reason would be like trees without roots. Stop and think: sometimes a ladder breaks or slips, which is bad for the climber—and bad for any one who happens to be under that ladder just then. And sometimes a painter's heavy paintpot falls—and woe to him who walks under the ladder then, be he the wisest man in the kingdom. Now go, and one moon from tonight bring me a full regiment of Safety Scouts.'

"So out through the Borderland I went, saying over and over to myself, 'It is bad luck to go under a ladder,' and waiting for the King's meaning to be made plain.

"First I went to the home of a great wizard, the wisest man in the Borderland. As I neared the house, the door opened and the wizard came out, a heavy book of wisdom under his arm.

"He had a long black pipe in his mouth. Pulling out a match, he lighted his pipe, threw the burning match over his shoulder, and hurried on toward the city.

"I started to run after him, when a flicker of light caught my eye. There in the straw that littered the roots of the ivy vines by the steps, a little tongue of flame was lapping up the tangle of leaves!"[17]

Bob jumped to his feet as if he had heard the clang of a fire bell. "Good enough for him, the old fossil! Did it burn his house down?"

"Came mighty near it," said Sure Pop, looking at the scars on his hands. "He had a sick wife in there all alone, and if I hadn't happened along just then—

"Well, anyway," he went on cheerfully, "I got the fire out at last. And the King's meaning was made plain—it is one thing to have wisdom and another thing to use it. So I didn't ask the wizard to join the Safety Scouts, after all."

"I should say NOT!" cried Bob and Betty with one voice. "But where did you find your Scouts?" added Bob.

"Well, the next idea I had was to ask mothers, for mothers give up much of their time, anyhow, to keeping children out of harm's way. I found one whose house looked so trim and neat, and her children so clean and happy, that I had almost made up my mind to invite her to join—when my eye fell on a shining butcher knife hanging beside the kitchen table, where even the baby could reach it without half trying.

"And that wasn't all I saw. There was a saucer of fly poison on the window sill! Then I saw the mother starting to carry out a pail of water to scrub the steps, when the brass knocker on the door gave a thump, and she left that hot water right there in the middle of the floor while she talked to a peddler![18]

"Just then the baby came toddling across the room. He got safely past the scalding water and the fly poison, but the next moment I saw him climb up on a chair, open the medicine chest, and grab a bottle from the bottom shelf—the bottom shelf, Betty, of all shelves in the house! Out came the cork, and up went the bottle to his lips, just as I saw to my horror a skull and crossbones on its label. Like a flash I—"

"Like a flash," said Sure Pop, "I bounded to the baby's side and snatched the bottle away. I tell you, I did some earnest thinking as I left that house. I realized that it would never do to ask that mother to join our army of Safety Scouts, for until she herself had formed the Safety habit, she could hardly be expected to teach Safety to others. The adventure of the baby and the poison bottle had opened my eyes to the real meaning of the King's words about finding Scouts who could read the little signs that spell DANGER.

"By the way, I told the poison bottle story to a great doctor the other day, and now he's doing his best to get a law passed requiring that all poison bottles be of some special shape, different from any other bottles. That will make them much safer, even in the dark."[19]

"But how can they be made different in shape?" asked Betty. "What shape, Sure Pop?"

"Three-cornered, probably. That certainly would be a life-saving law, if he could only get it passed. Just think! There were several thousand deaths in the United States last year from that one cause alone—just from mistaking bottles of poison for other medicine."

"But what I can't see," said Bob, "is how anybody could mistake a poison bottle. They all have skulls and crossbones on them, haven't they?"

"Stop and think a moment," said the Safety Scout. "Suppose baby has croup in the night, and mother is roused out of a sound sleep and rushes to the medicine chest; she's only half awake—the light is dim—poor baby is gasping and choking—not a moment to lose. She isn't likely to stop and read labels very carefully, is she? But if she felt her hand close over a three-cornered bottle, it would wake her up in a hurry. Even in the darkness and in the excitement—if she had been trained to think of a three-cornered bottle as meaning DANGER, perhaps death—it would stay her hand as surely as a red light stops an engine."

"I suppose," said Betty, "that when folks are badly hurt, or awfully, awfully sick, other folks lose their heads and don't know what they really are doing."

"Betty, you've hit the nail right on the head. Now that's why we must fix things so safety won't depend on level heads or time to think. The danger signal must pop[20] right into our heads from force of habit. The sooner American boys and girls—yes, and the grown-ups, too—get the Safety habit, the sooner 'Safety First' will change from phrase into fact.

"The first day I ever spent in America opened my eyes to the price your country is paying for the word 'guess.' The more I studied the situation, the oftener I noticed folks saying 'I guess' where they should have said 'I know.' In nearly all of America's accidents, guesswork is the real cause.

"The moment I realized that, I said to myself, 'It's high time America dropped guesswork out of its daily life.' My work was cut out for me: I began right then and there to study out ways of getting folks to stop guessing, once for all, and be sure—sure pop!"

ADVENTURE NUMBER FOUR

THE PERSISTENT PIGMY

"Say, Sure Pop!" burst out Bob, as the Safety Scout paused in his story. "A whole regiment—did you realize that was a lot of Scouts to get together in one month?"

"Did I?" echoed Sure Pop with a chuckle. "Did I? Well, if I didn't when I set out on my search, I did before the first day was over. I had lost out on the wisest man in the Borderland—he wouldn't do, for all his wisdom. He only served to remind me of what the King had said, that the wisest are not always the safest."

"Sure—sure pop!" Bob broke in again. "But how did you ever get a whole regiment together in one month? You simply couldn't disappoint the King, you know."[22]

"You're right, Bob, I simply couldn't. So as fast as I did find one that would do for the army, I set him to work finding others—passing the good work along. I soon saw I could never make good with the King by trying to do it all myself, and I do believe the King knew all along that there was only one way a really big work could be done—by getting everybody stirred up and enthusiastic. So I turned each new Scout loose to hunt for more.

"You'd laugh to know who was the first Scout enrolled. As I slipped out of the poison-bottle house, I saw a funny little pigmy hurry out of a cottage across the lane and go z-z-zam! down the front steps. We'd had a nip of frost the night before, and the slippery steps took him by surprise. For a moment he stood rubbing his head, with his merry little face puckered up into a comical sort of bowknot. Then he picked his way slowly up the steps into the house.

"A minute or two and out he came again with a bag of salt and sprinkled the steps with it. Though he was in just as big a hurry as our friend the wizard, the Safety First idea had got him, and he plainly had made up his mind to begin right then and there.

"'Well, I declare!' I said to myself. 'I've a notion to muster him into the scouting service—but what would the King say to my enrolling a pigmy?' Just as I was wondering about it, down he went again, flat on his little back!

"This time it was on the sidewalk in front of his house. Some careless youngster had thrown a banana skin on the[23] walk. Poor little pigmy, what a bump he did get that time! But again he picked himself up, and this time he didn't wait a moment—just poked the banana skin off into the gutter where it could do no more harm.

"Such persistence was too much for me! I told him the King wanted him for the royal army of Safety Scouts, and that he was to have the honor of being the first one enrolled. His eyes fairly popped out of his head as he listened, and before you could say 'Jack Robinson,' he had scampered off to help me raise an army—with one of these buttons in the lapel of his leather jerkin."

Sure Pop pulled a sparkling button out of his pocket and laid it before the twins.

"There, that's the Safety Scouts' badge of honor, and no Scout can wear one till he earns the right. The King himself designed it."

"My! I wish—!" The twins remembered their manners and stopped short, but Sure Pop understood. He threw back that wise little head and how he did laugh!

"You wish—eh? That's what they all say, the minute they lay eyes on that button! You see, that's a magic button, so it's no wonder everybody wants one. Friends, that button can talk!"

Bob stared at the button as if he couldn't believe his ears. Betty, taking Sure Pop at his word, grabbed the button and laid it to her ear. She gave a squeal of delight.[24]

"Sure pop it does!" laughed the Safety Scout. "That's all it can say, just four words at a time—but those four are enough to save thousands of lives every year."

"What four words?" yelled Bob, clapping the magic button to his ear. How his jaw dropped when he heard—or seemed to hear—the magic button's words, four words he will never, never forget, even if he lives to be a hundred years old!

"And let's be quick about it," chimed in Betty. "I want to earn one of those magic buttons myself."

"Here too!" Bob whirled around to Sure Pop. "But we'll have to get the soil ready first, won't we, just as the King told you? So the seed won't be wasted, you know."

"That's the first move, Bob. Waste is something no Scout can bear to see. Waste of life, waste of health, waste of time, waste of food—even waste of money seems a crime to a Safety Scout."

Betty was thinking hard. "Then before we can plant the Safety First idea in other people's minds, shan't we have to start it growing in our own, Sure Pop?"

"Sure pop, we shall! And now listen, friends. When I[25] first came to America, after years of Safety training among my own people, I took up the task of planting the Safety First idea among the great American mills and factories. Some day I'll tell you about those years of Safety work among the mill hands, but just now what I want to explain is this: when I had got the work well established among the mills, I thought at first that my work in America was finished; but the more I thought it over, the plainer it became that my most important work still lay before me."

"Your most important work," echoed Betty. "What do you mean, Sure Pop—teaching Safety to the President of the United States?"

"No, Betty. A far more important work than that—teaching Safety to children. I saw that by making Safety Scouts out of the boys and girls, I should be solving the whole problem of the years to come—for workmen, Presidents, and all. So I drew a long breath and started in again, this time in America's homes.

"Now how do you suppose I came to choose your home to begin on? Just as I was wondering which house to tackle first, I overheard Bob wishing he had Uncle Jack's life of adventure—though the United States has more real adventure to the square mile than all South America put together!"

"You Americans think so, Bob. And you're trying to bring about world-wide peace, because you feel that war is out of place in civilized life. But what about the thousands[26] you kill and the millions you wound every year? More than you killed and wounded, remember, in the whole Civil War. What about that? Does that sound so very civilized?

"You want adventure. Good! You shall have it—early and often. And you won't have to go to any other country to find it, either."

"First, we must get our eyes and ears open. That's the first thing for any Scout to learn, and he isn't good for much until he gets the habit of noticing things. Scout-craft means reading signs in everything you come across and acting on little silent hints that most folks wouldn't notice.

"Now, to begin with, here are three practical rules for you to bear in mind—three things we found out in our first year of Borderland Safety Scouting: First, a true Scout is always on the alert. Second, a Scout always keeps cool. Third, a Scout does one thing at a time. Do you suppose you can remember these three things?"

"Easy as anything," said Bob. "Keep wide awake, keep cool, and keep your mind on one thing at a time. Three 'keeps'—anybody can remember them!"

"Think so?" Sure Pop's voice sounded surprisingly far away. "All right, we'll see!" And before the twins' very eyes he faded away into thin air!

ADVENTURE NUMBER FIVE

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 it was real!" 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!"[28]

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.

"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 walk[29] and 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.

"He's dead!" screamed Betty wildly. She threw herself at the gasping George. "You—you've killed him!"

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, feeling[30] very 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's Handbook of Scout-Craft as 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?"[31]

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!

ADVENTURE NUMBER SIX

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.

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. Now[33] let'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?"

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 rope[34] him 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.[35] 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.

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.

"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 guard[36] with 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 what not to do, sometimes. Robert[37] Dalton, 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!"

ADVENTURE NUMBER SEVEN

BETTY EVENS THE SCORE

"I certainly am proud of the way Bob won his," she said to herself. "But I've never been behind Bob yet, 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 be[39] with you today. I'm due for a little outside scouting duty—something you twins aren't quite ready for yet."

"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 read Ben Hur?"

"Don't you remember how that loose tile from Ben Hur's[40] roof—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:

"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."[41]

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 outside[42] door 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 over her heart, too.

ADVENTURE NUMBER EIGHT

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.[44]

"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."

"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 at[45] that 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!"

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 his[46] soft 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.

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 did[47] the 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.

With the little girl held close between them, their bodies shielding her from the flames, the two groped and stumbled[48] down 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 were gone!"

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!"

ADVENTURE NUMBER NINE

"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?"[50]

"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.

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 your Handbook of Scout-Craft a 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'—to[51] say 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! Guess that man won't light a match in a coat closet again."[52]

"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.

"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."

"When you get into the Boy Scouts," Bob reminded him, "you'll find out what they think 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 teach him anything," he chuckled. "He was born careless and he'll die careless, I guess. Look at him, now—poking around where those[53] loose 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."[54]

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 you[55] can. 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!"

ADVENTURE NUMBER TEN

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.

"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.[57] 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."

"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:

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 in[58] the 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."

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.[59]

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.

"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.

"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,[60] 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."

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.[61]

"You're wasting your time," was all he would say. "No theories or new-fangled notions in my mills."

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.

ADVENTURE NUMBER ELEVEN

"JUST FOR FUN"

The twins missed Chance Carter during the next few weeks. The boy had been a regular nuisance in some ways, for he was always getting into scrapes; but he was a clever lad and had a way of making up games that nobody else seemed able to think of.

"It does seem lonesome without Chance," Bob told Sure Pop when the broken leg had kept their friend tied up indoors for a week or more. "And yet we don't get into half as much trouble when he isn't round."

Sure Pop looked wise. "Perhaps it's because Chance hasn't learned that he must play according to the rules,"[63] he said. "The fellow who is always taking chances isn't playing up to the rules of the game."

"Anyhow," said Betty, "Chance has had his lesson now. By the time he's able to run around again, he will be ready to quit taking chances."

Sure Pop changed the subject, though a shrewd twinkle seemed to say that it would take more than one lesson to teach Chance how to play life's game according to the rules. "How'd you like to take a trip with me today?"

"To a kind of moving picture show," answered Colonel Sure Pop. "Let's start right away, then. And be sure you wear your Safety First buttons."

The twins couldn't help smiling at the idea of going anywhere without their magic buttons. They boarded the crowded street car with Sure Pop and stood beside the motorman all the way to the railroad yards. It seemed as if somebody tried to get run over every block or two, and the way people crossed the crowded streets in the middle of blocks was enough to turn a motorman's hair gray.

"Well, I tell you, Sure Pop, I don't believe it's as much fun as it looks from the outside. If fellows like Chance and George would ride beside the motorman for just one day, seeing what he has to see right along, they'd be Safety workers forever after. Look at that, now! Those chaps have no business to cross in the middle of the block."[64]

"Nobody has," agreed Sure Pop, with a keen glance at Bob. The boy flushed as he remembered what he himself had been doing when he first felt the warning touch of the Safety Scout's hand.

He and Betty noticed, too, how carefully Sure Pop looked all around him before leaving the car, and they did likewise. Two short blocks more and they were in sight of the railroad roundhouse. The Safety Scout stuck his head inside the great doorway and peered around at the smoking engines that impatiently awaited their turn. "There she is!" he exclaimed. "There's old Seven-Double-Seven!" And he waved his hand at the engineer up in the cab.

The three climbed into the engine cab, where the fireman stood waiting with his eye on the steam gauge. From the way the engineer shook hands with Sure Pop, the twins decided they must be old friends.

"Got my orders?" asked the engineer. He ripped open the envelope Sure Pop handed him, glanced at the message, nodded to the fireman, and gently pulled open the throttle. The big, powerful engine answered his touch like a race horse. With a warning clang of the bell, they slipped down the shining track, through the crowded yards, and toward the city limits.

Bob went on looking in all the corners of the cab as if greatly puzzled. "Looking for the moving picture machine," he said with a grin. "I thought I heard you promise us a moving picture show."[65]

"You just wait. Be ready to rub your magic buttons when I say the word, both of you, and you'll see some moving pictures you'll never forget—pictures of what might happen to boys and girls like yourselves. The pity of it is, it does happen, every day of the year."

Sure Pop paused to call their attention to some little blurry patches of blue scattered along the track. "Wild flowers," he said. "Pretty things, aren't they? If we weren't going so fast, we'd stop and get some."

The engineer scowled. "Pretty? They don't look pretty to me any more. Look there, now!"

The brakes jarred as he spoke, and the shriek of the whistle scattered a group ahead. Several young couples, going home from town by way of the railroad track, had stopped to gather wild flowers. One couple were walking hand in hand over the railroad bridge, deaf at first to whistle and bell and everything else. Suddenly they heard, looked up, and turned first one way and then another, uncertain whether to jump off the bridge or stand their ground.

"Is it any wonder that I don't like the flower season?" grunted the engineer in disgust. "It's the worst time of all, seems to me. Now you'd think those young fellows and girls were old enough and would have sense enough to keep off the railroad's right of way, wouldn't you? But look at 'em!"

He mopped his forehead and glared ahead at the frightened couple, holding the panting engine at a standstill till they could scramble off the bridge.[66]

"They act as if we had nothing to do but just watch out for 'em," he went on, getting under way again. "They got off scot-free this time, but imagine what old Seven-Double-Seven would have done to 'em if this had been my regular run! Forty miles an hour on schedule—and where would they be now?

"It's the same old story, day after day—boys riding bicycles down the tracks, when the road's ten times smoother and a million times as safe! Boys playing on the turntables and getting crippled for life, one by one!

"They'll run like mad to get across the track ahead of a fast train—and then stand and watch it go through! I ought to know—I did it myself when I was a boy, but little I knew then of the way it wrecks an engineer's nerves!

"They flip the cars and try to imitate the brakemen without the least idea of how many thousands of brakemen have lost their lives just that way. They crawl under cars, instead of waiting or going around. Why, Colonel, the railroads kill thousands and thousands of people every year—you know the figures—dozens every day, week in and week out. And somebody's badly hurt on the railroads every three minutes or less—and a third of them are boys and girls and little children! That's what I can't stand—the little folks getting hurt and getting killed, when just a bit of common sense would save them! Oh, if their fathers and mothers had any idea—"

The big engineer choked up for a moment. "Even on[67] the trains," he added, "when they're safe inside the cars, they get hurt. I'm not the only one that worries on my run—ask the conductor. He'll tell you how they run up and down the aisle, till a sudden jar of the brakes throws 'em against a seat iron or into the other passengers. They get out into the vestibules, which is against the rules, and when the train takes a sudden curve they get smashed up."

Three minutes later he slowed down for the twins to watch the fast mail thunder past. It was near a village crossing, and a little group of boys stood waiting. As No. 777 came to a stop, the twins saw that most of the boys had stones in their hands.

On came the fast mail, tearing past the little village as if it were not even on the map. The mail cars—the smoker—the long rows of glass windows, a head beside each—

Smash! The flying splinters of glass told of one stone that had found its mark. The boys ran like scared cats around the corner into a lumber yard.

"Little cowards!" The fireman glared angrily after them. "They may have killed somebody on that train—they don't know!"

"Rub your buttons!" whispered Sure Pop, whose eyes were still fixed on the fast mail, now disappearing in a cloud of smoke and dust.

Bob and Betty rubbed. At their first touch of the magic buttons the disappearing train took on a queer, unreal look, like a film at the "movies."[68]

They seemed to be inside one of the cars. They seemed to be watching a sweet-faced old lady—somebody's grandmother—snowy haired, kind, gentle, not used to traveling, as even the twins could see. She kept looking first at the time-table and then at an old key-winding silver watch she wore on a quaint little chain around her neck.

Her lips were moving, smiling. "Only two stops more," she seemed to be saying, "and then I shall see little Jim." She took a kodak picture out of her handbag and looked at it long and lovingly. She glanced out of the window and saw a group of boys standing by the village crossing "to watch the fast mail go through." She liked boys. She smiled at them—she did not see the stones in their hands.

Smash! The other passengers sprang to their feet as one of the stones, thrown at random, shivered the car window into bits and struck the kind old face, full between the eyes. A quick, startled cry—a pitiful fumbling of kind old hands before shattered spectacles and eyes suddenly blinded—and the moving picture seemed to fade away. The twins were left with the sickening fear that perhaps little Jim's grandmother might never see him after all.

"Oh! oh!" gasped Betty, rubbing her eyes. "How terrible!" Bob caught Sure Pop by the arm.

"Too true," said Sure Pop, sadly. "It happens almost every day somewhere—where boys throw stones at the cars 'just for fun'!"

ADVENTURE NUMBER TWELVE

GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS

"And just to think," said Bob, as the three sat on the home steps talking over their exciting trip on old No. 777, "just to think of how many boys and girls are killed on the railroad tracks every day!"

"Every day," echoed the little Safety Scout, "and all over the world. Go into any village graveyard along any railroad, and you'll find the grave of some boy or girl who has been killed trespassing on the railroad tracks. No way to save them, I'm afraid, till folks wake up to the fact that it's not so much the tramps who are being killed this way—it's the children!"

"It's just awful," said Betty, puckering up her brow in a[70] thoughtful scowl. "I think we ought to do something about it."

"Well, something to put a stop to it. Surely we could find some way of teaching the boys and girls how to play safely; and then when they grew up they'd be in the habit of thinking Safety. Then they'd teach their boys and girls—and all this awful killing and crippling, or most of it, would be ended."

"The trouble is," said Bob, "in going at the thing in too much of a hit-or-miss style. We could do some good by talking to the few boys and girls we could reach, but not enough. Why can't we organize?"

Sure Pop's eager face lighted up, overjoyed at the turn Bob's thoughts were taking. "You can," he said quietly.

"Why, sure!" went on Bob, getting more and more excited as the idea took hold. "Let's get busy and organize an army of Safety Scouts right here. We've already got the biggest thing in the Safety Scout Law at work—don't you see?—our 'One Boost for Safety' every day. We can get some more Safety Scout buttons made, and as fast as a boy earns his—"

"—Or a girl earns hers!"—interrupted Betty, so seriously that Bob couldn't help smiling.

"Yes, of course—girls too—why, as fast as boys and girls earn the right to wear Safety Scout buttons, we can[71] form them into patrols. It wouldn't be long before we could have several troops hard at it. I tell you, Sure Pop, if we go at it that way we can do big things for Safety just as sure as you're a foot high!"

Sure Pop gave Betty a droll little wink. "It's a go, then," he said cheerfully. "Well, where are you going to begin?"

Bob looked up at him with a sudden idea shining in his eyes. "Why not begin by organizing in patrols and then in troops, just about like the Boy Scouts? First, we can get a few of our friends interested, and let each one of them get eleven others interested—that will make a patrol of twelve, commanded by the one who got them together."

"Spoken like a Scout and a gentleman!" cried the little Colonel, giving him a sounding thump on the shoulder. "Go on, Bob—what next?"

"Well, just as fast as we get four new patrols, we can form them into a troop, with a Scout Master for their leader."

"Good," said Sure Pop. "It will take some lively work to pick your Scout Masters and get them trained in time, but the difference in their efficiency will be worth your while."

"I suppose," said Betty, "we'll have to choose only boys and girls who have good records for Safety?"

"I think it would be a mistake, Bob. You'll find too[72] few who have even learned to think Safety. A better plan will be to take in those who seem most in earnest over the idea, especially those who have been taught a hard lesson through accidents which care would have avoided."

"Bob, I would—but I believe I've told you enough. You and Betty go ahead in your own way and work out the details yourselves. Let me see you get your Safety Scouts together, if you really do mean business, and I'll show you about the work that's already been done among the factory hands and mill-workers of America.

"Let me tell you this much, though: you'll find, when you get your Safety Scouts of America organized, that the good work will go ahead by leaps and bounds. All this talk about 'efficiency' is really part of the same movement, though very few realize it; it's nothing more or less than cutting out guess work and waste—and what else, after all, is our Safety work?"

"That's so. It really is all working in the same direction, isn't it?" agreed Bob. "Chance Carter's oldest brother is studying to be an efficiency engineer—perhaps he can give us some ideas."

"Then—you really do mean to get busy and organize the Safety Scouts of America?"[73]

"Mean it!" Bob and Betty fairly shouted the words in their eagerness to get to work. And as Sure Pop said good night to them, there was a joyous light in his eye which showed his plan was working out just as he had thought it would.

He smiled a satisfied smile as the door closed on the excited Dalton twins. "And now," said Colonel Sure Pop to himself, "now, we're getting down to business!"

ADVENTURE NUMBER THIRTEEN

DALTON PATROL

The next few weeks were busy ones for Bob and Betty Dalton. The plan was a big one—the Safety Scouts of America. Growing out of an idea planted by Colonel Sure Pop, it sprouted and grew surprisingly fast. Already the news was spreading like wildfire among the boys and girls all over the city.

Joe Schmidt was out again, his head as good as ever. George Gibson, always brim full of energy and enthusiasm, had set his heart on becoming a Safety Scout Master and heading a troop of his own. Even Chance Carter, hobbling about on crutches, had caught the fever of Safety Scouting[75] and was making all sorts of plans as to what he would do when his broken leg got well.

Chance really had changed, somehow. The twins supposed it was all due to his accident, but the real reason was Colonel Sure Pop. Chance seemed almost magnetized by the little Colonel and never lost a chance to be near him.

"Honestly now, Colonel," he owned up to Sure Pop one day, "I'd read so many stories about reckless heroes and all that, I got in the habit of thinking I had to be reckless. Story books seem to make out that it's a brave thing to risk your life—and wasn't that exactly what Bob did when he found that live wire?"

"Listen, Chance! You've caught only half the point, that's your main trouble. It is a manly thing to take a risk—when it's necessary. When somebody's life is in danger, it's the manliest thing on earth to take a risk for the sake of saving it. That's why Bob's act in patrolling the live wire earned him a Safety Scout button—the lives of those smaller boys were in danger, to say nothing of anybody else who might blunder across the wire just then—that's where the difference comes in."

"I know you haven't. When you stop to think it over, you see it's a fellow's plain duty to take a chance when it's necessary, but it's downright foolish to do it on a dare.[76] One thing about Bob's live-wire adventure I don't believe even he realizes," added Sure Pop. "It was that hurry-up patrol of small boys that he threw out around the live wire which really gave him the idea of how to organize the Safety Scouts of America. I knew the idea would strike him and Betty sooner or later."

Chance looked admiringly at the little Colonel. What a wise Scout he was, sure enough, as keen and clever at reading signs of the trail as any Indian fighter that ever stepped in deerskin!

The boy looked longingly after the Safety Scout Patrol, which was just starting off on an "observation hike," as Bob called it. Part of the training Bob had laid out for his men was an hour's brisk walk, after which each Safety Scout wrote out a list of the unsafe things he had noticed while "on the trail."

"There's one thing that stumps me, though," said Chance. "How did Bob know that was a live wire?"

"He didn't. He simply had sense enough to treat all fallen wires as if they were alive. See? Better safe than sorry. Just the same in turning on an electric light: it may not harm you to touch an iron bedstead with one hand while you turn the light on with the other—but it's taking a chance. Same's the fellow who turns an electric bulb on or off while standing in a bathtub: he may go on with his bath in safety—and then again he may drop lifeless in the water.[77]

"It's a good deal like the gun that isn't loaded, Chauncey. There was a lad, you know, who found a gun was dangerous without lock, stock, or barrel—his father whipped him with the ramrod! A real Scout knows how to take care of himself—and of others. And that's especially true of Safety Scouts."

"Well, Colonel," said Chance, reaching for his crutches and rising painfully to his feet, "I'm for it! Perhaps if I make good, the fellows will quit calling me Chance and call me either Chauncey or Carter, I don't care which—but Chance makes me sick!"

"Here's to you, Carter!" said Sure Pop, with a hearty handshake. Again came that smile of satisfaction as he watched the boy hobble off on a slow "observation hike" of his own. In Carter's mind, too, the big idea was taking root.

"Safety Scouts," he said, saluting the even ranks drawn up before him, "your Colonel is proud of the work you're doing. These 'observation hikes,' as your Scout Master calls them, show better than anything else how much more alert you are to danger signs than you were a month ago.

"Now, I've been sizing up these risks as covered by your patrol reports. They seem to be of three kinds—home, street, and railroad risks.[78]

"Nobody can study these reports without seeing that our work is plainly cut out for us for the next few months. Charity and every other good work begin at home—though they end there only with the weak-minded! So our work in Safety patrolling will naturally begin in our homes and with ourselves, and will begin with the risks which these reports show to be most common. Let me read you a few of the common risks reported by the Scouts of this patrol:

"These are only a few of the common dangers shown in your scouting reports. So far, our work has been hunting out these risks and listing them. From now on, we'll fall to with a will and set them right as fast as we can, in our own homes first and next among our neighbors.

"Just one word of caution before we take up this new patrol duty. Let's be careful how we go about setting these things right. Remember, we can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, so let's not give people the idea we are criticizing them—just suggesting.

"For instance: if a Safety Scout sees a mop and a pail of scalding water on Mrs. Muldoon's back steps and one of her babies in danger of pitching into it headfirst, he'd better not walk up and begin to scold about it. Mrs. Muldoon may have done that for years without scalding any one yet. More likely than not she'd just order you off the place—and go right on as before. But if, instead, a Scout steps up[80] and begins playing with the baby, he can first get baby out of harm's way and then watch his chance to say, 'Baby seems to have his eyes on that pail of hot water, Mrs. Muldoon. Two babies over on the west side were scalded to death last week; did you hear about it?' Chances are Mrs. Muldoon will be around warning all her neighbors before you've been gone ten minutes. Get the idea?—honey instead of vinegar."

"Honey works better down in South America, anyhow!" said a deep voice, and a tall, handsome man stepped forward, saluted, and shook hands cordially with Colonel Sure Pop. He was brown as a berry from the tropical sun and he carried his left arm in a sling.

"Uncle—Uncle Jack!" The Dalton twins forgot that the troop was on review, forgot Mrs. Muldoon's babies, forgot everything and everybody but Uncle Jack. What a surprise! And he knew Sure Pop, too!

"Sure pop, I do!" laughed the explorer, kissing Betty warmly before the whole admiring troop. "Here, look out for that lame arm, you rascals! Our surgeon told me it would be well in a month, but he was too optimistic, for once!" For Bob and Betty were fairly swarming over their favorite uncle, home at last from the jungle.

"Nellie," said Uncle Jack to Mrs. Dalton that night, when the Safety Scouts were off to bed at last, "those twins of yours are making history—do you realize that?"

"Well," said his sister, "they have their faults, like all[81] the rest, but they're pretty fine youngsters at that. But, oh, Jack, they're growing up so fast!"

"They are, sure enough, like weeds; but their harvest isn't going to be any weed crop, now mark my words. I heard most of what was said at their patrol review this afternoon before anybody saw me; and on my word, Nell, those youngsters have started something bigger than they have any idea of, something that no power on earth is going to be able to stop. After all, I'm just as pleased that the old chief's spear thrust sent me home in time to see the Safety Scouts of America in the making!"

ADVENTURE NUMBER FOURTEEN

SIX TIMELY TIPS

Sure Pop and Uncle Jack were sprawled out side by side on the green river bank, talking over old times. Bob and Betty were hanging on every word.

"My first few months of Safety work among American factories and mills," Sure Pop was saying, "was largely planting. I planted the Safety First idea and gave it time to grow. I began with the steel mills; then I turned to the railroads, then to the wood-working shops, and so on."

Uncle Jack gazed thoughtfully at the sparkling river.[83] "Well," he said at last to Sure Pop, "what results and how?"

"How?" repeated the little Colonel. "First, by putting the idea, Safety First, into the mind of every workman we met. Second, by whispering in his ear new ways of cutting out accidents—after the Safety First idea had had a chance to sink in. Results? Three fourths of the deaths and injuries in the steel mills were cut out entirely in six years' time; in the railroads, the number of accidents was cut squarely in two in three years' time; in other kinds of work—all except one—big reductions all along the line."

"Great!" There was no mistaking the admiration in Uncle Jack's voice. "What about the one exception—what line was that?"

"It's a certain class of mills that is practically controlled by one man, a very able man, but exceedingly self-willed and stubborn. He owns a chain of mills from coast to coast, and the rest of the manufacturers in his line follow his lead in everything. He has fought the Safety First idea from the start—calls it 'one of these new-fangled notions'—will have nothing at all to do with it—and he has held back the Safety movement in his whole line of work."

"Bruce. He's done more to handicap Safety work than[84] any other man in the country—and I do believe he's proud of it," said Sure Pop, grimly.

Bob nodded. "He has a heart, though"—and he told them how the mill owner had come to Chance Carter's aid, and how like a different man he had seemed when little Bonnie threw her happy arms around him.

"Yes, he is. But don't you suppose our patrol could do something to change his mind?"

Uncle Jack waved the idea aside. "Forget it, Bob, forget it! Don't lose sight of what the Colonel told you Scouts yesterday about the right way to go at things. Well, the right way to go at Bruce is to leave him alone for a while. If he's as prejudiced as all that, interfering would only make him worse. He'll come around by and by, won't he, Colonel?"

"All in good time," said Sure Pop. "Your work is cut out for you, Bob, as I told you yesterday. Get the Safety First idea well rooted in the homes, and then we'll begin on the streets, and get folks in the habit of thinking Safety every time they cross the street."

"Can you spare these twins of ours for the day, Colonel? I've a frolic of my own I want to borrow them for, if I may."

Uncle Jack stepped across the street to a telephone, and the first thing Bob and Betty knew, a big red automobile drew up beside them. "Jump in, folks—look out for my arm, please. Now—we're off! Goodby, Colonel."

"My, but isn't this glorious!" Betty nestled closer to her uncle as they sped along toward the shopping district. "Is this your car, Uncle Jack?"

"For today it is," laughed her uncle. "Today we'll just make believe I own the mint. Careful there, driver!"

Forgetful of his lame arm, he jumped to his feet and waved his hand in warning. They had been running smoothly along the car tracks, and another automobile had cut in ahead of them from around the corner. A tow-headed lad of about Bob's age, who was stealing a ride on it, holding himself on by main strength as the automobile jounced along over the crossing, had just made up his mind he would ride no farther and was getting ready to jump. Down he came, kerflop, in the street, stubbing his toe as he tried to catch his balance.

Uncle Jack's chauffeur, warned by his shout, gave the steering wheel a quick turn—and cleared the boy by a hand's breadth! Uncle Jack sank back on the cushions, his eyes flashing.

"Reckless young rascal! Trying to make murderers of us, is he? What are you Safety Scouts going to do about the boys' hitching on like that, Bob?"

Bob pulled a notebook out of his pocket. "Here's how[86] Sure Pop has summed up our patrol reports on street accidents. He calls it—

"Those six tips are not guess work either, Uncle Jack. They're boiled down from weeks of street scouting by every boy and girl in our patrol."[87]

"Those are good, sensible tips," said his uncle. "What use are you going to make of them?"

"Well, by the time vacation's over, we will have a special School Safety Patrol drilled and ready to get down to business on this particular work among the youngsters—to get them out of the habit of hitching on, and that sort of thing. Our idea is to begin with the smaller school children; there have been a good many bad accidents to them, you see, going to and from school. Most of them have to cross the tracks; it's altogether too easy for them to get confused and run down by a street car or engine or auto."

"Why, each Scout in the School Patrol takes charge of the school children in his block for one month. It's his job to get them together at a convenient corner in the morning, then herd them across the tracks and through the crowded streets to school; to do the same thing on their way home; and to keep an eye on their games during recess, reporting any risky condition to their teachers. We've planned it so this team work will not only keep the youngsters from being run over and all that, but will also be training them to take care of themselves and keep out of danger just like any Safety Scout. How does the idea strike you?"

"Fine! It's a good, practical plan! Makes me wish I were a boy again myself. Hello, here we are—out we go!"

"I'll soon show you." Uncle Jack led the way to the elevator and they shot up, up, clear to the roof.

"Hungry?" he asked, as a white-clad waiter showed them to a table. He enjoyed the surprise of Bob and Betty; they had never had luncheon downtown before. Mr. Dalton's hard-earned wages left no room for such celebrations as this. And a roof garden—! No wonder it seemed very strange and very grand to the Dalton twins.

They must have spent a good half-hour ordering that meal: it was fun to study the big bill of fare and pick out delicious things which they "never had at home." Uncle Jack seemed to find it just as much fun as they did, and he understood pretty well how they felt as they ate and ate, while they gazed out on the roofs of the city spread out below them. It wasn't so very many years, you see, since he had been a youngster himself!

ADVENTURE NUMBER FIFTEEN

TWIN UNIFORMS

Betty, looking very grown-up and quite as if she were used to taking luncheon in a roof garden every day, smiled contentedly at Uncle Jack over her glass of lemonade.

"Cool as a cucumber," said her uncle. "Hard to realize how sweltering hot it is down there in the street, isn't it? Betty, what's your Safety work going to be when school begins?"

Betty glanced at Bob; she had not yet told even him about her plan. "First, I suppose, I'll serve my month on the School Safety Patrol; and then—then, I'm going[90] to talk to my teacher about starting Safety Games in the lower grades."

"Yes, Bob. Funny sounding idea, isn't it? But I've thought out a lot of games that the kindergarten children can play, games that will be brand new to them, and lots of fun, and at the same time will get them into the habit of thinking Safety and looking out for themselves on the street."

"Well," said Betty, "one of them I call 'Little Safety Scout.' We can begin by asking the little folks in one grade what things they ought to keep in mind when crossing a busy street. The one that gives the best answer is made 'Little Safety Scout.' One of the biggest boys plays he's the crossing policeman, other children play street cars, others make believe they're automobiles, and so on. The rest are just people trying to get across the street, and they have trouble trying to understand what the policeman's whistle signals mean, and some get run over, and some are saved by the 'Little Safety Scout,' and others show the right way to get on and off a car, and all that."

"Well, Betty Dalton," cried Uncle Jack, "you're a regular little witch! Why, that's a dandy plan. The first thing you know, you'll have the little folks able to take care of themselves on the streets better than the grown-ups do!"[91]

"That's right, we can," said Betty. "We can give buttons to the children who pass an easy little Safety First examination after we've played the Safety Games a few weeks. And perhaps we might make some Safety posters to hang on the schoolroom walls; just big posters in colored crayons, with a picture of Sure Pop and one of his Safety mottoes below it in big letters,—like, 'Folks that have no wings must use their wits,'—something that would make the children remember the point of the story longer. Don't you think that would help along?"

Thus the three friends went on planning, till the jolly head waiter asked them for the ninth time if they wouldn't have something more, and Uncle Jack looked at his watch with a start of surprise.

"Four o'clock! Whew! We must get out of this. We have lots to do yet before we go home, and I told the chauffeur to be back here at five. Let's stop in the cold-storage room below."

"Is that what makes the roof so cool?" asked Betty, as they looked around on the floor below.

"Ha, ha! Not a bad idea—perhaps it does have something to do with it. No, this is where the store keeps its furs during the summer months. Moths can't stand the cold, you know. Come on, we'll go on down now."

The elevator car was nearly full of people from the roof[92] garden. Betty started to step in, hesitated, then turned back. Uncle Jack motioned her and Bob in, stepped in after them, and carefully turned so that he faced the elevator door.

"That was a risky thing you did just then," he whispered to Betty. "Three quarters of all the elevator accidents are due to stepping in or out in the wrong way. Never do the thing halfway, you know. Always wait till the elevator man stops the car at the floor level and throws the door wide open."

Next to them in the elevator stood two boys—cash boys in the store—who were fooling and scuffling so close to the door that the elevator man cautioned them twice as the car dropped swiftly downward. Finally one of them brought his heel down on the other's foot so hard that the other jumped backward, forgetting everything else for the pain. Forward went his head—bang went his face against the iron grating of the door they were just passing.

The elevator stopped with a jerk. They carried the boy out and sent for the store doctor. Bob and Betty never had to be reminded, in all the years to come, to look sharp when riding in elevators. The memory of that bruised and battered face was warning enough.

"It's a dangerous machine," said Uncle Jack as they left the store. "A fellow who will scuffle in an elevator is foolish enough for almost anything. Here's our next stop,"[93] and he showed them into a shop with a big sign over the double door:

"Uncle Jack must be going to have a new uniform," whispered Betty to her twin as the tailor came up with his tape over his shoulders. But it was not around their uncle that the tape measure went, it was around Bob!

"Yes, the regulation khaki," Uncle Jack was saying. "Cut and finish it just like this one," and he handed the tailor a photograph of Sure Pop.

"Your turn next, Betty," said Uncle Jack, and to Betty's great delight and the tailor's surprise, she was measured for a special Safety Scout uniform too!

Uncle Jack did not stop there. He bought the twins Safety Scout hats of fine, light felt, made for hard service, and he was on the point of buying them leather puttees or leggings, but Bob stopped him.

"Canvas leggings are plenty good enough," he said. "The fellows couldn't afford leather, most of them, and we want them all to match."

"Canvas it is, then," nodded his uncle, and went on making up the outfits. Betty sighed happily as they followed him into another store. It all seemed too good to be true! The first thing she knew, they were sitting at a glass-topped table.

Uncle Jack mopped his steaming forehead again. "That tailor shop beats the jungle all hollow for heat!" he exclaimed. "What kind of ice cream do you want, Scouts?"[94]

Betty thought it was time to object. "Oh, Uncle Jack, we've had enough! You've done too much for us already!" All the same, she enjoyed the ice cream just as much as the others did, and when Uncle Jack tucked a box of chocolates under her arm, her cup of joy was full.

"What are you thinking about, Betty?" asked Uncle Jack as the big red automobile bore them merrily homeward; for Betty had not said a word for blocks and blocks.

She patted Uncle Jack's arm—the well one—with a grateful smile. "I was thinking what a perfectly, perfectly lovely day we've had! And wishing," she murmured, wistfully, "that Mother had been along too."

"Now that part's all taken care of," said Uncle Jack. "Your mother's going out for a spin with me tonight after Baby's asleep; she couldn't leave today, she said. She and I will have a good long ride down the river front in the moonlight. Be sure you get a good sleep tonight, now, you two; I want you to be in good trim for a little exploring party I'm planning for tomorrow."

"We'll be up bright and early, ready for anything," Bob told him. "Whew! but this has been a whirlwind of a day! Glad you're going to take Mother out—that's the only way she'd get a cool breeze tonight, all right!"

"But it can't be as nice as the roof garden, even then!" cried his happy twin, as she lifted out her big box of candy and skipped up the front steps two at a time.

ADVENTURE NUMBER SIXTEEN

WHERE SAFETY WAS A STRANGER

True to their word, Bob and Betty were up bright and early, ready for Uncle Jack's exploring trip.

"We're going to visit one of the big wood-working mills," he explained as they left the house after breakfast. "I'm curious to see the result of Colonel Sure Pop's Safety patrolling, and it seems to me that will be about as interesting a shop as we can begin on. It will be fun to see what they're doing to make it safer for the men—perhaps we can get some ideas for your outside patrols, Bob."

The twins looked around them sharply as they went into the mill by way of its lumber yard. "I don't see anything here that looks dangerous," was Bob's first remark. "Hold[96] on, though—what about those piles of lumber? Don't you think they're piled too high to be safe?"

"I can tell you this much," said Uncle Jack, who had been reading up on the year's long list of accidents. "The danger of being hit by falling or flying objects in mills and factories is the biggest risk in the whole country today."

He walked around to the laborers who were piling lumber and began talking with the foreman. The twins stepped nearer so that they could hear what he was saying.

"They're getting that pile rather high," said Uncle Jack, as if he had only just noticed it. "It's beginning to look a bit wobbly on its pins. Isn't there danger of its toppling over and hurting somebody?"

"Oh, I don't know," was the foreman's answer. "We do have a few men smashed up that way, off and on; it's all in the day's work, though."

Hardly were the words out of his mouth when a heavily loaded wagon in passing beside the lumber piles swayed and came squarely up against the one the men were working on. With a crash and a clatter the whole thing went over. One man jumped clear of the wreck, another slid down with the lumber, bruised but not much hurt—and two disappeared under the huge mass of falling boards.

The three Safety Scouts stood watching the ambulance, fifteen minutes later, as it carried off the two men to the hospital, one with a broken arm and a gash over one eye, the other hurt inside so badly that he died that night.[97] Both of them had boys and girls of their own—families whose living depended on their daily wages at the mill!

"Hard luck for their folks," said Uncle Jack, as the ambulance rumbled away. "The Colonel told me yesterday his men had done a lot of successful Safety scouting among the wood-working mills. I can't understand it. By the way, Bob, that ambulance reminds me: what drill are you giving your Safety Scouts on how to call the fire department, and the police and the ambulance and so on?"

"We've got that well covered in our Saturday reports, Uncle Jack. Once a week each Scout adds to his report the telephone number of the police and the fire department—it's usually a number that's easy to remember, like 'Main 0' for fire and 'Main 13' for police—as well as the street address of the nearest station."

Her brother grinned. "I suppose because after a bad fire there's nothing left, and because it's unlucky to fall into the hands of the police!" and he cleverly ducked the box Betty aimed at his ear.

Uncle Jack's twinkle didn't last long, though. He was too much puzzled over the carelessness he was noticing in this mill, carelessness where he had expected to find up-to-date Safety methods. He poked with his foot at a board with several ugly nails sticking up in it and jammed them carefully down into the ground.[98]

"That's the fourth bad case of upturned nails I've found here already," he said quietly. "There's no end of broken bottles and such trash under foot, and just look at that overloaded truck, will you? One sharp curve in the track and that load will spill all over the place. Why, these chaps don't realize the first thing about Safety, Bob."

They moved on into the engine room. One of the engineer's helpers, a boy who looked hardly older than Bob, stood beside a swiftly moving belt, pouring something on it out of a tin can. His sleeve was dangling, and every time the belt lacing whirled past, it flipped the sleeve like a clutching finger trying to jerk his arm into the cruel wheel.

Uncle Jack walked over for a word with the engineer, a fat, jolly looking man who seemed well satisfied with life. "Do your helpers often put belt dressing on while the belt is running?" he asked.

The jolly engineer was plainly surprised. "Why, they never do it any other time!" he exclaimed. "Why do you ask?"

"Only," said the explorer, dryly, "because there are several hundred men killed in just that way every year—and most of them have families. Don't you put guards around any of your belts in this mill, either?"

Again that puzzled look in the engineer's eyes. "No, not here," he answered slowly. "There was some talk about putting them on, but nothing came of it. It wouldn't be a bad idea, either; every now and then some poor fellow[99] loses a hand or an arm. Last spring a new man from out in the yards was walking through here, and the wind blew his sleeve too near the belt. It yanked him clear in between the belt and pulley—smashed him up so he didn't live more'n a couple of hours. That certainly was hard luck."

"Luck!" snorted Uncle Jack, when the three were out of hearing. "A moving belt is almost as dangerous as a can of gunpowder! Yet these men call it luck when it takes off an arm or snuffs out a life. It's disgusting."

All through the plant they found the same state of affairs—careless men, unguarded machinery, guesswork everywhere. In the machine shop they found men and boys cleaning machines that were running at top speed. Any one could see how easily the rags and soft cotton waste they were using could catch in the moving parts and draw a hand or an arm into the flying wheels.

"I noticed in the accident reports of one single state," Uncle Jack told Betty, "that more than five hundred people were hurt in that very way, by cleaning machines that were moving. Half of them lost fingers and many lost their hands or arms. No sensible workman, these days, treats his machine as anything but downright dangerous as long as it's running."

The buzz saws fascinated the twins. They felt as if they could stand all day long and listen to the drone of the saw as it ate its way into the clean white boards, snarling like an angry dog when its teeth struck a knot in the[100] wood. There were a good many of these saws in the big, long room; now and then they would get to singing together like a music class at school and then they would drop out of tune again.

"Not a saw guard in the place," shouted Bob in Uncle Jack's ear, for the saws drowned out his ordinary tone.

But Uncle Jack's keen eyes had already caught sight of some metal guards hung up on the wall here and there. "They've got them," he corrected, "but they are not making any use of them." He stepped up to one of the saws and spoke to the man who was running it. "Why don't you keep the guard on your saw?"

"Aw, those things are a nuisance," said the man. "Yes, we're supposed to keep 'em on, but they'd be in the way—we couldn't get the work out so fast with them."

"That's queer," said Uncle Jack. "In a good many mills like this they've found that a man using a good saw guard turns out more work than ever—because he's so much more free in using his hands, I suppose."

The man grunted, but did not answer. On their way to the door, the Safety Scouts spied, clear back in one corner, a man who really did have his saw guard in use. "And a rattling lot of work he's turning out, too," said Bob, after the three had watched him a while from a distance. The neat metal guard came clear down over the murderous saw teeth, so that no matter how much his fingers happened to be in the way, they were safe.[101]

"Let's ask him why he uses his saw guard when the others won't," said Uncle Jack. He stepped nearer the silent workman and then—he saw the reason. Turning to Bob and Betty, he tapped his left hand with his right and jerked his head toward the man beside the saw. The twins walked around to where they could get a look at the workman's left hand. Then they understood. There was nothing left of the fingers but the stub of one, and the thumb!

"Easy enough to see why that one man was using his saw guard, eh?" said Uncle Jack to Sure Pop that night.

"Nothing easier," said the little Colonel. "A burnt child dreads the fire, you know. Not much Safety First idea noticeable in that mill, was there?"

"Colonel, that's just what I don't understand. I thought you said yesterday your Safety Scouts had done good work among the wood-working mills, but if that's a sample—"

"It isn't," was the quiet answer. "Do you happen to know who's the biggest stockholder in that mill?"

Uncle Jack gave a long, low whistle of surprise. "But I had no idea he owned wood-working mills too."

"This is the only one. It's out of his line, I'll admit—but it goes to show his bitter prejudice against the Safety First movement, doesn't it? He'll come around by and by, never fear. All in good time, my friend, all in good time."

ADVENTURE NUMBER SEVENTEEN

GIVING THE OTHER FELLOW A SQUARE DEAL

The Dalton twins had something on their minds. Mother felt it. Uncle Jack felt it. Every now and then they forgot to go on eating their breakfast; and when a Dalton went that far, as their uncle remarked, things were getting very bad indeed.

Betty sat and fidgeted. Bob looked as if he would like to pop one question at his uncle, but he managed to hold it in. Finally Betty slid down from her chair, went boldly around to Uncle Jack, and whispered something in his ear. How he threw back his handsome head and laughed!

"Betty, you're a regular mind reader! Why, we're going down to try them on this very morning, and I was[103] just going to tell you to get ready, but you were too quick for me!"

Two hours later Betty, looking very spruce in her new Safety Scout uniform, was dancing up and down before the mirrors while Bob's blouse was having the buttons set over a bit.

"That boy," said the tailor, looking at him with bulging eyes, "has grown smaller since this uniform was measured!"

"If you'd seen the luncheon he tucked away, just before we came over that day to be measured," laughed Uncle Jack, "you'd only wonder that those buttons won't have to be set back at least a foot! Now, where are the trousers?"

"They are up in the shop. Wait, I'll get them. What? You'd like to come along? Up this way, then."

On the second floor they found themselves in a big room that looked like a forest of sewing machines, humming and clicking so fast that at first the twins were fairly bewildered. Girls who, it seemed, could hardly be older than Betty were bending over their machines, sewing away as if for dear life. Most of them did not even look up from their work as the visitors came through.

"The young man's trousers are in this next room," said the tailor, leading the way to a heavy iron door which separated the two rooms on that floor.

"What's the idea of this iron door?" asked Uncle Jack. "To keep a fire from spreading from one department into the other?"[104]

"Exactly so. That big, thick fire wall goes straight through the building from top to bottom—cuts it in two. Suppose a fire breaks out here on the piecework side: the foreman just opens this fire door and shoos the boys and girls right through, like a lot of chickens. Then he shuts the fire door tight, and they are safe. That big fire we had here four years ago taught us something. So when the owner rebuilt it for us, he built it right."

The big room on the other side of the fire wall was crowded almost as full of workers as the first one. The main difference was that there were more boys and men, and that more sewing was being done by hand. Bob's khaki trousers were quickly found and tried on—a perfect fit.

"We'll give Bob a Patrol Leader's arm badge—two white bars of braid below his left shoulder," said Uncle Jack. "Betty will get one bar for the present, I understand. There are some badges yet to come, Colonel Sure Pop says."

The four were walking downstairs for a look at the other floors of the big tailor shop when the noon whistle blew. R-r-rip—slam—bang! A torrent of rattle-brained boys came tearing pell mell down the stairs like a waterfall over a dam. Most of them came pelting down three steps at a jump, but on one of the landings somebody stumbled, and the yelling boys piled up in a squirming, kicking heap.

"Hey! WAIT!" No one would ever have suspected[105] the mild-mannered tailor of having such a foghorn of a voice! The rush from the upper floors slowed up at once, and Uncle Jack and Bob helped the fallen lads pick themselves up. But the boy at the bottom, a little fellow with a thin, pinched face that looked as if he had never had half enough to eat, nor even enough fresh air, lay there moaning softly.

Bob knew that queer, unnatural angle of the boy's right arm, which lay awkwardly stretched out beside him, as if it had never quite matched his left. The arm was broken.

"Here, here!" roared the tailor, gently picking the little fellow up and carrying him to the elevator. "Will you crazy fellows never learn? Only last week, somebody hollered 'Fire!' just to see the other fellows jump up and run, and broke that poor little Levinski's collar bone! And now look at this!"

"The old fellow's right on that score," was Uncle Jack's remark as the twins followed him to the street car, each hugging tight a big pasteboard box with a brand new Safety Scout uniform inside it. "Those lads meant no particular harm, but that certainly was about as far from a square deal as one fellow can give another. These 'practical jokers' who will yell 'Fire!' or run over a boy smaller than themselves—well, if a Boy Scout had no more sense than that, he'd be drummed out of the service!"

Once on the way home, when the car stopped at the corner, he pointed up to a fire escape on a big flat building.[106] "There's your flower-pot risk over again, Betty. Even worse, for this time they're on the fire escape steps where folks would fall over head first in case of fire. And see that girl leaning against that rickety old porch railing on the third floor! Certainly there's plenty in sight for a Safety Scout to do!"

That afternoon they visited a large machine shop across the river. To their great delight, Bob and Betty were allowed to wear their new Safety Scout uniforms, leggings and all. They stood very straight as they waited for their companion to get a permit at the Company's office.

"Those new uniforms are going to be about as good an 'ad' for Safety First as anything we could have," remarked Uncle Jack, leading the way into the big machine shop. He had caught the admiring glances that had followed them from the older people and the longing looks that the boys and girls had sent after them all the way over.

"We haven't done our 'Day's Boost for Safety' yet, though," said Betty. "I don't know but we ought to do our good turn every morning before we start out on any trip—I just hate not to get my button right side up till so late in the day!"

"Those girls have pretty neat looking uniforms of their own, haven't they?" said Bob, a little later, as they gazed down a long row of punch presses which were pouring out shining streams of aluminum pin trays. "What do they wear them for—just to look pretty?"[107]

"You wouldn't have thought so," laughed the forewoman, "if you could have seen how they fought the first caps and aprons we tried to get them to wear. They were homely things, even if they were life savers. So we kept at it till we got something so trim and pretty that the girls would rather wear it than not."

"Life savers?" repeated Betty. "How could caps and aprons save lives? Oh—by not catching in the machinery?"

"Just so. It's easy for a girl's hair to be blown into the machines, or for a braid to swing against a whirling shaft, you see. Oh yes, we had several girls killed that way, before we tried this uniform. They used to wear dresses with baggy sleeves,—ragged ones, sometimes. Rings and bracelets are bad, too; and even these aprons, you'll notice, are buttoned back so they can't fly out against the wheels. Yes, the girls all like the idea now. The caps keep their hair from getting dusty or mussed up. Besides, we find it saves a good many girls' feelings, too, having them all dressed so much alike."

The same good sense was shown in the other departments, in the working clothes worn by the men and boys.

"You won't find a man in this room with a necktie on," the foreman told them. "These are the biggest punch presses in our whole shop. A while ago one of the men got his necktie caught between the cogwheels and he was drawn into the machine head first. That was the end of that sort of thing in this shop![108]

"Now, as you'll see, long sleeves and ragged or baggy overalls are things of the past. If a man does wear a long sleeve, he keeps it rolled up where it can't catch and cost him a hand or an arm.

"Watch the men and boys, and you'll see how careful they are not to look around while their machines are running. Before they start their machines, you'll find them looking all around to see there's nobody near who might get caught in the wheels or belt. These workmen are just as anxious to give the other fellow a square deal as anybody could be, once they catch the Safety First idea. It took some of them a long while to learn never to fool with the other fellow's machine—that's always dangerous, you know, just like a machine that's out of order. Our pressmen wouldn't think of starting up a machine which was out of order, or which they didn't understand—they'd report it to me at once."

"What has been the result of all this Safety training—has it got the men to 'thinking Safety,' so you don't have so many accidents?" asked Uncle Jack.

The foreman's face glowed with pride. "Why, it's got so now, sir, that even the youngsters are too wise to scuffle or play jokes on each other here in the shop. They've come to see how easy it is to fall against dangerous machinery or down a shaft or stairway. And as for throwing things at each other, the way they used to during the noon hour—nothing doing any more in that line.[109]

"Would you believe it, we haven't had a bad accident in this shop since a year ago last July. That was when one of the boys on a punch press got the die clogged and tried to dig it out with his fingers instead of using a hook. That's about the last set of fingers this shop has lost; yes, sir. Before that, there was hardly a week went by but we had several hands crippled, and often somebody killed. Oh, this Safety First work is wonderful,—it's making things a lot safer for the working man!"

Uncle Jack told the kindly foreman what the twins were doing in Safety patrol work. Bob and Betty could see how proud the man was of the splendid Safety showing his shop was making. "And it's a fine pair of Scout uniforms you and the little lady have," he called after them. "More power to you both—and to the Safety Scouts of America!"

"You seem very much interested in everything in these shops, Bob," said his uncle, who could hardly drag him away.

"You'd better believe I am!" cried the boy, warmly. "As soon as I get through school, I'm going to get a job in one of these factories and—well, I'm trying to make up my mind which shop it shall be!"

ADVENTURE NUMBER EIGHTEEN

AN ADVENTURE IN SAFETY

Betty told Sure Pop what Bob had said about getting a job in one of the big mills by and by, and the little Colonel remembered it a few weeks later when he was showing several of the Safety Scouts through the steel mills.

"Do you think it will be one of these mills you'll pick out for your first job?"

"Well, I don't know, now. It's a pretty big, lonesome sort of place for a fellow like me, Sure Pop, and there don't seem to be so many fellows of my own age here as in some of the other factories."

Betty and Joe and Chance followed Bob's eyes around the big steel mill yards. They knew how he felt. It was[111] a lonesome looking place till you got used to it, in spite of the thousands of men who swarmed around them. The queer, raw smell of the reddish iron ore added to the feeling, too.

Away down in the big ore boats along the docks, gangs of big, brawny workmen strained and sweated, filling the iron buckets that traveled up the wire cables to the ore dumps. Others were trucking the ore to the furnaces, while a swarm of little switch engines panted and puffed back and forth over the network of steel rails.

The steel works covered many acres of ground, and, shut off as they were by high fences, seemed almost like another world. The roar of the furnaces and the din of steel on steel made Betty and the boys feel rather confused at first. "I should think all these men just over from the old country would get mixed up, so many of them not understanding a single word of English," said Betty to their guide.

"Yes, we have to be mighty careful," said the man, who was one of the Safety men who gave all his time to making the steel mills safer for the thousands of workmen. "We print this little book of Safety Rules in all the different languages, so that each new man can study it and find out how to do his day's work without getting into danger."

"Wow! what's that?" Joe's black eyes opened very wide as he pointed to a great ball of fire that rose from one of the furnace stacks, floated a little way like a balloon, and then burst into a sheet of flame.[112]

"Just the gas from the blast furnace—regular Fourth of July fireworks, isn't it? I remember how queer those gas bubbles used to look to me when I first came to work here."

He waited while his visitors stared for a few minutes at the fiery clouds, then led the way to the blast furnaces. They went through two or three big buildings, all of them fairly alive with hurrying, sweating laborers. But in spite of the seeming confusion all around them, Bob noticed how carefully the aisles and passageways were kept free and clear of anything the hurrying men might stumble over.

"We simply have to do it," explained the steel man. "Before we woke up to the importance of never leaving anything in the way where it might be stumbled over, we had more broken arms and legs every month than you could shake a stick at. Now it's different; it's as much as a man's job is worth to leave anything lying in the passageways for his fellow workmen to stumble and fall over."

"I saw some white lines painted on the floor of that last room we came through, the one where all those castings were stacked up in rows," said Chance. "Was that what they were for? Great scheme, isn't it? And as simple as falling off a log!"

"Simple? Sure—most of these things are simple enough, once you think of them," agreed their guide. "It took perhaps an hour of one man's time and a gallon or two of white paint to paint those dead-lines along the sides[113]—and many's the man who has been saved weeks in the hospital by those same white lines."

The five friends followed him into the foundry department. Hardly had they stepped through the doorway, when the clang of a big gong overhead scattered a group of laborers who were piling heavy castings on flat cars.

Five pairs of eyes looked up as the five Safety Scouts turned to see where the gong was. Away up above them on a track that went from one end of the long room to the other, they saw something like an oddly shaped freight engine running along with a heavy wire cable dangling toward the floor. The big, strong cable was carrying a load of several tons of steel castings as easily as a boy carries in an armful of wood. "And with a whole lot less fuss and bother!" said Betty, with a sly look at Brother Bob.

"When a man hears that gong overhead," said the guide, "he knows what it means even before he looks up. That's what is called a traveling crane. It runs back and forth on those overhead tracks, wherever the crane driver wants to pick up or drop his load. He kicks that gong with his heel, just like the motorman on the street car, and it gives warning to the workmen below just as plainly as if it yelled out, 'Look out, below! Here comes a load that might spill on your heads!'"

The steel man smiled. "It ought to—it was made for use on a street car. Watch sharp when the crane comes[114] back this way and you'll see the gong fastened right up under the cab floor. See? We tried whistles for a while, and automobile horns, too; but this plain, everyday street-car gong beats 'em all. A man doesn't have to understand English to know what that sound means!"

"It must have made a good deal of difference in the number of accidents," said Sure Pop, "with so many men working underneath those cranes right along."

"Did it? Well, I should say so! That's another little thing that's as simple as A B C, but it saves lives and broken bones just the same. Sometimes I think we get to thinking too much about the big things, Colonel, and not enough about these little, everyday ideas that spell Safety to all these thousands of men who look to us for a square deal."

Sure Pop reached up to say something in Bob's ear as they went on to the chipping yard, where long rows of men were trimming down the rough steel castings with chisels driven by compressed-air hammers.

"Did you ever see anything like it, Bob, the way this 'square deal' and 'fair play' idea gets into their systems, once they wake up to the possibilities of Safety First?"

"It certainly does," said Bob. "I thought of that, too. It's what that tailor told the boys in the clothing factory, the day we got our uniforms, and it's just what the foreman in that machine shop told us, too."

"Yes, sir," said Sure Pop, "the spirit of fair play means[115] everything to a fellow who's any good at all—it's the very life of the Boy Scout law, you know."

"It's all the difference between a blind man and a wage earner," was the way the steel man looked at it. "When those steel chips fly into a man's eyes it's all over but the sick money." He turned to little Sure Pop again. "There it is again, Colonel—another of the simplest ideas a man could imagine—just putting goggles on our chippers and emery wheel workers—but it has saved hundreds and hundreds of eyes, and every eye or pair of eyes means some man's living—and the living of a family."

"Splendid idea," nodded the little Colonel—just as if he, the Spirit of Safety, had not thought it all out years before, and put it into the minds of men! "Do you ever have any trouble getting the men to wear them?"

"Plenty! Most of the men treated it as a joke at first. Then, gradually, they began to notice that the men who wore theirs on their hats (the rule is that they must wear goggles while at this work or lose their jobs), those were the men who lost their eyes. Several of the first men to be blinded after the new rule was posted were those very ones, the chaps that had made the most fun of the goggles. Then the others began to wake up.

"Over in my office, I've several hundred pairs of goggles[116] that have had one or both lenses smashed by flying bits of steel—and every pair has saved an eye, in some cases both eyes. Seems sort of worth while, eh, Colonel?"

It was an enthusiastic group of Safety Scouts that passed out through the big steel mill gates and started home in the mellow September twilight. "Oh, I think it's wonderful," cried Betty, as they talked over what they had seen, "perfectly wonderful, Sure Pop, that such little things can save so many lives!"

"But I don't see why you call a trip like this 'an adventure,'" broke in Chance, who had never been along on any of the twins' Safety Scouting trips before. "We didn't see an accident or an explosion or anything!"

Colonel Sure Pop gave Chance one of his wise smiles. "That's the best part of the whole trip, as you'll see when you've been at it as long as I have. The most delightful adventure a lover of fair play can possibly have to look back on, my boy, is one just like what we've had today—a real, live adventure in Safety!"

ADVENTURE NUMBER NINETEEN

ONE DAY'S BOOST FOR SAFETY

October had come and gone in busy school days and even busier Safety Scouting trips, all but the last day. For it was the morning of Hallowe'en,—and the Dalton twins' birthday.

"Twelve years old, eh?" said Father, at the breakfast table. "Well, well, how time flies, Nell! Stand up here, you Safety Scouts, and let's have a look at you. I declare, no one would suspect Bob of being a day under fifteen, would he, Jack?"

"I'd hate to have him haul off and hit me with that fist of his!" laughed Uncle Jack. "How are you going to celebrate the day, Scouts?"[118]

"As if any one need ask!" smiled Mother. "Today's the day Bob takes his entering test and joins the Boy Scouts, and Betty joins the Camp Fire Girls. Just think—big enough for that! Good thing it's Saturday, Betty."

"Well, I hope to get a few, by and by," admitted Bob, modestly, but with a determined gleam in his eye. "I'll be just a tenderfoot to start with, you know. But I'm hoping it won't be so terribly long before I can qualify as a first-class Scout."

"Hm-m-m!" muttered their uncle, winking at Mr. Dalton over the twins' heads. For he realized what Bob and Betty did not, that the practical, everyday Safety scouting the twins had done had already gone far toward qualifying them, not only for Boy Scout and Camp Fire Girl honors, but for practical Safety work all the rest of their lives. There is no age limit in the Safety Scouts of America.

They were wearing their handsome new uniforms when Chance Carter came over to get some scouting tips from Bob. Chance was going around without his crutches now, for the broken leg seemed to be as strong and well as ever.

Chance had his heart set on a Safety Scout uniform like Bob's. "Dad says he'll get me one as soon as I do something to earn it," he told the twins. "I'm going to put in all day today scouting for something that will earn me that[119] uniform—and I want you two to think up some stunt that will win it, sure!"

The twins were eager to get ready for their entrance tests, but it seemed only fair to give their friend his chance, too. So they sat and thought hard, while the golden minutes flew past.

"I can't seem to think of anything worth while today," said Betty. "Why not hunt for a live wire and report it, the way Bob did?"

"Not much use on a day like this," objected Bob. "That was the morning after the big windstorm, when wires were down all over town. I'll tell you what you might do, Chance: you might patrol the roads on the edge of town. You may run across a broken culvert, or a shaky bridge, or something."

"And you might patrol the river bank and watch for a chance to fish somebody out of the river," added Betty. "There are lots of children playing down by the river every Saturday, you know."

"Now," said Bob, when to their great relief Chance Carter had hurried off to begin his day's scouting for Safety, "now, we've got to hustle, or we'll be late for those examinations. Come along, Betty."

"Wait till I turn my Safety button upside down," was his sister's answer. "It seems a shame to go to the Boy Scout and Camp Fire Girls tests with our Safety buttons wrong side up, doesn't it? I feel almost like waiting till[120] we've managed to do our 'One Day's Boost for Safety,' Bob. Don't you suppose we'd better, after all?"

"Oh, now, Betty, come on! If we can't do any better, we can count our patrolling hints to Chance as our work for Safety this time—certainly that took enough longer than our day's boost usually does!"

Though Betty scoffed at the idea of their talk with Chance being work for Safety, Bob had spoken more truly than they knew.

All forenoon long Chance Carter patrolled the different roads leading into town. By noon he was so hot and tired that he plodded on till he came to Red Bridge, as the boys all called the old bridge that spanned the river where it crossed Bruce's Road, the short cut to Bruce's Mills. Here he managed to find a shady spot on the grassy river bank and sat down to eat the lunch he had brought along.

"What luck!" he grumbled to himself. "Everything's so dis-gust-ing-ly safe!" The way he bit off the syllables showed how tired and disappointed he was.

He threw the crumbs from his luncheon into the water, hoping the fish would rise for them; but even the fish were not at all accommodating, this sunny Hallowe'en. For a while he amused himself by shying stones at the weather-beaten DANGER sign which was Bruce's only reply to the City Council's action condemning Red Bridge as unsafe. The bridge was really on Bruce's land, and nobody knew it better than the great mill owner himself. So, while[121] the public wondered why the city did not build a newer and stronger bridge, Bruce had stubbornly insisted to the road commissioner, "Oh, that bridge'll hold a while longer," and was putting off spending the money for a new bridge just as long as he could.

Meanwhile the farmers from that part of the country had kept on using the shaky bridge as a short cut to town by way of Bruce's Mills. One of them was driving up to the bridge now. Lying on his elbow by the river's edge, Chance idly watched the old bridge quiver and quake as the light horse and buggy dragged lazily across.

Suddenly something went kerflop into the water, like a big fish jumping. Chance sat bolt upright, staring at the dark shadows under the bridge. There it was again! And this time he saw it was no fish, but a second brick which had rotted away from the bridge supports underneath the farther end.

"Phew!" whistled Chance to himself, now fully aroused. "If a light rig like that shakes the bricks loose, the old thing must be rottener than it looks! What would a loaded wagon do, I wonder?"

He carefully climbed up under the bridge to see just how bad it really was, and then climbed out again in a hurry. The whole middle support had crumbled away. Red Bridge was barely hanging on the weakened brickwork at the far end, ready to plunge into the river with the next heavy load that came along![122]

Bruce, in the meanwhile, was getting impatient. He sat at his desk in the little office, signing papers as fast as he could shove his pen across the pages. He glanced again at his watch and gave his call button a savage punch with his big, blunt forefinger. A buzzer snarled in the outer office, and a nervous looking secretary jumped for the private office as suddenly as if the buzzer had stung him.

"I—I don't understand it, sir. It should have been here half an hour ago. Jennings is always so punctual," stammered the clerk.

"Humph! Call up the house and see if they've gone back for any reason. Bonnie told me she'd call for me with the car at five o'clock."

The clerk hurried to the telephone, while Bruce paced his office. "If that chauffeur has let anything happen to Bonnie, I'll—"

If Bruce had not cared more for his little golden-haired daughter than for anything else in the world, he never would have thought such a thing, much less said it; for he had had Jennings for years, and knew him for the safest, steadiest of drivers. But he scowled when the clerk hurried back to report that Jennings, with Bonnie in the biggest automobile, had left for the office almost an hour before.

Throwing his light coat over his arm, the big mill owner slammed down his rolltop desk and dashed out to the sidewalk,[123] straining his eyes for a glimpse of the big automobile and Bonnie's flying curls. As he stood waiting on the curb, fuming at the delay, suddenly he heard a voice that sent his heart up into his throat.

"Daddy! Oh, Daddy, here we are!" The big automobile swept swiftly up to him—from the opposite direction!

"My Bonnie!" The big man snatched the dimpled, smiling girl into his strong arms and held her there.

In the excitement of the moment, Jennings interrupted his employer as the mill owner started to question him sternly as to the cause of the delay. Bonnie, too, broke in with her version of the story, and together they told him how a punctured tire had held them up fifteen minutes just as they were leaving the house in plenty of time.

They told him how, to avoid being late at the office, Jennings had taken the old short cut across to the mills, by the way of Red Bridge, only to be halted by a lad of fourteen who waved a red handkerchief at them and barred the way across the bridge in spite of the chauffeur's argument and threats.

They told him how a heavy lumber wagon, in which three farm hands were rattling home from the city, had come bouncing along to the other side of the river and how the men had howled down the boy's wild warnings and entreaties as they bowled on to Red Bridge as fast as their horses could go.[124]

Bruce's stern face went white as his little daughter, shuddering at the awful memory of it, told how the bridge had gone crashing down into the river—men, horses, and all; how the boy who had tried so hard to warn them had almost given his own life trying to drag the drunken farm hands from the swift-running current; how two of the men had never come up again; and how the third, towed to shore by the half-drowned boy a quarter mile below, had been laid face down on the river bank as soon as the boy could catch his own breath long enough to get the water out of the man's lungs and start him to breathing again.

Still clasping Bonnie tightly to him, her father got into the automobile. "Home, Jennings. Why, what makes these cushions so wet?"

"Oh," said Bonnie, "that's where that nice boy sat while we were taking the almost drowned man to the doctor's. Then we took the nice boy home—he was so wet and shivery."

The big car whirled swiftly back to Chance Carter's house. Bruce found Chance with his hair still wet, but triumphant. He was telling his father exactly how he wanted his new Safety Scout uniform made, patch pockets and all!

From him Bruce got the whole story, clear down to the scouting hints from Bob and Betty that had started him off that morning. The mill owner took Mr. Carter aside and made him promise to send the bill for that uniform to[125] Bruce's Mills. "Where do this other boy and the girl live?" he asked, as he and Bonnie got back into the machine. "All right, Jennings, we'll stop there next."

"I think, sir," suggested Jennings, "that must be the same boy and girl we took home from Turner Hall last Fourth—the boy who put the splint on this other lad's broken leg, sir. It's the same house, anyway."

Sure enough, when they drew up at the curb, there were Bob and Betty in their Safety Scout uniforms, just going in to their birthday supper. They were going to have a big double cake, with lots of frosting and with twenty-four green candles on it—green for Safety, Betty explained—and they were so excited over having passed their examinations with such high marks, that it was some time before the big man could make them understand what he was getting at.

"What I want to know," persisted Bruce, "is how you ever came to put that Carter boy up to such a stunt as that. What difference did it make to you?"

"Why," Betty told him, "we simply had to help him get a start for his uniform and his Safety First button. But we couldn't do much because we didn't have time. You see this is our birthday, and we had to go for our examinations." Before Bruce left they had given him their whole story, too, and a good deal more than they had intended telling him, forgetting what Colonel Sure Pop had told Uncle Jack about the way Bruce had been holding back the Safety First work from Maine to California.[126]

Bruce said little as he listened to their story, but he did some quick thinking. So this was the sort of thing he had fought so long and so stubbornly—this "Boost for Safety" talk which he had called "new-fangled theory," but to which he owed the life of his own little girl!

As they talked, two Scouts came into the front hall to remind the twins that their birthday supper was waiting, but Bruce was too interested to see them. Quick at reading signs, as all good Scouts are, Colonel Sure Pop and Uncle Jack watched and listened for a moment, then smilingly went back to the supper table.

"You were right, Colonel, as usual," said Uncle Jack, heartily. "Bruce is coming around. He'll be the biggest Safety Booster in the whole United States before morning!"

"Sure pop!" exulted the dapper little Colonel. "I'll have to wire my King about this day's work!"

It was long after Bonnie's bedtime, and the nurse waiting in the hallway was beginning to wonder if her little mistress was never coming upstairs. On the avenue outside, in the soft, mellow Hallowe'en breeze, jack o' lanterns and soot bags were still being paraded up and down, horns blowing, rattles clattering. Two street urchins, bolder than the rest, crept up to the great iron gate in front of the Bruce mansion and vainly struggled to lift it off its hinges. Still the mill owner sat before the fire, Bonnie on his knee. He could not bear to let her go tonight, even to bed.[127]

In the flames dancing on the hearth, the big man was seeing visions—visions of the Safety First work that would be started tomorrow morning in every mill in the whole Bruce chain. "I'll telegraph every manager to get busy on Safety work at once if he wants to hold his job," he thought to himself. "I won't lose another day!" For after hearing from the Dalton twins and from Chance Carter the way their spare time was spent, his own work in the world seemed suddenly very small and mean. Here he—Bruce the rich, Bruce the powerful, with the safety of thousands of lives in the hollow of his hand—had been holding back the great work which these striplings had been steadily, patiently—yes, and successfully—building up!

"I'll send those three youngsters each a copy of my telegram in the morning," he muttered, looking more eager and enthusiastic than he had looked for many a day. "I'll write across the bottom of each telegram, 'The Safety Scouts of America did this!' And the wonderful part of it is," he added, "that it's only what any boy and girl could do, every day of their lives. I wonder why somebody didn't start this Safety Scout idea long, long ago!"

Over in the Dalton cottage, only a few blocks away, Bob and Betty were going upstairs to bed.

"Many, many happy returns of the day!" whispered Betty to her brother as she kissed him good night.

"Same to you, and many of 'em! But our 'One Day's[128] Boost for Safety' didn't amount to much today, did it, Betty?" For Bob and Betty had yet to hear of Chance Carter's adventures, and Bruce had given them no hint.

"No, it didn't—not unless what we told Chance gave him a start toward a Safety Scout uniform," said Betty, sleepily. "Never mind, though, Bob," she added. "We'll try to do better tomorrow, if we didn't get much done today."

But over in the big stone house on the avenue, the silent man with the little golden-haired girl in his arms thought differently of their day's work.

HOW CAN YOU TELL A GOOD SCOUT?

THE BEST OF GIFTS—A BOOK

FOR YOUNGER CHILDREN

FOR BOYS AND GIRLS

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SURE POP AND THE SAFETY SCOUTS ***

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