Sure Pop and the Safety Scouts Part 16

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

Joe was looking hard at the chippers.

"Every one of those men wear gla.s.ses! Isn't that queer!"

"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 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 pa.s.sed 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!"

_The spirit of fair play is the very life of the Scout Law._--SURE POP

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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?"

"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 Sat.u.r.day, Betty."

"What are you going to do--start out to capture all the honor medals?"

"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-cla.s.s 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 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 Sat.u.r.day, 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 b.u.t.ton 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 b.u.t.tons wrong side up, doesn't it? I feel almost like waiting till 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 gra.s.sy 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 n.o.body knew it better than the great mill owner himself. So, while 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!

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 b.u.t.ton 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.

"Why isn't that car here?" snapped the great man.

"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--"