"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 trespa.s.sing 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 thoughtful scowl. "I think we ought to do something about it."
"What, for instance?" Sure Pop was watching her sharply.
"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 b.u.t.tons 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 b.u.t.tons, we can 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?"
Bob looked doubtful. "What do you think about that, Sure Pop?"
"I think it would be a mistake, Bob. You"ll find too 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."
"Go on, please. Tell us more--how would you work out the details?"
"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?"
"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!"
_Enlist now! We fight to save life, not to take it._ --SURE POP
[Ill.u.s.tration]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
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 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?"
Sure Pop laid an understanding hand on Chance"s shoulder.
"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 b.u.t.ton--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."
"That"s so. I never thought of it in just that way."
"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. 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.
"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.