Chapter III: Part 3

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 Sure Pop has summed up our patrol reports on street accidents. He calls it--

SIX TIMELY TIPS ON STREET SAFETY

Tip 1: Make the street car stop before you step on
or off--the car can wait. But step lively!

Tip 2: Face forward in getting off. Hold the grip
iron with your left hand--it's a friend in need.
Left foot to the step, right foot to the ground,
eyes front!

Tip 3: Before leaving the car, look both ways for
automobiles, wagons, and motor cycles.

Tip 4: In passing behind a car, first peek around
to see what's coming. When carrying an umbrella,
peek around that, too.

Tip 5: Before you hitch on or steal rides on
street cars, automobiles, or wagons, better make
your will.

Tip 6: Keep wide awake in getting on and off cars
and in crossing streets. Walk fast, _but don't
run_. Use all the sense you have; you're likely to
need it and to need it quick!

"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."

"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."

"That's right, Bob. How are you going to stop it?"

"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!"

"Why, where are we?"

"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!

_Plant the Safety First idea and watch it grow._
--SURE POP

ADVENTURE NUMBER FIFTEEN

TWIN UNIFORMS

"How nice and cool it is up here!"

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 to talk to my teacher about starting Safety Games in the lower grades."

"Safety Games!" Bob's tone showed his surprise.

"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."

"Tell us one," demanded Bob.

"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!"

"Fine!" chimed in Bob. "And we can give them Sure Pop buttons, too!"

"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 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," and he showed them into a shop with a big sign over the double door:

UNIFORMS--READY MADE OR TO ORDER

"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?"

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 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. 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."

"Bob, how did they happen to choose those numbers?" wondered Betty.

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.

"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 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 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.

"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 stared. "Surely not--not Bruce?"

"You've guessed it."

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 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?"

"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."

Bob and Betty looked at each other, too pleased to talk.

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 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. "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?"

"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!

"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.

"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!"

_One thing you always owe the other fellow--a
square deal._--SURE POP

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 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.

"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--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!'"

"Sounds exactly like a street-car gong," said Betty.

The steel man smiled. "It ought to--it was made for use on a street car. Watch sharp when the crane comes 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 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 glasses! 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 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!"

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

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 Saturday, 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-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 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 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 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 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.

"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--"

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, 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.