Other supers would be called upon to take the places of those injured, if there was any necessity for reenforcements, and the work of completing the drama would proceed apace.

By degrees the mass of fallen material was pulled aside, many hands making light work.  Half a dozen of the agile players had managed to save themselves, receiving only slight skin abrasions which would hardly keep them from earning their salaries.

There were just four who had been carried or helped to the “hospital” under the tree near by in the grounds of the castle.  It was when the pleasing fact had been communicated by one of the workers that the last victim of the accident was found, with no fatalities to account for, that the stage manager came up to Hugh with outstretched hand.

He had his megaphone slung over his back as a sportsman might his fowling-piece.  With that everlasting red bandanna he was mopping his forehead again, and this time it may have been as much anxiety as action that started the perspiration streaming down his rosy face.

“I want to thank you from my heart, son,” he told the pleased scout master, as he gripped his hand in a warm clutch.  “You have proved yourself a jewel in this emergency.  If this is one of the things scouts learn, I’m glad my boy has taken up the subject.  I’m proud of you all.  I don’t see, how we could have done things half as well if you hadn’t been on the ground to assist, yes, to take the lead.  Once more, I thank you!”

He glanced to where Arthur, with his coat thrown off, was working over one of the victims of the near-tragedy.  The sight seemed to affect the stage manager, for he nodded his head violently, and Hugh believed he could see a moisture in his eyes just then.

“I had another boy some years back, I want to tell you,” he said, softly.  “He was drowned while swimming in the river.  His companions succeeded in getting Tad out, but they were utterly ignorant as to how to go to work to restore him to consciousness—–­and so my boy died.  I believe before Heaven that if they had been raised in the knowledge of the things you Boy Scouts learn in these days, my poor wife and I need not have suffered such a cruel loss.  When I learned something about the education of a scout, I made up my mind that since I had still one son left to me there would never be a repetition of that calamity.  He is now a patrol leader in his troop in Brooklyn, and can swim like a duck.  Come, let’s go over and see what the worst is going to be.”

Hugh gladly accompanied the genial stage manager.  His heart burned within him, not with silly pride, but sincere gratification, on account of what he had just heard.  The boy’s mind was so wrapped up in the glorious possibilities that an aspiring scout ever has at his finger-tips that commendation like this always pleased him.  It was Hugh’s ambition to have the Oakvale Troop embrace every lad of suitable age in and around his home town.  He would not have a single one refused an opportunity to enjoy those privileges and advantages which membership with the scouts assures.