“Will you kindly tell us what all the row is about?” he asked, pleasantly. “We are heading for the camp where the State militia is mobilizing, and, discovering this bridge afire, worked with all our might to put out the flames. If you look at those dirty cloths lying there, you’ll find that they were once lap-robes. We soaked them in the water, and slapped the flames out as we were trained to do in fighting a forest fire.”
A few of the villagers may have been impressed with the words spoken by Hugh, as well as his manly bearing; but they were vastly in the minority. Most of those present were so worked up by anger that they seemed blind to the facts.
“Don’t believe him, Sheriff,” urged one man, venomously; “he’s only lying. All boys’ll lie whenever they get a chanct. I know these here scouts, how they like to strut around like heroes. And, Sheriff, you c’n depend on it they set fire to our bridge just a purpose to make believe they did a big thing whipping the flames out.”
“That’s what he told us they’d like enough say,” called out another man, whose small face and vinegary looks told of a mind that was below the mediocre. “He says he saw ’em running around like they was pourin’ something on the sides of the bridge from a bottle. Say, I kin smell coal oil, by Jimminy crickets; if I can’t now.”
“Larn ’em a lesson they’ll never forget. ’Cordin’ to my mind, there’s a heap too much talk nowadays ’bout boys doin’ great stunts. It’s jest upsot a lot o’ ’em, so they’re lookin’ around all the time for ways to make people think they’re jest like little David when he knocked over that Goliath chap long ago.”
So several other men had their say. Hugh listened to it all, and waited for an opportunity to get a chance to explain. He knew that he must depend on the sheriff, and so he kept him in mind when he finally started in to speak.
“Please listen to me, Mr. Sheriff,” he began to say, impressively. “We belong in the town of Oakvale, where you’ll find, if you telephone the Chief of Police, that our reputation is gilt-edged. We are on our way to the big camp over beyond the hills yonder, where Battery K, from Oakvale, is located. We have very important business with one of the members, who is a cousin of this boy here. It will cost him his inheritance if we are unable to talk with him by tomorrow. There is a man whose interest it is to keep us from doing this. He has tried through an agent of his in a number of ways to hold us back; and, if you wish, I would take pleasure in telling you all about these things. Sir, we have good reason to believe that this setting fire to your bridge was a part of his scheme to detain us.”