e 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 r