chest, and grab a bottle from the
bottom shelf--the bottom shelf, Betty, of _all_ shelves in the house!
Out came the cork, and up went the bottle to his lips, just as I saw to
my horror a skull and crossbones on its label. Like a flash I--"

"What's a skull and crossbones, Sure Pop?" broke in Betty.

"Poison sign!" explained Bob, shortly. "Don't interrupt! Go on, Sure
Pop!"

"Like a flash," said Sure Pop, "I bounded to the baby's side and
snatched the bottle away. I tell you, I did some earnest thinking as I
left that house. I realized that it would never do to ask that mother to
join our army of Safety Scouts, for until she herself had formed the
Safety habit, she could hardly be expected to teach Safety to others.
The adventure of the baby and the poison bottle had opened my eyes to
the real meaning of the King's words about finding Scouts who could read
the little signs that spell DANGER.

"By the way, I told the poison bottle story to a great doctor the other
day, and now he's doing his best to get a law passed requiring that all
poison bottles be of some special shape, different from any other
bottles. That will make them much safer, even in the dark."

"But how can they be made different in shape?" asked Betty. "What shape,
Sure Pop?"

"Three-cornered, probably. That certainly would be a life-saving law, if
he could only get it passed. Just think! There were several thousand
deaths in the United States last year from that one cause alone--just
from mistaking bottles of poison for other medicine."

"But what I can't see," said Bob, "is how anybody _could_ mistake a
poison bottle. They all have skulls and crossbones on them, haven't
they?"

"Stop and think a moment," said the Safety Scout. "Suppose baby has
croup in the night, and mother is roused out of a sound sleep and rushes
to the medicine chest; she's only half awake--the light is dim--poor
baby is gasping and choking--not a moment to lose. She isn't likely to
stop and read labels very carefully, is she? But if she felt her hand
close over a _three-cornered_ bottle, it would wake her up in a hurry.
Even in the darkness and in the excitement--if she had been trained to
think of a three-cornered bottle as meaning DANGER, perhaps death--it
would stay her hand as surely as a red light stops an engine."

"I suppose," said Betty, "that when folks are badly hurt, or awfully,
awfully sick, other folks lose their heads and don't know what they
really _are_ d