The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields

"Rob, ask him!" whispered Merritt, too overcome himself to find words in which to give utterance to what was weighing so heavily on his mind.

So the patrol leader, mastering his inclination to feel just as "shaky" as Corporal Crawford, turned again toward the red-faced German chemist.

"We might accept your kind offer of entertainment for to-night, Herr Haskins," he said, as though they took the man's sincerity for its face value, "because we will have to put up somewhere, though to-morrow it may be we shall want to start back toward Antwerp again. You said that you were the proprietor of the chemical company in town. Are those the works where the smoke is coming out of the stacks?"

The man nodded. He held his little girl in his arm, as though he could not bear to let her be away from him again. A look of what seemed to be pride crept over his face; it meant something that his was the only factory that had been kept running, simply because his foreign hands did not have to go when the call to the Belgian colors came.

"It is because I have the confidence of the German government that I am allowed to continue my works," he said in a low tone, as though not wishing others to hear what he was saying.

"It is very strange," continued Rob, bound to learn the worst immediately, now that such a golden opportunity had come along, "but it was to see a man connected with your business that we came all the way from Antwerp. His name is Mr. Steven Meredith, who was over in America not so many months ago."

It was apparent that they were going to meet with a keen disappointment; Rob knew this the second he saw the shade of regret pass over the rubicund face of Herr Haskins.

"Ah! that is really too bad," the stout man exclaimed; "for you are just one week too late!"

"Has he left Sempst, then?" asked Merritt sturdily.

"Just seven days ago he shook hands with me, and said I could look for him when I saw him again. That might be in a month, and it might be six, even Steven could not say. He simply had to obey his orders from his superiors. His interest in the works is not the only thing he follows, you understand."

"No," said Rob, mysteriously, looking carefully around, as though he wanted to make sure he was not overheard, "of course we know his other business. The General Staff has ordered him again on duty somewhere. It is too bad, because my friend here wishes to see Herr Meredith very much, indeed."

"I am sorry," remarked the stout man, in a hesitating way, and Rob knew that if he hoped to get any information from this source at all now was the time to strike – while the iron was hot.

"You say you are grateful, sir," he hurriedly whispered, "because we happened to save your little girl's life, or at least kept her from being badly injured. We would call the debt canceled if you could tell us where we can find Herr Meredith. If he is in France, tell us where."

The man did not immediately reply. His face was a study. He was undoubtedly being torn between gratitude and devotion to the interests of his emperor, whom he would have died to serve, no doubt.

"If I could only be sure it was right for me to give you that information," Rob heard him mutter, and he hastened to follow up his attack.

"I give you my word of honor, Herr Haskins," he said earnestly and convincingly, "that none of us has the slightest intention to betray Steven Meredith to his enemies. If you write down the information we need, we solemnly promise you not to use it to his injury. My friend only wants to get a small thing Herr Meredith has with him, although he himself does not know it is in his possession, for it was all a mistake about his taking it. He will be only too glad to give it to us, and we shall trouble him no more. Won't you take our word of honor, sir?"

The big man looked down at his child, and that must have decided him.

"Come home with me, and spend the night," he said in a hospitable way. "We will entertain you the best we can under the peculiar conditions existing here. If you care to, you can tell me all about yourselves; and I promise you that before you go to sleep this night I will place in your possession an address in Northern France where you will likely find my partner, under another name. But you must swear to me that under no conditions will you imperil his position there. Is it a bargain, my boys?"

Rob looked at Merritt. The latter, although terribly disappointed, was still game. He gave not the slightest sign of submitting to the decrees of a cruel Fate.

"We will accept your hospitality, Herr Haskins," he said quietly, "and also take from you that address under the promise you ask. Steven Meredith has no reason to fear that we will betray him. We are Americans, and our President has asked that every one, old and young, remain strictly neutral while this war is going on."

"We bound up the wounds of three times as many Germans after the battle as we did Belgians," Rob added, while Tubby was heard to mutter under his breath:

"Which was because there were ten times as many Germans hurt as there were of the brave little Belgian army."

They accompanied Herr Haskins to his fine home, where they were splendidly entertained that night. Tubby ate so much dinner that he was incapable of joining in the conversation that immediately followed, though that fact was of minor importance, because, as a rule, he only made himself a nuisance when there was any serious discussion on hand.

At least, if they had to be disappointed in not finding the man they had come so far to deal with, they could deem themselves lucky in meeting Herr Haskins under conditions that placed him heavily in their debt; otherwise they might never have discovered in what direction Steven Meredith had gone when his superiors in the German Secret Service ordered him on duty again.

As it was, when the boys on the following morning once more headed in the direction of Antwerp, armed with a letter from Herr Haskins that would be of considerable service should they be held up by any German patrol, Merritt also had a small bit of paper secreted inside the lining of his coat, on which simply an address was written.

As they journeyed they had plenty of opportunities to lay out their new program and build fresh castles in the air concerning the success which they meant to attain if it lay in mortal power.

Whether they were as fortunate in the new fields that now stretched before them as they had been in avoiding pitfalls between the battle lines in Belgium, you will find recorded in the next volume of this series, under the title of "The Boy Scouts with the Allies in France."

THE END