The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields

"Of course," explained Rob, as they walked their sorry looking horses on, "while we'd like to find some sort of respectable beds to-night, if the worst comes, we can always make shift with a haystack. It wouldn't be the first time we've curled up in the hay and snatched a few winks of sleep."

"I should say not," Tubby assured him. "Only I do hope we manage to strike a dinner-call somehow or other. I can do without a bed, but I must have eats or I'll collapse utterly, like a balloon with the gas let out."

"Please don't think of it, Tubby," Merritt implored him. "We promise to do everything in our power to find the grub. Brace up! We're coming to a village; and I think I can see an inn the first thing."

It proved to be as Merritt had said, and better still, the man who kept the modest little tavern assured Rob in fair English that he would be proud to serve the honored guests; also that he had once spent a year in the Birmingham machine shops himself.

"Just like all the rest, he takes us for Johnny Bulls," complained Tubby.

"Well, that's partly your fault," Rob told him.

"Just because I'm so well filled out, I suppose you mean, Rob? Well, if they keep on thinking that, I guess I'll have to get busy and cultivate a real cockney accent. 'Beg pawdon; thank you; my word!' You see I've got a few of their favorite jabs spotted."

As before, they found themselves the object of more attention than any of them enjoyed. People kept peeping in through the open door of the room where the three strange young chaps in khaki were enjoying their really excellent supper.

"Don't mind them," advised Rob, when he saw that Tubby was posing, as if conscious of being in the lime-light. "Let's finish our supper, and then we can sit outside on the porch as the sun goes down, and talk over our plans for to-morrow."

"Yes," added Merritt quickly, "because to-morrow may take us so far on our journey that we'll either find our man, or meet with some bitter disappointment, something I hate to think about."

"Don't do it, then," advised Rob. "We must believe everything is bound to come out right, and that you'll not only run across Steven Meredith, but that the paper will be found under the lining of the cover to his field-glass case, where he's been carrying it all this while, without knowing it."

"One thing sure," said Merritt grimly, "if he's left that post and gone anywhere else, I'll follow him, hit or miss, if it takes me to the battle front."

"Listen!" exclaimed Tubby. "What's that man shouting, Rob?"

"As near as I can make out," replied Rob quickly, "he says the Uhlans are entering at one end of the town."

CHAPTER VIII.

WHEN THE UHLANS CAME

When Rob Blake made this startling explanation of the loud cries from without, his two companions started up from the table in dismay. They could easily understand that the coming of the German cavalrymen just then threatened them with unpleasant consequences.

If they were mistaken for English boys they might expect not only rough treatment, but possibly find themselves railroaded into Germany, with one of those terrible dungeons in a Rhine fortress as their destination.

Perhaps even Tubby began to deplore the fact that he chanced to be wearing a Boy Scout khaki suit, and a campaign hat besides; with the leggings that scouts in the States have adopted instead of the woolen stockings used by other branches of the organization abroad.

If pride must have a fall, Tubby began to experience the first twinges of regret at that moment as he scrambled to his feet, and waited to hear what Rob or Merritt would say.

"It may be only a false alarm," Merritt suggested. "These poor people have been seeing imaginary regiments of Uhlans ever since war was declared."

"But they're making oodles of noise, anyhow!" Tubby protested.

"We can soon find out if it's so," said Rob, hurrying over to one of the windows, which were partly screened with flimsy curtains, through which any person from the inside could look out, but which would prevent scrutiny from the village street, except when the lamps were lighted later.

They quickly saw that their worst fears were realized. Down the street at least fifty horsemen were riding. The fact that they carried lances and wore the customary spiked helmets of the German troopers told Rob as well as words could have done that at last they were gazing on the far-famed Uhlans.

They were not at all the fierce-appearing warriors the boys may have pictured them, having the Russian Cossacks in mind at the time. Indeed, a number seemed to be laughing heartily, doubtless on account of the evident terror their presence had apparently inspired in the breasts of the villagers. And some of them were rosy-cheeked young fellows, who, shorn of their military accouterments, would have struck the scouts as good-natured German youths.

Others, however, were more grim and haughty, as though they thought it their duty to impress these stubborn Belgians with a due sense of their importance as factors to be dealt with.

It was a thrilling sight to see those hard-riding soldiers of the Kaiser coming along the village street, with people staring at them from open doors and windows, yet none daring to utter a word of protest. Fear was written largely on nearly every face, though doubtless there were also those who viewed the coming of the hated Uhlans with illy suppressed rage. Perhaps they had lost some dear one during the battles that had already been fought around Liège and other places; or in the destruction of Louvain.

"Rob, don't you see they're heading right this way?" whispered Tubby suddenly, after they had watched the stirring picture for a minute or so.

"Yes, that's a fact," replied Rob. "Let's hope they mean to only ride through the village, and leave by the other side."

"Gee! I hope now they won't fall in love with our horses, and run them off!" ventured Tubby, excited by his fears in that respect; for Tubby did not like to walk any more than he could possibly help.

"Not much danger in that line," scoffed Merritt. "But look at that officer in front of the column – he's pointing right this way, you notice, Rob, and is saying something to another rider close behind him."

"Oh! can he have seen us?" wailed Tubby, no doubt having very positive visions of prison life before him just then, with solitary confinement on a diet of bread and water, which was the worst punishment he could imagine.

"That's impossible," Rob instantly assured him. "The chances are he's discovered this inn, and is telling the other officer they may be able to secure something to eat, and a bottle of wine here. Their men can pick up supper through the place, making the poor people furnish the meal, or have their houses knocked about their ears."

"But if they come in here do we want to stay and be arrested for English spies?" asked Merritt; whereat Tubby's lips could be seen to move, although no words came forth, while he anxiously waited for Rob to decide.

The other had already made up his mind.

"That would be foolish on our part," he told Merritt, "and unnecessary in the bargain. They may only stop for five minutes to drink wine, and then go on again, because they know they're in the enemy's country here. We must find a place to hide till they leave. Come along with me, fellows."

Now it happened that Rob had never forgotten one of the things all scouts are enjoined to impress upon their minds; which is to observe the most minute detail wherever they happen to be. In the woods this faculty for observation had often served the patrol leader a good turn, and the same thing happened now.

While sitting there and enjoying the warm supper which the keeper of the village inn had spread before them, Rob had taken note of his surroundings. Thus he knew just where the stairs leading to the upper etage or floor of the inn was located; and also that it could not be easily seen from the door leading to the street.

He led Tubby and Merritt over to the stairs.

"We'll slip up here," he told them, for a quick glance around had assured Rob that no one was watching them.

Most of those who had been around the tavern hurried outside at the first sign of alarm, and were now gaping at the coming troop. The proprietor, guessing that his establishment would be the first object of attention on the part of the invading enemy, was wildly striving to conceal certain valuables he possessed under a board in the floor, where, perhaps, he also kept his choicest wines.

Once the scouts had climbed aloft they managed to gain a sort of garret where broken furniture and hair-covered trunks seemed to be stored.

"This will answer us as well as any other place," Rob told them, as he closed the door, and managed to push a heavy trunk against it.

"And there are two little peephole windows, too, for all the world like eye-glasses, but big enough for us to see through," Tubby remarked, groping his way among the collection of riffraff with which the garret was encumbered, until he found himself able to kneel and look through the dusty glass of a window.

"They're spreading all over the place," he immediately announced, "and making the village people get supper ready for them. Chances are, too, they won't whack up a red cent for all they eat and drink. Whee! so this is war, is it? Well, all I can say is it's a mighty mean game."

"Some of them have come into the inn," ventured Merritt. "I can hear heavy voices below us, German voices, too. You know sound travels up walls like everything. And there's a heap of bustle going on below, as if the landlord, his wife and everybody else might be on the jump to wait on the Uhlan guests."

"Can you blame them?" said Tubby, "when like as not if they said no they'd find a torch put to their house? Rob, you don't think they'll come up here, do you?"

"Oh! hardly, unless they take to ransacking the house for valuables, or more wine. They must know time is too valuable for that, because there are Belgian forces all around this place who might drop in on them. No, they'll get a hurried bite and then be off again."

For some little time they continued to listen to the confused sounds that came to their ears. Considerable shouting from the street testified to the fact that some of the soldiers might be acting, as Tubby expressed it, "rough-house"; and although the light outside was commencing to grow rather dim, looking through the window they saw several instances where a soldier struck some half grown boy who may have acted in a sullen fashion, or declined to do what he was told.

All at once there was a shot!