The Boy Scouts on Belgian Battlefields

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."