have to come back this way."

"Oh! you're getting to be an expert tight-rope walker by now, Tubby,"
Merritt said encouragingly. "A little more practice, and you could apply
for a job with Barnum & Bailey's circus."

"Thank you, Merritt, but I have loftier aims than that calling," said
Tubby disdainfully.

"Well, let's be getting on," suggested Rob. "We've spent enough time
here already."

"Thank goodness I don't have to tramp along soaked to the skin," Tubby
was heard to tell himself, with gratitude.

The road skirted the river bank on the side they were now on for some
little distance at least. Rob continued to keep a watchful eye around as
they progressed. He knew there was always a chance that they might meet
some detachment of troops hurrying along; though the fact of the bridge
being down must be known to the Germans, and would deter them from
trying to make use of this road until a temporary structure could be
thrown across the river by their engineers.

Most of the inhabitants had fled from that part of the country. Some may
have drifted into Brussels before the capital fell into the hands of the
invaders, when August was two-thirds gone; and they had remained there
ever since. Others had fled in the direction of Ghent and Antwerp, in
the hope that these cities might hold out against the German army.

Several times they saw old men at work in the fields, trying to save a
part of their farm crops, though without horses they could do little.
Every beast of burden had been drafted for one or the other army; what
the Belgians missed the Germans had certainly commandeered to take the
place of horses lost in the numerous fierce engagements thus far fought.

On consulting his little chart Rob soon found that it would be necessary
for them to abandon this good road, and take to a smaller one that
branched off from it, winding in through the trees, and past farms that
had been thrifty before this blight fell on the land.

"Here's a wood ahead of us that looks as if it covered considerable
territory, and you don't often see such a bunch of timber in Belgium,"
Merritt announced presently.

"Because, with seven million inhabitants to such a small area," added
Rob, "it's always been necessary that they employ what is called
intensive farming. That is, they get as much out of the soil as
possible, even to several crops off of the same patch of ground during
the year."

"Belgium is a busy manufacturing country, too