ait till we see what is going
to happen here in Sempst. Anyway, they haven't burned this little place
down, because I don't see anything that looks like ruins."

Indeed, it seemed as though the peasants living close to Brussels had
been induced by the Germans to continue their regular field work, under
promise of purchasing for fair prices all the green stuff they could
fetch into the capital. They, mostly women, old decrepit men, and
children, for even the smallest could be given some task that would help
out, were working in the fields.

"I wonder if any of them could understand my French," Rob was saying.
"Of course it wouldn't be likely they could talk English. I've got a
good notion to try it on the first one we meet on the road ahead."

"Do it, Rob," urged Tubby. "Merritt and I will stand by to catch him if
he starts to faint."

"Oh! I hope my French isn't quite that bad," exclaimed Rob. "I've been
polishing it up considerable, you know, while on the steamer, and after
we landed in Belgium; and, with what I know, and by pointing and
shrugging my shoulders, I generally manage to make people understand. Of
course, I don't know how it would be with a clodhopper who didn't happen
to be as intelligent as I'd want. But here's a chance, and I'm going to
make the attempt."

"It won't kill, even if it doesn't cure," said Merritt; "and, Rob, if
you can get him to understand what you're saying, be sure and ask if
that chemical factory, where we understood Steven had been given his
responsible berth, has shut down, or if it is still in operation."

"I'll do that, Merritt," the other promised.

Accordingly, when the peasant, smoking his big pipe, came along in his
wooden shoes, Rob stopped him. He wanted to impress the fellow
favorably, so as to increase the prospect for a favorable answer; and so
Rob made sure to have one of his famous smiles on his bright face when
he began to air his French.

The other boys stood there watching the "circus," as Tubby called it.
They saw, however, that Rob, many times at a loss for words in order to
express his meaning, must have managed to make the peasant understand
him.

Again and again each of them pointed toward the town so near at hand.
Possibly Rob may have been explaining just who he and his chums were,
and also how they had come all the way from Antwerp with the one hope of
finding a certain person in this little suburb.

"He's picking up some kind of news, seems like,"