sh boy. But an American, it is quite different. Ach! what would I
not do to show you how grateful I am for your brave act? Tell me, can I
not do something to prove that in Germany we look upon your country as
our friends? My name it is Herr Frederick Haskins, I am the principal
owner of the chemical works over yonder. Let me be your host while in
Sempst you stay. It would give me much pleasure, I assure you."

Rob stared at Merritt, and the latter almost held his breath. Was there
ever such great luck as this? They had saved a child from danger, and
made a warm friend of her father, who had turned out to be the
proprietor of the very factory where Steven Meredith had an interest
outside of his occupation as a secret agent of the Kaiser.

"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