tives.
These poor peasants were flocking, in a general way, toward Antwerp,
though possibly a few of them meant to cross the line into the
Netherlands, where they hoped to be safe from the German armies of
invasion that were gradually progressing further and further toward the
coast.

A thousand-and-one sights greeted the eyes of the three scouts. More
than a few times they stopped for some purpose or other that did their
hearts credit. Once it was a limping boy whose condition excited the
pity of Rob. He did not hesitate to put to some use the practical
knowledge of surgery that he had picked up in company with all the other
members of the Eagle Patrol.

Another time they saw a wretched woman trying to mend the wheel of a
miserable old handcart, upon which she had some humble belongings, and
three small children. That was more than the boys could stand. They
stopped their horses, and giving the lines of their mounts into the
keeping of Tubby, Rob and Merritt busied themselves with fixing up the
disabled wheel.

Although they had next to no tools with which to work, their skill
proved sufficient to surmount the difficulty. Inside of twenty minutes
the woman was able to trudge along again. She thanked them volubly in
Flemish, which they did not understand. Tubby listened eagerly, but
owned up that it was beyond the range of his extremely limited
vocabulary, consisting, as that did, of but one word.

"Well, that look on her face paid us for all our trouble," Rob remarked
contentedly, as he once more remounted, and led the way along the
highway.

"It's something fierce where all these forlorn people come from," said
Tubby.

"To me the greatest puzzle is where they're all going," Merritt added.

"If you should ask them," Rob advanced as his opinion, "nine out of ten
couldn't begin to tell you. Some have had their houses burned over their
heads; others I expect have seen their homes destroyed by bursting
shells, where they happened to lie near the place where an artillery
duel was going on. So they've just started on the road, hoping to reach
_somewhere_ the fighting won't follow."

"It's a terrible sight," sighed Tubby. "I'll never forget it as long as
I live. Every minute I'm telling myself we ought to be the happiest
people going over in America, to know that we needn't get mixed up in
all this butcher business."

Slowly the afternoon wore away. The three chums did not make very rapid
progress, and for many r