e patrols. But nearly all of them
were present, and the scoutmaster took them out into his garden.

"I'm going to change the order a bit," he said, gravely. "I want to do some
talking, and then I expect to answer questions. Boys, Germany has declared
war on Russia. There are reports already of fighting on the border between
France and Germany. And there seems to be an idea that the Germans are
certain to strike at France through Belgium. I may not be here very long--I
may have to turn over the troop to another scoutmaster. So I want to have a
long talk to-night."

There was a dismayed chorus.

"What? You going away, sir? Why?"

But Harry did not join. He saw the quiet blaze in John Grenfel's eyes, and
he thought he knew.

"I've volunteered for foreign service already," Grenfel explained. "I saw a
little fighting in the Boer war, you know. And I may be useful. So I
thought I'd get my application in directly. If I go, I'll probably go
quietly and quickly. And there may be no other chance for me to say
good-bye."

"Then you think England will be drawn in, sir?" asked Leslie Franklin,
leader of the patrol to which Dick and Harry belonged, the Royal Blues.

"I'm afraid so," said Grenfel, grimly. "There's just a chance still, but
that's all--the ghost of a chance, you might call it. I think it might be
as well if I explained a little of what's back of all this trouble. Want to
listen? If you do, I'll try. And if I'm not making myself clear, ask all
the questions you like."

There was a chorus of assent. Grenfel sat in the middle, the scouts ranged
about him in a circle.

"In the first place," he began, "this Servian business is only an excuse.
I'm not defending the Servians--I'm taking no sides between Servia and
Austria. Here in England we don't care about that, because we know that if
that hadn't started the war, something else would have been found.

"England wants peace. And it seems that, every so often, she has to fight
for it. It was so when the Duke of Marlborough won his battles at Blenheim
and Ramillies and Malplaquet. Then France was the strongest nation in
Europe. And she tried to crush the others and dominate everything. If she
had, she would have been strong enough, after her victories, to fight us
over here--to invade England. So we went into that war, more than two
hundred years ago, not because we hated France, but to make a real peace
possible. And it lasted a long time.

"Then, after the French