Merritt told Tubby, as
the dialogue progressed under so many difficulties, expressive movements
of the shoulders, and waving hands taking the place of words that
failed.

"What makes you think so?" demanded the fat scout.

"Look at Rob's face, and you can tell that he's feeling more or less
satisfied with the way things are going on," replied Merritt.

"Gosh! that's so," muttered Tubby. "Seems you're getting a move on, too,
with observing things. I'll have to hurry and do something myself, if I
don't want to find that I'm no first-class scout, after all, but only a
dub."

Finally Rob was seen to press a coin in the calloused palm of the
peasant, who took off his cap and bowed several times, as though
grateful, and then he continued on his way along the road.

"What luck?" asked Tubby immediately; while Merritt, more deeply
interested than any of them, silently waited to listen.

"Oh! he gave me quite some information," replied Rob; "and, so far as I
can see, it looks good for us. I didn't learn anything about Steven
Meredith, because the farm laborer probably never heard of such a
person; but he did tell me that the chemical works have been kept going
full blast ever since the Germans occupied Brussels."

"That must be because certain things are made there that they can use in
their war game, eh, Rob?" Merritt conjectured, and the other nodded.

"No question about it," he said, "though the peasant couldn't say why
certain things were done, only that they did happen. But, if the factory
is running wide open, there seems to be a chance that we may find Steven
still on deck, and keeping his finger on the pulse."

"I'm only afraid that if he really is what we think, a secret agent of
the government," Merritt suggested uneasily, "that he may have been
transferred to some other point where his smartness would be apt to
count, perhaps away down in France, so that he could send up valuable
information about the making of artillery, or how the conscription of
the Nineteen-Fifteen boy recruits is coming on."

"Still, to find the works open, and doing business right along, looks
like a piece of good luck to me," said Tubby.

"It is," added Rob positively. "We agreed long ago that we'd consider it
such, if we learned there had been no shutdown. We hoped it would be
that way, for we already knew that German capital had been back of the
chemical works. I wouldn't be much surprised if it was learned that
somewhere about t