d.

Max and Dale returned to their lodging in high glee, and their joy was
not diminished when they noticed that the wind was beginning to freshen
up.

"This ought to finish the business, Dale," remarked Max. "With a high
wind all night, if the fire doesn't get into its stride it never will."

Soon after daybreak the shrill notes of a bugle in several quarters of
the town and the ringing of fire-bells told our heroes that something
unusual was afoot. They guessed, or rather hoped, that it might be on
their account, and dressed and sallied out as quickly as they could.
Sure enough, an enormous pall of smoke, that a volcano in full eruption
need not have disowned, lay in the air in the direction of the Durend
coal-yards. Fire engines were hurrying to the scene from all parts of
the town, and the hoped-for hubbub seemed to have arrived.

"This is worth a little trouble," remarked Dale with intense relish as
they drew near the burning stack and saw hundreds of soldiers and
firemen hovering actively about the spot.

"Yes, but we may as well take a little more trouble and do the thing in
style," responded Max coolly. "Let us follow these hoses to the river
bank and see whether there is anything doing."

They did so, and, finding that the hoses entered the water at a point
where a patch or two of short scrubby bushes gave cover against chance
watchers, they passed on and struck the bank again a hundred yards
farther on. Then they disappeared from view, and, crawling along under
cover of the bushes, they reached the hoses, and with a dozen rapid
slashes of their clasp-knives effectually put them out of action.

An extraordinary hubbub ensued. Soldiers and firemen rushed about in all
directions, chasing away every unfortunate civilian who had had the
temerity to approach the scene of the fire. In the confusion Max and
Dale had no difficulty in escaping, and retired to the hills, there to
gloat over the further efforts made to fight the fire, which seemed only
to grow fiercer as hundreds of gallons of water were pumped upon it. It
was two days before the fire was completely subdued, and the net result
from a material point of view was that at least 10,000 tons of coal had
been destroyed and the project of transporting coal to Krupp's
effectually quashed. From the point of view of _moral_, the Germans were
the laughing-stock of the town; they were deeply enraged and the
townsfolk proportionately delighted.

CHAPTER