eer.

[Illustration: THE TWO WATCHERS GAVE A LOUD, FULL-THROATED BRITISH
CHEER]

The officer whose hands were free drew his revolver and fired viciously
at them. The shots went wide, and in a moment or two the car had turned
a corner and vanished out of sight.

A squadron of Belgian cavalry clattered by, and Max shouted to the
officer in command that a car containing German officers had just driven
off and that a detachment of infantry was only a matter of a few minutes
ahead. The officer nodded and pressed on, while Max and Dale cheered the
men as they rode eagerly by.

"I think we have seen the last we shall see of Schenk, Dale," Max
remarked as they crossed the road and entered the Durend yards.

"Yes, and I don't suppose you, or anyone else in Belgium, will be
sorry."

"No; least of all our Walloon workmen. They hated him to a man for his
overbearing, tyrannical ways. We are all well rid of him."

The works seemed strangely deserted. The doors of the workshops stood
wide open, but inside all was still. The great lathes were just as they
had been left, some with shells half turned, indicating the haste with
which the attendants had obeyed the call to go. Other hands would
doubtless finish the turning, and the shells would be fired at the
Germans and not against the armies of the Allies.

"I suppose Schenk will have taken all the firm's cash?" suggested Dale
presently.

"Yes, of course. But that will be more than covered by the additions he
has made to the buildings and plant since the Germans came. I should
think the concern is worth twice as much as when he took it in hand for
the Fatherland."

"That's great! No wonder he nearly went out of his mind when he found he
must leave it all intact and in first-rate working order for you to
enter into. If he lives until he is as old as Methuselah he will never
forget it."

"I don't think his German friends will let him forget it. They will find
it hard to forgive a bungle that leaves a first-class munition factory
absolutely undamaged in the hands of their enemies. I don't envy Schenk
his job of persuading them that he couldn't help it."

"Not after the other explanations he has had to make on our
account--those siege-gun drawings, the wrecking of the power-house,
workshops, etcetera."

"No, he is a back number now, and he will be lucky if it is no worse."

(Long afterwards they learned that the exasperation of the Germans at
Herr Schenk's failure to dest