(Concluded from last week.) SYNOPSIS. CHAPTER I—-Introductory. Pat O’Brien tells of his purpose in writing the story of his adventures. CHAPTER II—Tells of his enlistment in the Royal Flying corps, his training in Canada and his transfer to France for ac- tive duty. CHAPTER III—-Describes fights in which he brought down two German airplanes and his final fight in which he was brought down wounded within the Ger- man lines and was made a prisoner of war. CHAPTER IV—Discovers that German hospital staff barbarously neglected the fatally wounded and devoted their ener gies to restoring those who might be returned to the firing lines. Witnesses death in fight of his best chum, Lieut. Paul Rainey. CHAPTER V—He is taken to the of- cers’ prison camp at Courtrai. There he egan planning his escape. By great sac- rifice he manages to save and hide away two daily rations of bread. CHAPTER VI—He confiscates a map of Germany and just half an hour later is pet on a train bound for a prison camp Germany. He leaps through a window while the train is traveling at a rate of 3) miles an hour. CHAPTER VII—-For nine days he crawls through Germany, hiding during the day, traveling at night, guided by ths ars and subsisting on raw vegetables He covers 75 miles before reaching Lux- emburg. CHAPTER VIII—For nine days more he struggles on in a weakened condition through Luxemburg in the direction of Belgium. CHAPTER IX—He endures terrible hardships, swims rivers while delirious from hunger, living like a hunted animal and on the eighteenth day after jumping from the train he crosses into Belgium. CHAPTER X—When well on his way through Belgium he is befriended one night by a Flemish peasant, who feeds him and directs him to a man in a Bel- glen city who will help him to get a pass- port. CHAPTER XI—By mingling with Bel- gian peasants he manages to elude Ger- man soldiers and reaches the Belgian city where he finds the home of the man from whom he expects help. CHAPTER XII—Huyliger forges a pass- port for O’Brien and promises to assist im in getting into Holland. Later Huy- liger and his associates demand an ex- orbitant sum for their services and O'Brien breaks with them. In brief, the scheme was to conceal me in a convent until conditions were ripe for me to make my way to the | border. In the meanwhile I was to be | dressed in the garb of a priest, and when the time came for me to leave the city I was to pretend that I was a Spanish sailor, because I could speak a little Spanish, which I had picked 2 o> . up on the coast. To attempt to play the part of a Belgian would become in- | creasingly difficult, he pointed out, and would bring inevitable disaster in the event that I was called upon to speak. Huyliger said I would be given suf- ficient money to bribe the German guards at the Dutch frontier, and he assured me that everything would work out according to schedule. “Yours is not the first case, O’Brien, we have handled successfully,” he de- clared. “Only three weeks ago I heard Outlining the Plans He Had Made for . My Escape. from an English merchant who had escaped from a German detention camp and came to me for assistance and whom I had been able to get through the lines. His message telling me of his safe arrival in Rotterdam came to me in an indirect way, of course, but the fact that the plans we had made carried through without mishap makes me feel that we ought to be able to do as much for you.” 1 told Huyliger I was ready to follow his instructions and would do any- thing he suggested. «] want to rejoin my squadron as soon as I possibly can,” I told him, “put I realize that it will take a cer- in length of time for you to make the necessary arrangements, and I will be as patient as I can.” The first thing to do, Huyliger told me, was to prepare a passport. He had a blank one and it was a comparatively simple matter to fill in the spaces, us ing a genuine passport which Huyliger possessed as a sample of the hand- writing of the passport clerk. My oc- cupation was entered as that of a sailor. My birthplace we gave as Spain, and we put my age at thirty. As a matter of fact, at that time I could easily have passed for thirty- | five, but we figured that with proper ; food and a decent place to sleep at |! night, I could soon regain my normal | appearance, and the passport would ! have to serve me, perhaps, for several | weeks to come. : Filling in the blank spaces on the passport was, as I have said, a com- paratively easy matter, but that did not begin to fill the bill. Every genu- ine passport bore an official rubber stamp, something like an elaborate postmark, and I was at a loss to know how to get over that difficulty. Fortunately, however, Huyliger had half of a rubber stamp which had evi- | dently been thrown away by the Ger- | mans, and he planned to construct the | other half out of the cork from a wine | bottle, He was very skillful with a | penknife, and although he spoilt a score or more of corks before he suc- ceeded in getting anything life the | result he was after, the finished article was far better than our most sanguine expectations. Indeed, after we had pared it over here and there, and re- moved whatever imperfections our re- peated test disclosed, we had a stamp which made an impression so closely resembling the original that without a | magnifying glass, we were sure, it | would have been impossible to tell that it was a countevfeit. Huyliger procured a camera and took a photograph of me to paste on the passport in the place provided for that purpose, and we then had a pass- port which was entirely satisfactory | to both of us and would, we hoped, prove equally so to our friends the | Huns. i It had taken two days to fix up the | passport. In the meanwhile Huyliger informed me that he had changed his plans about the convent and that in- stead he would take me to an empty house, where I could remain in safety until he told me it was advisable for me to proceed to the frontier. This was quite agreeable to me, as 1 had had misgivings as to the kind of a priest I would make and it seemed to me to be safer to remain aloof from everyone in a deserted house than to have to mingle with people or come ih contact with them, even with the best, of diszuises, : Thar night I accompanied Huyliger to a fashionable section of the city, where the house in which I was to be! concealed was located. This house turned out to be a four- story structure of brick. Huyliger toid, me that it had been occupied by al wealthy Belgian before the war, but since 1914 it had been uninhabited save for the occasional habitation of some refugee whom Huyliger was befriend- ing. Huyliger had a key and let me in, but he did not enter the house with me, stating that he would visit me in the morning. I explored the place from top to bot- tom as well as I could without lights. The heuse was elaborately furnished, but, of course, the dust lay a quarter of an inch thick everywhere. It was a large house, containing some twenty rooms. There were two rooms in the basement four on the first floor, four on the second five on the third and five on the top. In the days that were to come I was to have plenty of oppor- tunity to familiarize myself with the contents of that house but at that time I did not know it and I was curious enough to want to know just what the house contained. Down in the basement there was a huge pantry but it was absolutely bare, except of dust and dirt. A door which evidently led to a sub-basement at- tracted my attention and I thought it might be a good idea to know just where it led to in case it became neces- sary for me to elude searchers. In that cellar I found case after case of choice wine—Huyliger subsequently told me that there were 1,800 bottles of it! I was so happy at the turn my affairs had taken and in the rosy pros- pects which I now entertained. that I was half inclined to indulge in a little celebration then and there. On second thought, however, I remembered the old warning of the folly of shouting before you are well out of the woods, and I decided that it would be just as well to postpone the festivities for a while and go to bed instead. . In such an elaborately furnished house I had naturally conjured up; ideas of a wonderfully large bed, ' | | ! of wool, silk or cotton fabrics. i is how far you are prepared to go to | i compensate me for the risks I am | i shown me. ! of way; “you may take care of me | . | with thick hair mattress, downy | quilts and big soft pillows. Indeed, I! debated for a while which particular | bedroom I should honor with my pres- | ence that night. Judge of my disap! pointment, therefore, when after vis- iting bedroom after bedroom, I discov- ered that there wasn’t a bed in any one of them that was in a condition to | sleep in. All the mattresses had been | removed and the rooms were abso- | lutely bare of everything in the way | The | Germans had apparently swept the house clean. There was nothing to do, therefore, but to make myself as comfortable as I could on the floor, but as I had grown accustomed by this time to sleeping ! under far less comfortable conditions, I swallowed my disappointment as cheerfully as I could and lay down for the night. In the morning Huyliger appeared and brought me some breakfast, and after I had eaten it he asked me what , connections I had in France or Eng- land from whom I could obtain | money. I told him that I banked at Cox & Co., London, and that, if he needed ! any money I would do anything I could to get it for him, although I did not ' know just how such things could be ar- ranged. i “Don’t worry about that, O'Brien,” he replied. “We'll find a way of get-! ting it all right. What I want to know rendering you!” i The change in the man’s attitude stunned me. I could hardly believe my | ears. i “Of course I shall pay you as well as | I can for what you have done, Huyli- ger,” I replied, trying to conceal as far as possible the disappointment his de- mand had occasioned me, “but don’t you think that this is hardly the proper | time or occasion to talk of compensa- tion? All I have on me, as you know, is a few hundred francs, and that, of course, you are welcome to, and when | I get back, if I ever do, I shall not | easily forget that kindness you have, | I am sure you need have |! no concern about my showing my. | gratitude in a substantial way.” ‘ “That’s all right, O’Brien,” he in- | gisted, looking at me in a knowing sort! | afterwards, and then again you may! not. I'm not satisfied to wait. I want'| to be taken care of now!” i: “Well, what do you want me.to do? | How much do you expect in the way: | of compensation? How can I arrange: ! to get it to you? I am willing to do; | anything that is reasonable.” | “I want —— pounds,” he replied. and he named a figure that staggered; i me. If I had been Lord Kitchener in- stead of just an ordinary lieutenant; . in the R. F. C., he would hardly have: | asked a larger sum. thought I was. il “Well, my dear man,” I said smilig-; | | 1 i Perhaps he; i ly, thinking that perhaps he was Jok-; | ing, “you don’t really mean that, do; you?” ‘ “I certainly do, O'Brien, and what is, ! more,” he threatened, “I intend to get! | every cent I have asked, and you sel going to help me get it.” y He pulled out an order calling for the payment te him of the amount he! had mentioned and demanded that I | | sign it. i! 1 waved it aside. i “Huyliger,” I said, “you have helped me out so far and perhaps you have], the power to help me further, I appre-|: ciate what you have done for me, al-{ though now, I think, I see what your! motive was, but I certainly don”: in-'! tend to be blackmailed and I tell you | ‘right now that I won’t stand for it.” “Very well,” he said, “it is just as you say, but before you make up your mind so obstinately I would advise | you to think it over. I'll be back this | ‘evening.” My first impulse, after the man had left, was to get out of that house just! as soon as I could. I had the passport he had prepared for me, and I figured that even without further help I could now get to the border without very much difficulty, and when I got there I would have to use my own ingenuity to get through. It was evident, however, that Huy- liger still had an idea that I might, change my mind with regard to the payment he had demanded, and I de- cided that it would be foolish to do anything until he paid me a second visit. At the beginning of my dealings with ‘Huyliger I had turned over to him some pictures, papers, and other things that I had on me when I entered his house, including my identification disk, and I was rather afraid that he might refuse to return them to me. All day long I remained in the house without a particle of food other than the breakfast Huyliger had brought to me. From the windows I could see plenty to interest me and help pass the time away, but of my experiences while in that house I shall tell in de- tail later on, confining my attention now to a narrative of my dealing with Huyliger. That night he appeared as he had promised. “Well, O'Brien,” he asked, as he en- tered the room where I was awaiting him, “what do you say? Will you sign the order or not?’ ~ It had occurred to me during the day that the aniount demanded was so fablulous that I might have signed the order without any danger of its ever ‘being paid, but the idea of this man, who had claimed to be befriending me, endeavoring to make capital out of my plight galled me so that I was deter- mined not to give it to him whether I ‘could do so in safety or not. ~ “No, Huyliger,” I replied, “I have decided to get along as best I can with- ‘out any further assistance from you. I shall see that veu are reasonablv | ago!” . papers at once,” I replied hotly, “I will do, O'Brien,” he declared coolly, “but . pictures you refer to are out of the | papers and I want them here before | the passport that you fixed for me, everything.” : | near a landing at the time and the | moonlight was streaming through a | confront me before the German au- ! thorities. eo} paid for what you have done, but I | ' will not accept any further assistance from you at any price, and what is more I want you to return to me at once all the photographs and other | | papers and belongings of mine whicl I turned over to you a day or two “I'm sorry about that, O’Brien,” he | reterted, with a show of apparent sin- cerity, “but that is something I cannot céo.” “If you don’t give me back those take steps to get them, and d—d quick too!” “I don’t know just what you could as a matter of fact the papers and country. I could not get them back to you if I wanted to.” ; Something told me the man was lying. “See here, Huyliger!™® I threatened, advancing towards him, putting my | hand on his shoulder and looking him | straight in the eye, “I want those midnight to-night. If I don’t get them I shall sleep in this place just once more and then, at 8 o'clock to-morrow | morning, I shall go to the German au “Your Lives Won't Be Worth a Damn.” thorities, give myself up, show them tell them how I got it, and expidin Huyliger paled. We had no lights in the house, but we were standing stained-glass window. The Belgian turned on his heel and started to go down the stairs. “Mind you,” I called after him, “I shall wait for you till the city clock strikes twelve, and if you don’t show up with those papers by that time, the next time you will see me is when you I am a desperate man, Huy- liger, and I mean every word I say.” He let himself out of the door and I sat on the top stair and wondered just what he would do. Would he try to steal a march on me and get in a first word to the authorities so that my story would be discredited when I put it to them? Of course, my threat to give myself up to the Huns was a pure bluff. While I had no desire to lose the papers which Huyliger had and which in- cluded the map and the last resting ‘place of my poor chum Raney, I cer- tainly had no intention of cutting off my nose to spite my face by surren- dering to the Germans. I would have been shot, as sure as fate, for after all I had been able to observe behind the German lines I would be regarded as a spy and treated as such. At the same time I thought I de- tected a yellow streak in Huyliger, and I figured that he would not want to take the risk of my carrying out my threat even though he believed there was but a small chance of my dog so. If I did, he would undoubtedly share my fate, and the pictures and papers he had of mine were really of ng use to him, and I have never been able to ascertain why it was he wished to re- tain them unless they contained some- thing—some information about me— which accounted for his complete change of attitude towards me in the first place, and he wanted the papers as evidence to account to his supe- riors for his conduct towards me. When he first told me that the plan of placing me in a convent ‘disguised as a priest hadybeen abandoned he ex- plained it by saying that the cardinal had issued orders to the priests to help no more fugitives, and I have since wondered” whether there was anything in my papers which had turned him against me and led him to forsake me after all he had promised to do for me. For perhaps two hours I sat on that staircase musing about the peculiar turn in my affairs, when the front door opened and Huyliger ascended the stairs. “I have brought you such of your be- longings as I still had, O/Brien,” he sald softly. “The rest, as I told you, I cannot give you. They are no longer in my possession.” I looked through the little bunch he handed me. It included my identifi- cation disk, most of the papers I val- ued, and perhaps half of the photo- graphs. “I don’t know what your object is in retaining the rest of my pictures, Huy- liger,” I replied, “but cs a matter of fact, the ones that are missing were only of sentimental value to me and you are welcome to them. We'll call j* a beat.” I don’t know whether he understood the idiom, but he sat down on the stairs just below me and cogitated for a few moments. “O’Brien,” he started finally, “I'm sorry things have gone the way they have. I feel sorry for you and I would really like to help you. I don’t sup- pose you will believe me, but the matter of the order which which I asked you to sign was not of my doing. However, we won't go into that. The proposition was made to you and you turned it down, and that’s the end of it. At the same time, I hate to leave you to your own resources and I am going to make one more suggestion to you for your own good. I have an- other plan to get you into Holland and if you will go with me to another house, I “will introduce you to a man who I think will be in a position to help you.” “How many millions of pounds will he want for his trouble ” I answered, sarcastically. “You can arrange that when you see him. Will you go?” I suspected there was something fishy about the proposition, but I felt that I could take care of myself and decided to see the thing through. I knew Huyliger would not dare to de- liver me to the authorities because of the fact that I had the tell-tale pass- port, which would be his deathknell as well as my own. Accordingly I said I would be quite willing to go with him whenever he was ready, and he suggested that we go the next evening. I pointed out to him that I was en- tirely without food and asked him whether he could not arrange to bring or send me something to eat while I remained in the house. “I'm sorry, O'Brien,” he replied, “but I'm afraid you will have to get along as best you can. When I brought you your breakfast this morning I took a desperate chance. If I had been dis- covered by one of the German soldiers entering this house with food in my possession, I would not only have paid the penalty myself, but you would have been discovered, too. It is too danger- ous a proposition. Why don’t you go out by yourself and buy your food at the stores? That would give you con- fidence and you'll need plenty of it when you continue your journey to the border.” There was a good deal of truth in what he said and I really could not blame him for not wanting to take any chances to help me in view of the rela- tions between us. “Very well,” I said; “I've gone with- out food for many hours at a time be- fore and I suppose I shall be able to do so again. I shall look for you to- morrow evening.” The next evening he came and I ac- companied him to another house not very far from the one in which I had been staying and not unlike it in ap- pearance. It, too, was a substantial dwelling house which had been unten- anted since the beginning save perhaps for such occasional visits as Huyliger and his associates made to it. Huyliger let himself in and con- ducted me to a room on the second floor, where he intreduced me to two men. One, I could readily see by the resemblance, was his own brother. The other was a stranger. Very briefly they explained to me that they had procured another pass- port for me—a genuine one—which would prove far more effective in help- ing to get me to the frontier than the counterfeit one they had manufac- tured for me. I think I saw through their game right at the start, but I listened pa- tiently to what they had to say. “Of course, you will have to return to us the passport we gave you before we can give you the real one,” said Huyliger’s brother. “I haven't the slightest objection,” I replied, “if the new passport is all you claim for it. Will you let me see it?” There was considerable hesitation on the part of Huyliger’s brother and the other chap at this. “Why, I don’t think that’s necessary at all, Mr. O'Brien,” said the former. “You give us the old passport and we will be very glad to give you the new one for it. Isn’t that fair enough?” “It may be fair enough, my friends,” I retorted, seeing that it was useless to conceal further the fact that I was fully aware of their whole plan and why I had been brought to this house. “It may be fair enough,amy friends,” I said, “but you will get the passport that I have here,” patting my side and indicating my inside breast pocket, “only off my dead body!” I suppose the three of them could have made short work of me then and there if they had wanted to go the limit, and no one would ever have been the wiser, but I had gone through so much and I was feeling so mean to- wards the whole world just at that moment that I was determined to sell my life as dearly as possible. “I have that passport here,” I re- plied, “and am going to keep it. If you gentlemen think you can take it from me you are welcome to try!” Continued next week) . A Thought. “Just to think,” said the Sweet Young Thing on the piano stool, “all these pretty keys once belonged to an elephant.” “And now,” man, th Times- replied the gallant belong to a dear.”—Florida nion. ——For high class Job Work come to the “Watchman” Office. The Story of the Battle Hymn. The following is from the volume entitled “Julia Ward Howe,” by Lau- Ie F. Richards and Maude Howe El- iot: “Returning from a review of troops near Washington, her carriage was surrounded and delayed by the march- ing regiments; she and her compan- ions sang, to beguile the tedium of the way, the war songs which everybody was singing in those days. . . . The soldiers liked this, cried “Good for you!” and took up the chours with its rythmic swing. ‘Mrs. Howe,’ said. Mr. Clarke, ‘Why do you not write some good words for the stir- ring tune?’ ‘I have often wished to do so!” she replied. Walking in the gray of the next morning, as she lay waiting for the dawn, the words came to her. ‘Mine eyes have seen the glo- ry of the coming of the Lord—’ She lay perfectly still. Line by line, stan- za by stanza, the words came sweep- ing on with the rhythm of marching feet, pauseless, resistless. She saw the long lines swinging into place be- fore her eyes, heard the nation speak- ing through her lips. She waited till the voice was sileat, till the last line was ended; then sprang from bed, and, groping for pen and paper, scrawled in the gray twilight the 'Battle Hymn of the Republic.” She was used to writing thus; verses oft- en came to her at night, and must be scribbled in the dark for fear of wak- ing the baby; she crept back to bed, and as she fell asleep she said to her- self, ‘I like this better than most things I have written.” In the morn- ing, while recalling the incident, she found that she had forgotten the words. “The poem was published in the Atlantic Monthly, for February, 1862. ‘It was somewhat praised,’ she says, ‘on its appearance, but the vicissi- tudes of the war so engrossed public attention that small heed was taken of literary matters. . . I knew and was content to know, that the po- em soon found its way to the camps, as I heard from time to time of its being sung in chorus by the soldiers.’ “She did not, however, realize how rapidly the hymn made its way, nor how strong a hold it took upon the people. It was sung, chanted, recited, and used in exhortation and prayer on the eve of battle. It was printed in newspapers, army-books, on broad- sides; it was the word of the hour, and the Union armies marched to its swing.” On a memorable occasion directly after the battle of Gettysburg, the author says: “When, some time after, McCabe was released from prison, he told in Washington before a great audience of loyal people, the story of his war- time experiences; and when he came to that night in Libby Prison, he sang the ‘Battle Hymn’ once more. The effect was magical; people shouted, wept, sang, all together; and when the song was ended, above the tumult of applause was heard the voice of Abraham Lincoln, exclaiming, while the tears rolled down his cheeks,— ‘Sing it again’!”—Ex. War Vultures Again. The law passed to protect the de- pendents of dead soldiers from war vultures, it seems, says the Indianap- olis News, is being evaded. Immedi- ately after publication of casualty lists bereaved relatives are receiving letters from attorneys, or men so rep- resenting themselves, offering not to act on the collection of war risk mon- ey, which is forbidden by law, but to help collect refunds on unpaid Liber- ty loan pledges or to help otherwise in settling the soldier's affairs. A substantial fee, of course, usually 20 or 25 per cent. of the amount ccllect- ed, is asked for the service. The gov- ernment will settle all of the soldier’s affairs in his relation with it and charges nothing for the service. Not a cent need be paid to anybody for acting in this connection. The United States government is not a debtor that must be coaxed or coerced into discharging its obliga- tion to the soldiers that have given their lives for their country. At- ‘| tempts to wring fees from the de- pendents of dead soldiers for any “service” are generally fraudulent. The man who approaches women in an hour of bereavement with an offer of help for which he is to get a sub- stantial return is an object of suspi- cion at the best. When he proposes to help in getting money from the government he can be put down defi- nitely as a fraud of the lowest type. He knows that he cannot perform any useful service, that whatever he takes from the dependents of soldiers is blood money. The government warns relatives to have nothing to do with the sharpers. It should do more and make it illegal for the vultures to solicit fees for act- ing in any capacity in settling the af- fairs of the soldier with the govern- ment. The present law is inadequate in that it forbids acting for depend- ents to obtain war risk insurance or compensation money, but says noth- ing about back pay on Liberty bond refunds. The penalty should bc made severe enough to fit the crime. Fainting Goats. Did you ever see a goat faint? Probably not. But the thing does happen—not, perhaps, to the every- day goat, but to animals of that breed which are found in Tennessee. Oddly enough, in that State the “fainting goats,” as they are called, seem to be restricted to one small le- cality. In other respects they are just like ordtary goats, but on slight provocation they will “throw a fit.” If suddenly approached or other- wise startled they fall to the ground. Apparently the trouble with them is not heart-weakness, but a peculiar nervous complaint. Any sort of alarm gets their goat, so to speak. Experienced Matriculator. “I suppose young Jack Grabcoin has a deep and abiding love for his alma mater.” “Naturally, but Jack’s affections are considerably scattered.” “How's that?” “He’s been expelled from so many different institutions of learning that it’s rather difficult for him to concen- trate his affections on any particular one.”—Birmingham Age-Herald. rf