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diff --git a/36395.txt b/36395.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..58cb796 --- /dev/null +++ b/36395.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5876 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Ruth Fielding In the Red Cross, by Alice B. Emerson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Ruth Fielding In the Red Cross + Doing Her Best For Uncle Sam + +Author: Alice B. Emerson + +Release Date: June 12, 2011 [EBook #36395] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS *** + + + + +Produced by Roger Frank, David Edwards and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive) + + + + + +[Illustration: OCCASIONALLY A DARTING AIRPLANE ATTRACTED HER TO THE +WINDOW.] + + + + + Ruth Fielding + In the Red Cross + + OR + + DOING HER BEST FOR + UNCLE SAM + + BY + + ALICE B. EMERSON + + Author of "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill," + "Ruth Fielding in the Saddle," Etc. + + _ILLUSTRATED_ + + + NEW YORK + CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY + PUBLISHERS + + + + + Books for Girls + BY ALICE B. EMERSON + RUTH FIELDING SERIES + 12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. + Price per volume, 50 cents, postpaid. + + + RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL + RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL + RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP + RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT + RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH + RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND + RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM + RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES + RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES + RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE + RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE + RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE + RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS + RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT + + + Cupples & Leon Co., Publishers, New York. + + Copyright, 1918, by + Cupples & Leon Company + + Ruth Fielding in the Red Cross + + Printed in U. S. A. + + + + + CONTENTS + + CHAPTER PAGE + I. Uncle Jabez Is Excited 1 + II. The Call of the Drum 9 + III. The Woman in Black 17 + IV. "Can a Poilu Love a Fat Girl?" 25 + V. "The Boys of the Draft" 34 + VI. The Patriotism of the Purse 39 + VII. On the Way 49 + VIII. The Nearest Duty 56 + IX. Tom Sails, and Something Else Happens 64 + X. Suspicions 75 + XI. Said in German 81 + XII. Through Dangerous Waters 90 + XIII. The New Chief 99 + XIV. A Change of Base 107 + XV. New Work 118 + XVI. The Days Roll By 127 + XVII. At the Gateway of the Chateau 133 + XVIII. Shocking News 141 + XIX. At the Wayside Cross 149 + XX. Many Things Happen 156 + XXI. Again the Werwolf 165 + XXII. The Countess and Her Dog 175 + XXIII. Ruth Does Her Duty 180 + XXIV. A Partial Exposure 191 + XXV. Quite Satisfactory 197 + + + + +RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS + + + + +CHAPTER I--UNCLE JABEZ IS EXCITED + + +"Oh! Not _Tom_?" + +Ruth Fielding looked up from the box she was packing for the local Red +Cross chapter, and, almost horrified, gazed into the black eyes of the +girl who confronted her. + +Helen Cameron's face was tragic in its expression. She had been crying. +The closely written sheets of the letter in her hand were shaken, as +were her shoulders, with the sobs she tried to suppress. + +"It--it's written to father," Helen said. "He gave it to me to read. I +wish Tom had never gone to Harvard. Those boys there are completely +crazy! To think--at the end of his freshman year--to throw it all up and +go to a training camp!" + +"I guess Harvard isn't to blame," said Ruth practically. If she was +deeply moved by what her chum had told her, she quickly recovered her +self-control. "The boys are going from other colleges all over the land. +Is Tom going to try for a commission?" + +"Yes." + +"What does your father say?" + +"Why," cried the other girl as though that, too, had surprised and hurt +her, "father cried 'Bully for Tom!' and then wiped his eyes on his +handkerchief. What can men be made of, Ruth? He knows Tom may be killed, +and yet he cheers for him." + +Ruth Fielding smiled and suddenly hugged Helen. Ruth's smile was +somewhat tremulous, but her chum did not observe this fact. + +"I understand how your father feels, dear. Tom does not want to be +drafted----" + +"He wouldn't be drafted. He is not old enough. And even if they +automatically draft the boys as they become of age, it would be months +before they reached Tom, and the war will be over by that time. But here +he is throwing himself away----" + +"Oh, Helen! Not that!" cried Ruth. "Our soldiers will fight for us--for +their country--for honor. And a man's life lost in such a cause is not +thrown away." + +"That's the way I feel," said Helen, more steadily. "Tom is my twin. You +don't know what it means to have a twin brother, Ruth Fielding." + +"That is true," sighed Ruth. "But I can imagine how you feel, dear. If +you have hopes of the war's being over so quickly, then I should expect +Tom back from training camp safe and sound, and with no chance of ever +facing the enemy. Has he really gone?" + +"Oh, yes," Helen told her despondently. "And lots of the boys who used +to go to school with Tom at Seven Oaks. You know, all those jolly +fellows who were at Snow Camp with us, and at Lighthouse Point, and on +Cliff Island, and out West on Silver Ranch--and--and everywhere. Just to +think! We may never see them again." + +"Dear me, Helen," Ruth urged, "don't look upon the blackest side of the +cloud. It's a long time before they go over there." + +"We don't know how soon they will be in the trenches," said her friend +hopelessly. "These boys going to war----" + +"And I wish I was young enough to go with 'em!" ejaculated a harsh +voice, as the door of the back kitchen opened and the speaker stamped +into the room. "Got that box ready to nail up, Niece Ruth? Ben's +hitching up the mules, and I want to get to Cheslow before dark." + +"Oh! Almost ready, Uncle Jabez," cried the girl of the Red Mill, as the +gray old man approached. + +He was lean and wiry and the dust of his mill seemed to have been so +ground into his very skin that he was a regular "dusty miller." His +features were as harsh as his voice, and he was seldom as excited as he +seemed to be now. + +"Who's going to war now?" he asked, turning to Helen. + +"Poor--poor Tom!" burst out the black-eyed girl, and began to dabble her +eyes again. + +"What's the matter o' him?" demanded the old miller. + +"He'll--he'll be shot--I know he'll be killed, and mangled horribly!" + +"Fiddle-de-dee!" grunted Uncle Jabez, but his tone of voice was not as +harsh as his words sounded. "I never got shot, nor mangled none to speak +of, and I was fightin' and marchin' three endurin' years." + +"_You_, Uncle Jabez?" cried Ruth. + +"Yep. And I wish they'd take me again. I can go a-soldierin' as good as +the next one. I'm tough and I'm wiry. They talk about this war bein' a +dreadful war. Shucks! All wars air dreadful. They won't never have a +battle over there that'll be as bad as the Wilderness--believe me! They +may have more battles, but I went through some of the wust a man could +ever experience." + +"And--and you weren't shot?" gasped Helen. + +"Not a bit. Three years of campaigning and never was scratched. Don't +you look for Tom Cameron to be killed fust thing just because he's going +to the wars. If more men didn't come back from the wars than git killed +in 'em how d'ye s'pose this old world would have gone on rolling? +Shucks!" + +"I never knew you were a soldier, Uncle Jabez," Ruth Fielding said. + +"Wal, I was. Shucks! I was something of a sharpshooter, too. And we old +fellers--course I was nothin' but a boy, _then_--we could shoot. We'd +l'arn't to shoot on the farm. Powder an' shot was hard to git and we +l'arn't to make every bullet count. My old Betsey--didn't ye ever see my +Civil War rifle?" he demanded of Ruth. + +"You mean the old brown gun that hangs over your bed and that Aunt +Alvirah is so much afraid of?" + +"That's old Betsey. Sharpe's rifle. In them days it was jest about the +last thing in weepons. I brung it home after the Grand Army of the +Potomac was disbanded. Know how I did it? Government claimed all the +guns; but I took old Betsey apart and me an' my mates hid the pieces +away in our clothes, and so got her home. Then I assembled her again," +and Uncle Jabez broke into a chuckle that was actually almost startling +to the girls, for the miller seldom laughed. + +"Say!" he exclaimed, in his strange excitement. "I'll show her to ye." + +He hurried out of the room, evidently in search of "Old Betsey." Helen +said to the miller's niece: + +"Goodness, Ruth! what has happened to your Uncle Jabez?" + +"Just what has happened to Tom--and your father," returned the girl of +the Red Mill. "I've seen it coming on. Uncle Jabez has been getting more +and more excited ever since war was declared. You know, when we came +home from college a month ago and decided to remain here and help in the +Red Cross work instead of finishing our sophomore year at Ardmore, my +decision was really the first one I ever made that Uncle Jabez seemed to +approve of immediately. + +"He is thoroughly patriotic. When I told him I could study later--when +the war was over--but that I must work for the soldiers now, he said I +was a good girl. What do you think of _that_?" + +"Cheslow is not doing its share," Helen said thoughtfully, her mind +switched by Ruth's last words to the matter that had completely filled +her own and her chum's thoughts for weeks. "The people are not awake. +They do not know we are at war yet. They have not done half for the Red +Cross that they should do." + +"We'll make 'em!" declared Ruth Fielding. "We must get the women and +girls to pull together." + +"Say, Ruth! what do you think of that woman in black--you know, the +widow, or whoever she is? Dresses in black altogether; but maybe it's +because she thinks black becomes her," added Helen rather scornfully. + +"Mrs. Mantel?" asked Ruth slowly. "I don't know what to think of her. +She seems to be very anxious to help. Yet she does nothing really +helpful--only talks." + +"And some of her talk I'd rather not hear," said Helen sharply. + +"I know what you mean," Ruth rejoined, nodding. "But so many people talk +so doubtfully. They are unfamiliar with the history of the Red Cross and +what it has done. Perhaps Mrs. Mantel means no harm." + +At that moment Uncle Jabez reappeared with the heavy rifle in his hands. +He was still chuckling. + +"Calc'late I ain't heard Aunt Alvirah talk about this gun much of late. +One spell--when fust she come here to the Red Mill to keep house for +me--she didn't scurce dare to go into my room because of it. But, of +course, 'twarn't ever loaded. + +"I was some sharpshooter, gals," he added proudly, patting the stock of +the heavy gun. "Here's a ca'tridge. I'm goin' to stick it in her an' you +shall hear how she roars. Warn't no Maxim silencers, nor nothin' like +that, when I used to pot the Johnny Rebs with Old Betsey." + +He flung open the door into the back yard. He raised the rifle to his +shoulder, having slipped in the greased cartridge. + +"See that sassy jay atop o' that cherry tree? I bet I kin clutter him up +a whole lot--an' he desarves it," said Uncle Jabez. + +Just then the door into the other kitchen opened, and a little, +crooked-backed old woman with a shawl around her shoulders and a cap +atop of her thin hair appeared. + +"Jabez Potter! What in creation you goin' to do with that awful gun?" +she shrilled. + +"I'm a-goin' to knock the topknot off'n that bluejay," chuckled Uncle +Jabez. + +"Stop! Don't! Gals!" cried the little old woman, hobbling down the two +steps into the room. "Oh, my back! and oh, my bones! Gals! stop him! +That gun can't shoot 'cause I went and plugged the barrel!" + +At that moment Old Betsey went off with an awful roar. + + + + +CHAPTER II--THE CALL OF THE DRUM + + +There was a flash following the explosion, and Uncle Jabez staggered +back from the doorway, his arm across his eyes, while the gun dropped +with a crash to the porch. The girls, as well as Aunt Alvirah, shrieked. + +"I vum!" ejaculated the miller. "Who done that? What's happened to Old +Betsey?" + +"Jabez Potter!" shrilled the little old woman, "didn't I tell you to git +rid o' that gun long ago? Be you shot?" + +"No," said the miller grimly. "I'm only scare't. Old Betsey never kicked +like that afore." + +Ruth was at his side patting his shoulder and looking at him anxiously. + +"Shucks!" scoffed the miller. "I ain't dead yit. But what made that +gun----" + +He stooped and picked it up. First he looked at the twisted hammer, then +he turned it around and looked into the muzzle. + +"For the good land o' liberty!" he yelled. "What's the meanin' of this? +Who--who's gone and stuck up this here gun bar'l this a-way? I vum! It's +_ce_-ment--sure's I'm a foot high." + +"What did you want to tetch that gun for, Jabez Potter?" demanded Aunt +Alvirah, easing herself into a low rocker. "Oh, my back! and oh, my +bones! I allus warned you 'twould do some harm some day. That's why I +plugged it up." + +"You--you plugged it up?" gasped the miller. "Wha--what for I want to +know?" + +"So, if 'twas loaded, no bullet would get out and hurt anybody," +declared the little old woman promptly. "Now, you kin get mad and use +bad language, Jabez Potter, if you've a mind to. But I'd ruther go back +to the poorhouse to live than stay under this ruff with that gun all +ready to shoot with." + +The miller was so thunderstruck for a moment that he could not reply. +Ruth feared he might fly into a temper, for he was not a patient man. +But, oddly enough, he never raged at the little old housekeeper. + +"I vum!" he said at last. "Don't that beat all? An' ain't it like a +woman? Stickin' up the muzzle of the gun so's it couldn't shoot--but +_would_ explode. Shucks!" He suddenly flung up both hands. "Can you beat +'em? _You can't!_" + +Now that it was all over, and the accident had not caused any fatality, +the two girls felt like laughing--a hysterical feeling perhaps. They got +Aunt Alvirah into the larger kitchen and left Uncle Jabez to nail up the +box that he was going to ship for Ruth to Red Cross headquarters. + +The girl of the Red Mill had been gathering the knitted wear and comfort +kits from the neighbors around to send on to the Red Cross headquarters, +and, in the immediate vicinity of the Red Mill, she knew that the women +and girls were doing a better work for the cause than in Cheslow itself. + +The mill and the rambling old house that adjoined and belonged to Uncle +Jabez Potter stood upon the bank of the Lumano River, and was as +beautiful a spot as one might find in that part of the state. Ruth +Fielding had always loved it since the first day her eyes had spied it, +when as a little girl she had come to live with her cross and crotchety +Uncle Jabez. + +The miller was a miserly man, and, at first, Ruth had had no pleasant +time as a dependent on her uncle. Had it not been for Aunt Alvirah +Boggs, who was nobody's relative but everybody's aunt, and whom Uncle +Jabez had taken from the poorhouse to keep house for him, the lonely +little orphan girl would have been quite heartbroken. + +With Aunt Alvirah's help and the consolation of her philosophy, as well +as with the aid of the friendship of Helen and Tom Cameron, who were +neighbors, Ruth Fielding began to be happy. And really unhappy +thereafter she never could be, for something was always happening to +her, and the active person is seldom if ever in the doldrums. + +In the first volume of the series, "Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill," +these and others of Ruth's friends were introduced, and the girl began +to develop that sturdy and independent character which has made her +loved by so many. With Helen she went to Briarwood Hall to boarding +school, and there her acquaintance rapidly widened. For some years her +course is traced through several volumes, at school and during vacations +at different places where exciting and most delightful adventures happen +to Ruth and her friends. + +In following volumes we meet Ruth Fielding at Snow Camp, at Lighthouse +Point, at Silver Ranch, on Cliff Island, at Sunrise Farm, in a Gypsy +camp, in Moving Pictures, down in Dixie, and, finally, she graduates +from Briarwood Hall, and she and her chums enter Ardmore College. At the +beginning of this, the thirteenth volume of the series, Ruth and Helen +were quite grown up. Following their first year at Ardmore, Ruth had +gone West to write and develop a moving picture for the Alectrion Film +Corporation, in which she now owned an interest. + +In "Ruth Fielding in the Saddle; or, College Girls in the Land of Gold," +an account of this adventure is narrated, the trip occupying most of the +first summer following Ruth's freshman year. Ruth's success as a writer +of moving-picture scenarios of the better class had already become +established. "The Forty-Niners" had become one of the most successful of +the big scenarios shown during the winter just previous to the opening +of our present story. + +Ruth had made much money. Together with what she had made in selling a +claim she had staked out at Freezeout, where the pictures were taken, +her bank accounts and investments now ran well into five figures. She +really did not want Uncle Jabez to know exactly how much she had made +and had saved. Mr. Cameron, Helen's father, had her finances in charge, +although the girl of the Red Mill was quite old enough, and quite wise +enough, to attend to her own affairs. + +Interest in Red Cross work had smitten Ruth and Helen and many of their +associates at college. Not alone had the men's colleges become markedly +empty during that previous winter; but the girls' schools and colleges +were buzzing with excitement regarding the war and war work. + +As soon as Congress declared a state of war with Germany, Ruth and Helen +had hurried home. Cheslow, the nearest town, was an insular community, +and many of the people in it were hard to awaken to the needs of the +hour. Because of the peaceful and satisfied life the people led they +could not understand what war really meant. + +Cheslow and the vicinity of the Red Mill was not alone in this. Many, +many communities were yet to be awakened. + +Ruth bore these facts very much on her heart. She was doing all that she +could to strike a note of alarm that should awaken Cheslow. + +Despite Uncle Jabez Potter's patriotism, she would have been afraid to +tell him just how much she had personally subscribed for the work of the +Red Cross and for other war activities. And, likewise, in her heart was +another secret--a longing to be doing something of moment for the cause. +She wanted to really enlist for the war! She wished she might be "over +there" in body, as well as in spirit. + +Not only were the drums calling to Tom Cameron and his friends, and +many, many other boys, but they were calling the girls to arms as well. +Never before has war so soon and so suddenly offered womankind a chance +to aid in an undying cause. + +Yet Ruth did not neglect the small and seemingly unimportant duties +right at hand. She was no dreamer or dallier. Having got off this big +box of comforts for the boys at the front, the very next day she, with +Helen, took up the effort already begun of a house-to-house campaign +throughout Cheslow for Red Cross members, and to invite the feminine +part of the community to aid in a big drive for knitted goods. + +The Ladies' Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church was meeting +that day with Mrs. Curtis, the wife of the railroad station agent and +the mother of one of Ruth's friends at boarding school. Mercy Curtis, +having quite outgrown her childish ills, welcomed the friends when they +rang the bell. + +"Do come in and help me bear the chatter of this flock of starlings," +Mercy said. "Glad to see you, girlies!" and she kissed both Ruth and +Helen. + +"But I am afraid I want to join the starlings, as you call them," Ruth +said demurely; "and even add to their chatter. I came here for just that +purpose." + +"For just what purpose?" Mercy demanded. + +"To talk to them. I knew the crowd would be here, and so I thought I +could kill two birds with one stone." + +"Two birds, only?" sniffed Mercy. "Kill 'em all, for all I care! I'll +run and find you some stones." + +"My ammunition are hard words only," laughed Ruth. "I want to tell them +that they are not doing their share for the Red Cross." + +"Oh!" exclaimed Mercy. "Humph! Well, Ruthie, you have come at an +unseasonable time, I fear. Mrs. Mantel is here." + +"Mrs. Mantel!" murmured Ruth. + +"The woman in black!" exclaimed Helen. "Well, Mercy, what has she been +saying?" + +"Enough, I think," the other girl replied. "At least, I have an idea +that most of the women in the Ladies' Aid believe that it is better to +go on with the usual sewing and foreign and domestic mission work, and +let the Red Cross strictly alone." + + + + +CHAPTER III--THE WOMAN IN BLACK + + +"Do you mean to say," demanded Helen Cameron, with some anger, "that +they have no interest in the war, or in our boys who will soon begin to +go over there? Impossible!" + +"I repeat that," said Ruth. "'Impossible,' indeed." + +"Oh, each may knit for her own kin or for other organizations," Mercy +said. "I am repeating what I have just heard, that is all. Girls! I am +just boiling!" + +"I can imagine it," Helen said. "I am beginning to simmer myself." + +"Wait. Let us be calm," urged Ruth, smiling as she laid off her things, +preparatory to going into the large front room where Mrs. Curtis was +entertaining the Ladies' Aid Society. + +"Is it all because of that woman in black?" demanded Helen. + +"Well, she has been pointing out that the Red Cross is a great +money-making scheme, and that it really doesn't need our small +contributions." + +"And she is a member herself!" snapped Helen. + +"Well, she joined, of course, because she did not want anybody to think +she wasn't patriotic," scoffed Mercy. "That is the way she puts it. But +you ought to hear the stories she has been telling these poor, simple +women." + +"Did you ever!" cried Helen angrily. + +"It is well we came here," Ruth said firmly. "Let me into the lions' +den, Mercy." + +"I am afraid they are another breed of cats. There is little noble or +lionlike about some of them." + +Ruth and Helen were quite used to Mercy Curtis' sharp tongue. It was +well known. But it was evident, too, that the girl had been roused to +fury by what she had heard at the meeting of the Ladies' Aid Society. + +The ladies of the church society were, for the most part, very good +people indeed. But at this time the war was by no means popular in +Cheslow (as it was not in many places) and the plague of pacifism, if +not actually downright pro-German propaganda, was active and malignant. + +When the door into the big front room was opened and the girls entered, +Mrs. Curtis rose hastily to welcome Ruth and Helen warmly. The women +were, for the most part, busily sewing. But, of course, that puts no +brake upon the activities of the tongue. Indeed, the needle seems to be +particularly helpful as an accompaniment to a "dish of gossip." + +"I still think it is terrible," one woman was saying quite earnestly to +another, who was one of the few idle women in the room, "if an +organization like that cannot be trusted." + +The idle woman was dressed plainly but elegantly in black, with just a +touch of white at wrists and throat. She was a graceful woman, tall, not +yet forty, and with a set smile on her face that might have been the +outward sign of a sweet temperament, and then---- + +"Mrs. Mantel!" whispered Helen to Ruth. "I do not like her one bit. And +nobody knows where she came from or who she is. Cheslow has only been +her abiding place since we went to college last autumn." + +"Sh!" whispered Ruth in return. "I am interested." + +"Oh, I assure you, my dear Mrs. Crothers, that it may not be the +organization's fault," purred the woman in black. "The objects of the +Red Cross are very worthy. None more so. But in certain places--locally, +you know--of course I don't mean here in Cheslow---- + +"Yet I could tell you of something that happened to me to-day. I was +quite hurt--quite shocked, indeed. I saw on the street a sweater that I +knitted myself last winter." + +"Oh! On a soldier?" asked another of the women who heard. "How nice!" + +"No, indeed. No soldier," said Mrs. Mantel quickly. "On a girl. Fancy! +On a girl I had never seen before. And I gave that to the Red Cross with +my own hands." + +"Perhaps it belonged to the girl's brother," another of the women +observed. + +"Oh, no!" Mrs. Mantel was eager to say. "I asked her. Naturally I was +curious--very curious. I said to her, 'Where did you get the sweater, my +girl, if you will pardon my asking?' And she told me she bought it in a +store here in Cheslow." + +"Oh, my!" gasped another of the group. + +"Do you mean to say the Red Cross sells the things people knit for +them?" cried Mrs. Crothers. + +"How horrid!" drawled another. "Well, you never can tell about these +charitable organizations that are not connected with the church." + +Ruth Fielding broke her silence and quite calmly asked: + +"Will you tell me who the girl was and where she said she bought the +sweater, Mrs. Mantel?" + +"Oh, I never saw the girl before," said the lady in black. + +"But she told you the name of the store where she said she purchased +it?" + +"No-o. What does it matter? I recognized my own sweater!" exclaimed the +woman in black, with a toss of her head. + +"Are you quite sure, Mrs. Mantel," pursued the girl of the Red Mill +insistently but quite calmly, "that you could not have made a mistake?" + +"Mistake? How?" snapped the other. + +"Regarding the identity of the sweater." + +"I tell you I recognized it. I know I knitted it. I certainly know my +own work. And why should I be cross-questioned, please?" + +"My name is Ruth Fielding," Ruth explained. "I happen to have at present +a very deep interest in the Red Cross work--especially in our local +chapter. Did you give your sweater to our local chapter?" + +"Why--no. But what does that matter?" and the woman in black began to +show anger. "Do you doubt my word?" + +"You offer no corroborative evidence, and you make a very serious +charge," Ruth said. "Don't be angry. If what you say is true, it is a +terrible thing. Of course, there may be people using the name of the Red +Cross who are neither patriotic nor honest. Let us run each of these +seemingly wicked things down--if it is possible. Let us get at the +truth." + +"I have told you the truth, Miss Fielding. And I consider you +insulting--most unladylike." + +"Mrs. Mantel," said Ruth Fielding gravely, "whether I speak and act as a +lady should make little material difference in the long run. But whether +a great organization, which is working for the amelioration of suffering +on the battle front and in our training camps, is maligned, is of very +great moment, indeed. + +"In my presence no such statement as you have just made can go +unchallenged. You must help me prove, or disprove it. We must find the +girl and discover just how she came by the sweater. If it had been +stolen and given to her she would be very likely to tell you just what +you say she did. But that does not prove the truth of her statement." + +"Nor of mine, I suppose you would say!" cried Mrs. Mantel. + +"Exactly. If you are fair-minded at all you will aid me in this +investigation. For I purpose to take up every such calumny that I can +and trace it to its source." + +"Oh, Ruth, don't take it so seriously!" Mrs. Curtis murmured, and most +of the women looked their displeasure. But Helen clapped her hands +softly, saying: + +"Bully for you, Ruthie!" + +Mercy's eyes glowed with satisfaction. + +Ruth became silent for a moment, for the woman in black evidently +intended to give her no satisfaction. Mrs. Mantel continued to state, +however, for all to hear: + +"I certainly know my own knitting, and my own yarn. I have knitted +enough of the sweaters according to the Red Cross pattern to sink a +ship! I would know one of my sweaters half a block away at least." + +Ruth had been watching the woman very keenly. Mrs. Mantel's hands were +perfectly idle in her lap. They were very white and very well cared for. +Ruth's vision came gradually to a focus upon those idle hands. + +Then suddenly she turned to Mercy and whispered a question. Mercy +nodded, but looked curiously at the girl of the Red Mill. When the +latter explained further Mercy Curtis' eyes began to snap. She nodded +again and went out of the room. + +When she returned with a loosely wrapped bundle in her hands she moved +around to where the woman in black was sitting. The conversation had now +become general, and all were trying their best to get away from the +previous topic of tart discussion. + +"Mrs. Mantel," said Mercy very sweetly, "you must know a lot about +knitting sweaters, you've made so many. Would you help me?" + +"Help you do what, child?" asked the woman in black, rather startled. + +"I am going to begin one," explained Mercy, "and I do wish, Mrs. Mantel, +that you would show me how. I'm dreadfully ignorant about the whole +thing, you know." + +There was a sudden silence all over the room. Mrs. Mantel's ready tongue +seemed stayed. The pallor of her face was apparent, as innocent-looking +Mercy, with the yarn and needles held out to her, waited for an +affirmative reply. + + + + +CHAPTER IV--"CAN A POILU LOVE A FAT GIRL?" + + +The shocked silence continued for no more than a minute. Mrs. Mantel was +a quick-witted woman, if she was nothing else commendable. But every +member of the Ladies' Aid Society knew what Mercy Curtis' question +meant. + +"My dear child," said the woman in black, smiling her set smile but +rising promptly, "I shall have to do that for you another day. Really I +haven't the time just now to help you start any knitting. But later---- + +"I am sure you will forgive me for running away so early, Mrs. Curtis; +but I have another engagement. And," she shot a malignant glance at Ruth +Fielding, "I am not used to being taken to task upon any subject by +these college-chits!" + +She went out of the room in a manner that, had she been thirty years +younger, could have been called "flounced"--head tossing and skirts +swishing with resentment. Several of the women looked at the girl of the +Red Mill askance, although they dared not criticize Mercy Curtis, for +they knew her sharp tongue too well. + +"Mrs. Pubsby," Ruth said quietly to the pleasant-faced, +Quakerish-looking president of the society, "may I say a word to the +ladies?" + +"Of course you may, Ruthie," said the good woman comfortably. "I have +known you ever since you came to Jabez Potter's, and I never knew you to +say a dishonest or unkind word. You just get it off your mind. It'll do +you good, child--and maybe do some of us good. I don't know but +we're--just a mite--getting religiously selfish." + +"I have no idea of trying to urge you ladies to give up any of your +regular charities, or trying to undermine your interest in them. I +merely hope you will broaden your interests enough to include the Red +Cross work before it is too late." + +"How too late?" asked Mrs. Crothers, rather snappishly. She had +evidently been both disturbed and influenced by the woman in black. + +"So that our boys--some of them your sons and relatives--will not get over +to France before the Red Cross is ready to supply them with the comforts +they may need next winter. It is not impossible that boys right from +Cheslow will be over there before cold weather." + +"The war will be over long before then, Ruthie," said Mrs. Pubsby +complacently. + +"I've heard Dr. Cummings, the pastor, say that he is told once in about +so often that the devil is dead," Ruth said smiling. "But he is never +going to believe it until he can personally help bury him. Our +Government is going about this war as though it might last five years. +Are we so much wiser than the men at the head of the nation--even if we +have the vote?" she added, slyly. + +"It does not matter whether the war will be ended in a few weeks, or in +ten years. We should do our part in preparing for it. And the Red Cross +is doing great and good work--and has been doing it for years and years. +When people like the lady who has just gone out repeat and invent +slanders against the Red Cross I must stand up and deny them. At least, +such scandal-mongers should be made to prove their statements." + +"Oh, Ruth Fielding! That is not a kind word," said Mrs. Crothers. + +"Will you supply me with one that will satisfactorily take its place?" +asked Ruth sweetly. "I do not wish to accuse Mrs. Mantel of actually +prevaricating; but I do claim the right of asking her to prove her +statements, and that she seems to decline to do. + +"And I shall challenge every person I meet who utters such false and +ridiculous stories about the Red Cross. It is an out-and-out pro-German +propaganda." + +"Why, Mrs. Mantel is a member of the Red Cross herself," said Mrs. +Crothers sharply. + +"She evidently is not loyal to her pledge then," Ruth replied with +bluntness. "The lady is not a member of our local chapter, and I have +failed yet to hear of her being engaged in any activity for the Red +Cross. + +"But I want you ladies--all of you--to take the Red Cross work to heart +and to learn what the insignia stands for." + +With that the earnest girl entered upon a brief but moving appeal for +members to the local chapter, for funds, and for workers. As Helen said +afterward, Ruth's "mouth was opened and she spake with the tongues of +angels!" + +At least, her words did not go for naught. Several dollar memberships +were secured right there and then. And Mrs. Brooks and Mary Lardner +promised a certain sum for the cause--both generous gifts. Best of all, +Mrs. Pubsby said: + +"I don't know about this being shown our duty by this wisp of a girl. +But, ladies, she's right--I can feel it. And I always go by my feelings, +whether it's in protracted meetings or in my rheumatic knee. I feel we +must do our part. + +"This gray woolen sock I'm knitting was for my Ezekiel. But my Ezey has +got plenty socks. From now on I'm going to knit 'em for those poor +soldiers who will like enough get their feet wet ditching over there in +France, and will want plenty changes of socks." + +So Ruth started something that afternoon, and she went on doing more and +more. Cheslow began to awake slowly. The local chapter rooms began to +hum with life for several hours every day and away into the evening. + +In the Cameron car, which Helen drove so that a chauffeur could be +relieved to go into the army, the two girls drove all about the +countryside, interesting the scattered families in war work and picking +up the knitted goods made in the farmhouses and villages. + +In many places they had to combat the same sort of talk that the woman +in black was giving forth. Ruth was patient, but very insistent that the +Red Cross deserved no such criticism. + +"Come into Cheslow and see what we are doing there at our local +headquarters. I will take you in and bring you back. I'll take you to +the county headquarters at Robinsburg. You will there hear men and women +speak who know much more than I do about the work." + +This was the way she pleaded for fairness and public interest, and a +ride in a fine automobile was a temptation to many of the women and +girls. An afternoon in the rooms of a live Red Cross chapter usually +convinced and converted most of these "Doubting Thomasines," as Helen +called them. + +Working with wool and other goods was all right. But money was needed. A +country-wide drive was organized, and Ruth was proud that she was +appointed on the committee to conduct it. Mr. Cameron, who was a wealthy +department store owner in the city, was made chairman of this special +committee, and he put much faith in the ability of the girl of the Red +Mill and his own daughter to assist materially in the campaign for +funds. + +"Get hold of every hardshell farmer in the county," he told the girls. +"Begin with your Uncle Jabez, Ruthie. If he leads with a goodly sum many +another old fellow who keeps his surplus cash in a stocking or in the +broken teapot on the top cupboard shelf will come to time. + +"The reason it is so hard to get contributions out of men like Jabez +Potter," said Mr. Cameron with a chuckle, "is because nine times out of +ten it means the giving up of actual money. They have their cash hid +away. It isn't making them a penny, but they like to hoard it, and some +of 'em actually worship it. + +"And not to be wondered at. It comes hard. Their backs are bent and +their fingers knotted from the toil of acquiring hard cash, dollar by +dollar and cent by cent. It is much easier to write a check for a +hundred dollars to give to a good cause than it is to dig right down +into one's jeans and haul out a ten-dollar note." + +Ruth knew just how hard this was going to be--to interest the purses of +the farming community in the Red Cross drive. The farmers' wives and +daughters were making their needles fly, but the men merely considered +the work something like the usual yearly attempt to get funds out of +them for foreign missions. + +"I tell ye what, Niece Ruth, I got my doubts," grumbled Uncle Jabez, +when she broached the subject of his giving generously to the cause. "I +dunno about so much money being needed for what you're callin' the +'waste of war'!" + +"If you read those statistics, compiled under the eyes of Government +agents," she told him, "you must be convinced that it is already proved +by what has happened in France and Belgium--and in other countries--during +the three years of war, that all this money will be needed, and more." + +"I dunno. Millions! Them is a power of dollars, Niece Ruth. You and lots +of other folks air too willing to spend money that other folks have +airned by the sweat of their brows." + +He offered her a sum that she was really ashamed to put down at the top +of her subscription paper. She went about her task in the hope that +Uncle Jabez's purse and heart would both be opened for the cause. + +Not that he was not patriotic. He was willing--indeed anxious--to go to +the front and give his body for the cause of liberty. But Uncle Jabez +seemed to love his dollars better than he did his body. + +"Give him time, dearie, give him time," murmured Aunt Alvirah, rocking +back and forth in her low chair. "The idea of giving up a dollar to +Jabez Potter's mind is bigger than the shooting of a thousand men. Poor +boys! Poor boys! How many of them may lack comforts and hospitals while +the niggard people like Jabez Potter air wakin' up?" + +Ruth's heart was very sore about the going over of the American +expeditionary forces at this time, too. She said little to Helen about +it, but the fact that Tom Cameron--her very oldest friend about the Red +Mill and Cheslow--looked forward to going at the first moment possible, +brought the war very close to the girl. + +The feeling within her that she should go across to France and actually +help in some way grew stronger and stronger as the days went by. Then +came a letter from Jennie Stone. + +"Heavy," as she had always been called in school and even in college, +was such a fun-loving, light-hearted girl that it quite shocked both +Ruth and Helen when they learned that she was already in real work for +the poor poilus and was then about to sail for France. + +Jennie Stone's people were wealthy, and her social acquaintances were, +many of them, idle women and girls. But the war had awakened these +drones, and with them the plump girl. An association for the +establishment and upkeep of a convalescent home in France had been +formed in Jennie's neighborhood, and Jennie, who had always been fond of +cooking--both in the making of the dishes and the assimilation of the +same--was actually going to work in the diet kitchen. + +"And who knows," the letter ended in Heavy's characteristic way, "but +that I shall fall in love with one of the _blesses_. What a sweet name +for a wounded soldier! And, just tell me! Do you think it possible? Can +a poilu love a fat girl?" + + + + +CHAPTER V--"THE BOYS OF THE DRAFT" + + +"My goodness, Ruth Fielding!" demanded Helen, after reading the +characteristic letter from Jennie Stone, "if she can go to France why +can't we?" + +Helen's changed attitude did not surprise her chum much. Ruth was quite +used to Helen's vagaries. The latter was very apt to declare against a +course of action, for herself or her friends, and then change over +night. + +The thought of her twin brother going to war had at first shocked and +startled Helen. Now she added: + +"For you know very well, Ruth Fielding, that Tom Cameron should not be +allowed to go over there to France all alone." + +"Goodness, Helen!" gasped the girl of the Red Mill, "you don't suppose +that Tom is going to constitute an Army of Invasion in his own person, +and attempt to whip the whole of Germany before the rest of Uncle Sam's +boys jump in?" + +"You may laugh!" cried Helen. "He's only a boy--and boys can't get along +without somebody to look out for them. He never would change his +flannels at the right time, or keep his feet dry." + +"I know you have always felt the overwhelming responsibility of Tom's +upbringing, even when he was at Seven Oaks and you and I were at +Briarwood." + +"Every boy needs the oversight of some feminine eye. And I expect he'll +fall in love with the first French girl he meets over there unless I'm +on the spot to warn him," Helen went on. + +"They are most attractive, I believe," laughed Ruth cheerfully. + +"'Chic,' as Madame Picolet used to say. You remember her, our French +teacher at Briarwood?" Helen said. + +"Poor little Picolet!" Ruth returned with some gravity. "Do you know she +has been writing me?" + +"Madame Picolet? You never said a word about it!" + +"But you knew she returned to France soon after the war began?" + +"Oh, yes. I knew that. But--but, to tell the truth, I hadn't thought of +her at all for a long time. Why does she write to you?" + +"For help," said Ruth quietly. "She has a work among soldiers' widows +and orphans--a very worthy charity, indeed. I looked it up." + +"And sent her money, I bet!" cried the vigorous Helen. + +"Why--yes--what I felt I could spare," Ruth admitted. + +"And never told any of us girls about it. Think! All the Briarwood girls +who knew little Picolet!" Helen said with some heat. "Why shouldn't we +have had a part in helping her, too?" + +"My dear," said her chum seriously, "do you realize how little interest +any of us felt in the war until this last winter? And now our own dear +country is in it and we must think of our own boys who are going, rather +than of the needs of the French, or the British, or even the Belgians." + +"Oh, Ruth!" cried Helen suddenly, "perhaps Madame Picolet might help us +to get over there." + +"Over to France?" + +"I mean to get into some work in France. She knows us. She may have some +influence," said the eager Helen. + +But Ruth slowly shook her head. "No," she said. "If I go over there it +must be to work for our own boys. They are going. They will need us. I +want to do my all for Uncle Sam--for these United States--and," she added, +pointing to Uncle Jabez's flag upon the pole in front of the Red Mill +farmhouse, "for the blessed old flag. I am sorry for the wounded of our +allies; but the time has come now for us to think of the needs of our +own soldiers first. They are going over. First our regular army and the +guard; then the boys of the draft." + +"Ah, yes! The boys of the draft," sighed Helen. + +Suddenly Ruth seized her chum's wrist. "I've got it, Helen! That is it! +'_The boys of the draft._'" + +"Goodness! What's the matter with you now?" demanded Helen, wide-eyed. + +"We will screen it. It will be great!" cried Ruth. "I'll go and see Mr. +Hammond at once. I can write the scenario in a few days, and it will not +take long to film it. The story of the draft, and what the Red Cross can +and will do for the boys over there. Put it on the screen and show it +wherever a Red Cross drive is made during the next few months. We'll do +it, Helen!" + +"Oh! Yes! We'll--do--it!" gasped her chum breathlessly. "You mean that you +will do it and that I haven't the first idea of what it is you mean to +do." + +"Of course you have. A big film called 'The Boys of the Draft,' taking a +green squad right through their training from the very first day they +are in camp. Fake the French and war scenes, of course, but show the +spectators just what may and will happen over there and what the Red +Cross will do for the brave hearts who fight for the country." + +Ruth was excited. No doubt of that. Her cheeks burned. Her eyes shone. +She gestured vigorously. + +"I know you don't see it as I do, honey," she added. "I can visualize +the whole thing right now. And Helen!" + +"Goodness, yes!" gasped Helen. "What now?" + +"I'm going to make Uncle Jabez see it! You just see if I don't." + + + + +CHAPTER VI--THE PATRIOTISM OF THE PURSE + + +While she was yet at boarding school at Briarwood Hall Ruth had been +successful in writing a scenario for the Alectrion Film Corporation. +This is told of in "Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures." Its production +had been a matter to arouse both the interest and amazement of her +friends. Mr. Hammond, the president of the film-producing company, +considered her a genius in screen matters, and it was a fact that she +had gained a very practical grasp of the whole moving picture business. + +"The Heart of a Schoolgirl," which Ruth had written under spur of a +great need at Briarwood Hall, had practically rebuilt one of the +dormitories which had been destroyed by fire at a time when the +insurance on that particular building had run out. + +One of her romantic scenarios had been screened at the Red Mill and on +the picturesque Lumano and along its banks. Then, less than a year +before, "The Forty-Niners" had been made; and during the succeeding +winter this picture had been shown all over the country and, as the +theatrical people say, "had played to big business." + +Ruth had bought stock in the corporation and was sometimes actually +consulted now by Mr. Hammond and the heads of departments as to the +policies of the concern. As the president of the corporation had already +written her, the time was about ripe for another "big" film. + +Ruth Fielding was expected to suggest the idea, at least, although the +working out of the story would probably be left to the director in the +field. He knew his people, his properties, and his locations. The bare +skeleton of the story was what Mr. Hammond wanted. + +Ruth's success in making virile "The Forty-Niners" urged Mr. Hammond to +hope for something as good from her now. And, like most composers of +every kind, the real inspiration for the new reel wonder had leaped to +life on the instant in her brain. + +The idea of "The Boys of the Draft" came from her talk with her chum, +Helen Cameron. Helen had a limited amount of pride in Ruth's success on +this occasion for, as she said, she had blunderingly "sicked Ruth on." +But, oddly enough, Ruth Fielding's first interest in the success of the +new picture was in what effect it might have upon Uncle Jabez Potter's +purse. + +The drive for Red Cross contributions was on now all over the country. +That effort confined to the county in which Cheslow and the Red Mill +were located had begun early; but it had gone stumblingly. Indeed, as +Helen said, if it was a drive, it was about like driving home the cows! + +Mr. Cameron had expected much of Ruth and his own daughter among the +farming people; but they were actually behind the collectors who worked +in the towns. It was at a time in the year when the men of the scattered +communities were working hard out of doors; and it is difficult to +interest farmers in anything but their crops during the growing season. +Indeed, it is absolutely necessary that they should give their main +attention to those crops if a good harvest is to be secured. + +But Ruth felt that she was failing in this work for the Red Cross just +because she could not interest her uncle, the old miller, sufficiently +in the matter. If she could not get him enthused, how could she expect +to obtain large contributions from strangers? + +After seeing a screen production of Ruth's play of the old West Uncle +Jabez had for the first time realized what a really wonderful thing the +filming of such pictures was. He admitted that Ruth's time was not being +thrown away. + +Then, he respected the ability of anybody who could make money, and he +saw this girl, whom he had "taken in out of charity" as he had more than +once said, making more money in a given time--and making it more +easily--than he did in his mill and through his mortgages and mining +investments. + +If Uncle Jabez did not actually bow down to the Golden Calf, he surely +did think highly of financial success. And he had begun to realize that +all this education Ruth had been getting (quite unnecessary he had first +believed) had led her into a position where she was "making good." + +Through this slant in Uncle Jabez's mind the girl began to hope that she +might encourage him to do much more for the cause her heart was so set +on than he seemed willing to do. Uncle Jabez was patriotic, but his +patriotism had not as yet affected his pocket. + +As soon as Uncle Jabez knew that Ruth contemplated helping to make +another picture he showed interest. He wanted to know about it, and he +figured with Aunt Alvirah "how much that gal might make out'n her +idees." + +"For goodness' sake, Jabez Potter!" exclaimed the little old woman, +"ain't you got airy idee in your head 'cept money making?" + +"I calc'late," said the miller grimly, "that it's my idees about money +in the past has give me what I've got." + +"But our Ruthie is going to git up a big, patriotic picture--somethin' to +stir the hearts of the people when they think the boys air actually +going over to help them French folks win the war." + +"I wish," cried the old woman shrilly, "that I warn't too old and too +crooked, to do something myself for the soldiers. But my back an' my +bones won't let me, Jabez. And I ain't got no bank account. All I can do +is to pray." + +The miller looked at her with his usual grim smile. Perhaps it was a +little quizzical on this occasion. + +"Do you calc'late to do any prayin' about this here filum Ruth is going +to make, 'The Boys of the Draft'?" he asked. + +"I sartinly be--for her success and the good it may do." + +"By gum! she'll make money, then," declared Uncle Jabez, who had +unbounded faith in the religion Aunt Alvirah professed--but he did not. + +Ruth, hearing this, developed another of her inspirational ideas. Uncle +Jabez fell into a trap she laid for him, after having taken Mr. Hammond +into her confidence regarding what she proposed doing. + +"I reckon you'll make a mint of money out'n this draft story," the +miller said one evening, when the actual work on the photographing of +the film was well under way. + +"I hope so," admitted Ruth slowly. "But I am afraid some parts of it +will have to be cut or changed because it would cost more than Mr. +Hammond cares to put into it at this time. You know, the Alectrion +Corporation is in the field with several big things, and it takes a lot +of money." + +"Why don't he borry it?" demanded the miller sharply. + +"He never does that. The only way in which he accepts outside capital is +to let moneyed men buy into a picture he is making, taking their chance +along with the rest of us that the picture will be a success." + +"Yep. An' if it ain't a success?" asked the miller shrewdly. + +"Then their money is lost." + +"Ahem! That's a hard sayin'," muttered the old man. "But if it does make +a hit--like that Forty-Niner story of yourn, Niece Ruth--then the feller +that buys in makes a nice little pile?" + +"Our successes," Ruth said with pride, "have run from fifty to two +hundred per cent profit." + +"My soul! Two hunderd! Ain't that perfec'ly scand'lous?" muttered Uncle +Jabez. "An' here jest last week I let Amos Blodgett have a thousand +dollars on his farm at five an' a ha'f per cent." + +"But that investment is perfectly safe," Ruth said slyly. + +"My soul! Yes. Blodgett's lower forty's wuth more'n the mortgage. But +sech winnin's as you speak of----! Niece Ruth how much is needed to make +this picture the kind of a picture you want it to be?" + +She told him--as she and Mr. Hammond had already agreed. The idea was to +divide the cost in three parts and let Uncle Jabez invest to the amount +of one of the shares if he would. + +"But, you see, Uncle Jabez, Mr. Hammond does not feel as confident as I +do about 'The Boys of the Draft,' nor has he the same deep interest in +the picture. I want it to be a success--and I believe it will be--because +of the good it will do the Red Cross campaign for funds." + +"Humph!" grunted the miller. "I'm bankin' on your winnin' anyway." And +perhaps his belief in the efficacy of Aunt Alvirah Boggs' prayers had +something to do with his "buying into" the new picture. + +The screening of the great film was rushed. A campaign of advertising +was entered into and the fact that a share of the profits from the film +was to be devoted to Red Cross work made it popular at once. But Uncle +Jabez showed some chagrin. + +"What's the meanin' of it?" he demanded. "Who's goin' to give his share +of the profits to any Red Cross? Not me!" + +"But I am, Uncle Jabez," Ruth said lightly. "That was my intention from +the first. But, of course, that has nothing to do with you." + +"I sh'd say not! I sh'd say not!" grumbled the miller. "I ain't likely +to git into a good thing an' then throw the profit away. I sh'd say +not!" + +The film was shown in New York, in several other big cities, and in +Cheslow simultaneously. Ruth arranged for this first production with the +proprietor of the best movie house in the local town, because she was +anxious to see it and could not spare the time to go to New York. + +Mr. Hammond, as though inspired by Ruth's example, telegraphed on the +day of the first exhibition of the film that he would donate his share +of the profits as well to the Red Cross. + +"'Nother dern fool!" sputtered Uncle Jabez. "Never see the beat. Wal! if +you'n he both want to give 'way a small fortune, it's your own business, +I suppose. All the less need of me givin' any of my share." + +He went with Ruth to see the production of the film. Indeed, he would +not have missed that "first night" for the world. The pretty picture +house was crowded. It had got so that when anything from the pen of the +girl of the Red Mill was produced the neighbors made a gala day of it. + +Ruth Fielding was proud of her success. And she had nothing on this +occasion to be sorry for, the film being a splendid piece of work. + +But, aside from this fact, "The Boys of the Draft" was opportune, and +the audience was more than usually sensitive. The very next day the +first quota of the drafted boys from Cheslow would march away to the +training camp. + +The hearts of the people were stirred. They saw a faithful reproduction +of what the boys would go through in training, what they might endure in +the trenches, and particularly what the Red Cross was doing for soldiers +under similar conditions elsewhere. + +As though spellbound, Uncle Jabez sat through the long reel. The appeal +at the end, with the Red Cross nurse in the hospital ward, the dying +soldier's head pillowed upon her breast while she whispered the comfort +into his dulling ear that his mother would have whispered---- + +Ah, it brought the audience to its feet at the "fadeout"--and in tears! +It was so human, so real, so touching, that there was little audible +comment as they filed out to the soft playing of the organ. + +But Uncle Jabez burst out helplessly when they were in the street. He +wiped the tears from the hard wrinkles of his old face with frankness +and his voice was husky as he declared: + +"Niece Ruth! I'm converted to your Red Cross. Dern it all! you kin have +ev'ry cent of my share of the profit on that picter--ev'ry cent!" + + + + +CHAPTER VII--ON THE WAY + + +Tom Cameron came home on a furlough from the officers' training camp the +day that the boys of the first draft departed from Cheslow. It stabbed +the hearts of many mothers and fathers with a quick pain to see him +march through the street so jaunty and debonair. + +"Why, Tommy!" his sister cried. "You're a _man!_" + +"Lay off! Lay off!" begged her twin, not at all pleased. "You might have +awakened to the fact that I was out of rompers some years ago. Your +eyesight has been bad." + +Indeed, he was rather inclined to ignore her and "flock with his +father," as Helen put it to Ruth. The father and son had something in +common now that the girl could not altogether understand. They sat +before the cold grate in the library, their chairs drawn near to each +other, and smoked sometimes for an hour without saying a word. + +"But, Ruthie," Helen said, her eyes big and moist, "each seems to know +just what the other is thinking about. Sometimes papa says a word, and +sometimes Tom; and the other nods and there is perfect understanding. +It--it's almost uncanny." + +"I think I know what you mean," said the more observant girl of the Red +Mill. "We grew up some time ago, Helen. And you know we have rather +thought of Tom as a boy, still. + +"But he is a man now. There is a difference in the sexes in their +attitude to this war which should establish in all our minds that we are +not equal." + +"Who aren't equal?" demanded Helen, almost wrathfully, for she was a +militant feminist. + +"Men and women are not equal, dear. And they never will be. Wearing +mannish clothes and doing mannish labor will never give women the same +outlook upon life that men have. And when men encourage us to believe +that our minds are the same as theirs, they do it almost always for +their own selfish ends--or because there is something feminine about +their minds." + +"Traitor!" cried Helen. + +"No," sighed Ruth. "Only honesty. + +"Tom and his father understand each other's thoughts and feelings as you +and your father never could. After all, in the strongest association +between father and daughter there is the barrier of sex that cannot be +surmounted. You know yourself, Helen, that at a certain point you +consider your father much of a big boy and treat him accordingly. That, +they tell us, is the 'mother instinct' in the female, and I guess it is. + +"On the other hand, I have seen girls and their mothers together (we +never had mothers after we were little kiddies, Helen, and we've missed +it) but I have seen such perfect understanding and appreciation between +mothers and their daughters that it was as though the same soul dwelt in +two bodies." + +Helen sniffed in mingled scorn and doubt over Ruth's philosophy. Then +she said in an aggrieved tone: "But papa and Tom ought not to shut me +out of their lives--even in a small way." + +"The penalty of being a girl," replied Ruth, practically. "Tom doesn't +believe, I suppose, that girls would quite understand his manly +feelings," she added with a sudden elfish smile. + +"Cat's foot!" ejaculated the twin, with scorn. + +Tom Cameron, however, did not run altogether true to form if Ruth was +right in her philosophy. He had always been used to talking seriously at +times with Ruth, and during this furlough he found time to have a long +and confidential talk with the girl of the Red Mill. This might be the +only furlough he would have before sailing for France, for he had +already obtained his commission as second lieutenant. + +There was an understanding between the young man and Ruth Fielding--an +unspoken and tacit feeling that they were "made for each other." They +were young. Ruth's thoughts had never dwelt much upon love and marriage. +She never looked on each man she met half-wonderingly as a possible +husband. She had never met any man with this feeling. Perhaps, in part, +that was, unconsciously to herself, because Tom had always been so a +part of her life and her thoughts. Lately, however, she had come to the +realization that if Tom should really ask her to marry him when his +education was completed and he was established in the world, the girl of +the Red Mill would be very likely to consider his offer seriously. + +"Things aren't coming out just as we had planned, Ruth," the young man +said on this occasion. "I guess this war is going to knock a lot of +plans in the head. If it lasts several years, many of us fellows, if we +come through it safely, will feel that we are too old to go back to +college. + +"Can you imagine a fellow who has spent months in the trenches, and has +done the things that the soldiers are having to do and to endure and to +learn over there--can you imagine his coming back here and going to +school again?" + +"Oh, Tom! I suppose that is so. The returned soldier must feel vastly +older and more experienced in every way than men who have never heard +the bursting of shells and the rattle of machine guns. Oh, dear, Tommy! +Are we going to know you at all when you come back?" + +"Maybe not," grinned Tom. "I may raise whiskers. Most of the poilus do, +I understand. But you could not really imagine a regiment of Uncle Sam's +soldiers that were not clean shaven." + +"We want to see it all, too--Helen and I," Ruth said, sighing. "We are so +far away from the front." + +"Goodness!" he exclaimed. "I should think you would be glad." + +"But some women must go," Ruth told him gravely. "Why not us?" + +"You---- Well, I don't know about you, Ruth. You seem somehow different. I +expect you could look out for yourself anywhere. But Helen hasn't got +your sense." + +"Hear him!" gasped Ruth. + +"It's true," he declared doggedly. "She hasn't. Father and I have talked +it over. Nell is crazy to go--and I tell father he would be crazy to let +her. But it may be that he will go to London and Paris himself, for +there is some work he can do for the Government. Of course, Helen would +insist upon accompanying him in that event." + +"Oh, Tom!" exclaimed Ruth again. + +"Why, they'd take you along, of course, if you wanted to go," said Tom. + +"But I don't wish to go in any such way," the girl of the Red Mill +declared. "I want to go for just one purpose--_to help_. And it must be +something worth while. There will be enough dilettante assistants in +every branch of the work. My position must mean something to the cause, +as well as to me, or I will stay right here in Cheslow." + +He looked at her with the old admiration dawning in his eyes. + +"Ah! The same old Ruthie, aren't you?" he murmured. "The same +independent, ambitious girl, whose work must _count_. Well, I fancy your +chance will come. We all seem to be on our way. I wonder to what end?" + +There was no sentimental outcome of their talk. After all they were only +over the line between boy-and-girlhood and the grown-up state. Tom was +too much of a man to wish to anchor a girl to him by any ties when the +future was so uncertain. And nothing had really ever happened to them to +stir those deeper passions which must rise to the surface when two +people talk of love. + +They were merely the best of friends. They had no other ties of a warmer +nature than those which bound them in friendship to each other. They +felt confidence in each other if the future was propitious; but now---- + +"I am sure you will make your mark in the army, Tom, dear," Ruth said to +him. "And I shall think of you--wherever you are and wherever I +am--always!" + + + + +CHAPTER VIII--THE NEAREST DUTY + + +The county drive for Red Cross funds had been a great success; and many +people declared that Ruth's work had been that which had told the most +in the effort. Uncle Jabez inspired many of the more parsimonious of the +county to follow his lead in giving to the cause. And, of course, "The +Boys of the Draft" was making money for the Red Cross all over the +country, as well as in and about Cheslow. + +After Tom Cameron went back to camp Ruth's longing for real service in +the war work fairly obsessed her mind. She could, of course, offer +herself to do some unimportant work in France, paying her own +transportation and expenses, and become one of that small army of women +who first went over, many of whom were more ornamental, if the truth +were told, than useful in the grim work that was to follow. + +But the girl of the Red Mill, as she told Tom Cameron, wished to make +whatever she did count. Yet she was spurred by no inordinate desire for +praise or adulation. Merely she wanted to feel that she actually was +doing her all for Uncle Sam. + +Being untrained in nursing it could not be hospital work--not of the +usual kind. Ruth wanted something that her capabilities fitted. +Something she could do and do well. Something that was of a responsible +nature and would count in the long run for the cause of humanity. + +Meanwhile she did not refuse the small duties that fell to her lot. She +was always ready to "jump in" and do her share in any event. Helen often +said that her chum's doctrinal belief was summed up in the quotation +from the Sunday school hymn: "You in your small corner, and I in mine!" + +One day at the Cheslow chapter it was said that there was need of +somebody who could help out in the supply department of the State +Headquarters in Robinsburg. A woman or girl was desired who would not +have to be paid a salary, and preferably one who could pay her own +living expenses. + +"That's me!" exclaimed Ruth to Helen. "I certainly can fill that bill." + +"But it really amounts to nothing, dear," her chum said doubtfully. "It +seems a pity to waste your brain and perfectly splendid ideas for +organization and the like in such a position." + +"Fiddle-de-dee!" ejaculated Ruth, quoting Uncle Jabez. "Nobody has yet +appreciated my 'perfectly splendid ideas of organization,'" and she +repeated the phrase with some scorn, "so I would better put forward some +of my more simple talents. I have a good head for figures, I can letter +packages, I can even stick stamps on letters and do other office work. +My capabilities will not be strained. And, then," she added, "I feel +that in State Headquarters I may be in a better position to 'grab off' +something really worth while." + +"'Johannah on the spot,' as it were?" said Helen. "But you'll have to go +down there to live, Ruthie." + +"The Y. W. C. A. will take me in, I am sure," declared her friend. "I am +not afraid of being alone in a great city--at my age and with my +experience!" + +She telephoned to Robinsburg and was told to come on. Naturally, by this +time, the heads of the State Red Cross, at least, knew who Ruth Fielding +was. + +But every girl who had raised a large sum of money for the cause was not +suited to such work as was waiting for her at headquarters. She knew +that she must prove her fitness. + +Helen took her over in the car the next morning and was inclined to be +tearful when they separated. + +"Just does seem as though I couldn't get on without you, Ruthie!" she +cried. + +"Why, you are worse than poor Aunt Alvirah! Every time I go away from +home she acts as though I might never come back again. And as for you, +Helen Cameron, you have plenty to do. You have my share of Red Cross +work in Cheslow to do as well as your own. Don't forget that." + +Headquarters was a busy place. The very things Ruth told Helen she could +do, she did do--and a multitude besides. Everything was systematized, and +the work went on in a businesslike manner. Everybody was working hard +and unselfishly. + +At least, so Ruth at first thought. Then, before she had been there two +days, she chanced into another department upon an errand and came face +to face with Mrs. Rose Mantel, the woman in black. + +"Oh! How d'do!" said the woman with her set smile. "I heard you were +coming here to help us, Miss Fielding. Hope you'll like it." + +"I hope so," Ruth returned gravely. + +She had very little to say to the woman in black, although the latter, +as the days passed, seemed desirous of ingratiating herself into the +college girl's good opinion. But that Mrs. Mantel could not do. + +It seemed that Mrs. Mantel was an expert bookkeeper and accountant. She +confided to Ruth that, before she had married and "dear Herny" had died, +she had been engaged in the offices of one of the largest cotton +brokerage houses in New Orleans. She still had a little money left from +"poor Herny's" insurance, and she could live on that while she was +"doing her bit" for the Red Cross. + +Ruth made no comment. Of a sudden Mrs. Mantel seemed to have grown +patriotic. No more did she repeat slanders of the Red Cross, but was +working for that organization. + +Ruth Fielding would not forbid a person "seeing the light" and becoming +converted to the worthiness of the cause; but somehow she could not take +Mrs. Mantel and her work at their face value. + +Gradually, as the weeks fled, Ruth became acquainted with others of the +busy workers; with Mr. Charles Mayo, who governed this headquarters and +seldom spoke of anything save the work--so she did not know whether he +had a family, or social life, or anything else but just Red Cross. + +There was a Mr. Legrand, whom she did not like so well. He seemed to be +a Frenchman, although he spoke perfect English. He was a dark man with +steady, keen eyes behind thick lenses, and, unusual enough in this day, +he wore a heavy beard. His voice was a bark, but it did not seem that he +meant to be unpleasant. + +Legrand and a man named Jose, who could be nothing but a Mexican, often +were with the woman in black--both in the offices and out of them. Ruth +took her meals at a restaurant near by, although she roomed in the Y. W. +C. A. building, as she said she should. In that restaurant she often saw +the woman in black dining with her two cavaliers, as Ruth secretly +termed Legrand and Jose. + +It was a trio that the girl of the Red Mill found herself interested in, +but with whom she wished to have nothing to do. + +All sorts and conditions of people, however, were turning to Red Cross +work. "Why," Ruth asked herself, "criticize the intentions of any of +them?" She felt sometimes as though her condemnation of Mrs. Mantel, +even though secret, was really wicked. + +But in the bookkeeping and accounting department--handling the funds that +came in, as well as the expense accounts--a dishonest person might do +much harm to the cause. And Ruth knew in her heart that Mrs. Mantel was +not an honest woman. + +Her tale that day at the Ladies' Aid Society, in Cheslow, had been +false--strictly false. The woman knew it at the time, and she knew it +now. Ruth was sure that every time Mrs. Mantel looked at her with her +set smile she was thinking that Ruth had caught her in a prevarication +and had not forgotten it. + +Yet the girl of the Red Mill felt that she could say nothing about Mrs. +Mantel to Mr. Mayo, or to anybody else in authority. She had no proved +facts. + +Besides, she had never been so busy before in all her life, and Ruth +Fielding was no sluggard. It seemed as though every moment of her waking +hours was filled and running over with duties. + +She often worked long into the evening in her department at the Red +Cross bureau. She might have missed the folks at home and her girl +friends more had it not been for the work that crowded upon her. + +One evening, as she came down from the loft above the business office +where she had been working alone, she remarked that there was a light in +the office. Mrs. Mantel and her assistants did not usually work at +night. + +The door stood ajar. Ruth looked in with frank curiosity. She saw Mr. +Jose, the black-looking Mexican, alone in the room. He had taken both of +the chemical fire extinguishers from the wall--one had hung at one end of +the room and the other at the other end--and was doing something to them. +Repairing them, perhaps, or merely cleaning them. He sat there +cheerfully whistling in a low tone and manipulating a polishing rag, or +something of the kind. He had a bucket beside him. + +"I wonder if he can't sleep nights, and that is why he is so busily +engaged?" thought Ruth, as she went on out of the building. "I never +knew of his being so workative before." + +But the matter made no real impression on her mind. It was a transitory +thought entirely. She went to her clean little cell in the Y. W. C. A. +home and forgot all about Mr. Jose and the fire extinguishers. + + + + +CHAPTER IX--TOM SAILS, AND SOMETHING ELSE HAPPENS + + +"You can see your son, Second Lieutenant Thomas Cameron, before he sails +for France, if you will be at the Polk Hotel, at eight o'clock to-morrow +p. m." + +There have been other telegrams sent and received of more moment than +the above, perhaps; but none that could have created a more profound +impression in the Cameron household. + +There have been not a few similar messages put on the telegraph wires +and received by anxious parents during these months since America has +really got into the World War. + +There is every necessity for secrecy in the sailing of the transports +for France. The young officers themselves have sometimes told more to +their relatives than they should before the hour of sailing. So the War +Department takes every precaution to safeguard the crossing of our boys +who go to fight the Huns. + +With Mr. Cameron holding an important government position and being +ready himself to go across before many weeks, it was only natural that +he should have this information sent him that he might say good-bye to +Tom. The latter had already been a fortnight with "his boys" in the +training camp and was fixed in his assignment to his division of the +expeditionary forces. + +Ruth chanced to be at the Outlook, as the Cameron home was called, for +over Sunday when this telegram was received. Both she and Helen were +vastly excited. + +"Oh, I'm going with you! I must see Tommy once more," cried the twin +with an outburst of sobs and tears that made her father very unhappy. + +"My dear! You cannot," Mr. Cameron tried to explain. + +"I can! I must!" the girl cried. "I know I'll never see Tommy again. +He--he's going over there to--to be shot----" + +"Don't, dear!" begged Ruth, taking her chum into her arms. "You must not +talk that way. This is war----" + +"And is war altogether a man's game? Aren't we to have anything to say +about it, or what the Government shall do with our brothers?" + +"It is no game," sighed Ruth Fielding. "It is a very different thing. +And our part in it is to give, and give generously. Our loved ones if we +must." + +"I don't want to give Tom!" Helen declared. "I can never be patriotic +enough to give him to the country. And that's all there is to it!" + +"Be a good girl, Helen, and brace up," advised her father, but quite +appreciating the girl's feelings. There had always been a bond between +the Cameron twins stronger than that between most brothers and sisters. + +"I know I shall never see him again," wailed the girl. + +"I hope he'll not hear that you said that, dear," said the girl of the +Red Mill, shaking her head. "We must send him away with cheerfulness. +You tell him from me, Mr. Cameron, that I send my love and I hope he +will come back a major at least." + +"He'll be killed!" Helen continued to wail. "I know he will!" + +But that did not help things a mite. Mr. Cameron went off late that +night and reached the rendezvous called for in the telegram. It was in a +port from which several transports were sailing within a few hours, and +he came back with a better idea of what it meant for thousands of men +under arms to get away on a voyage across the seas. + +Tom was busy with his men; but he had time to take supper with his +father at the hotel and then got permission for Mr. Cameron to go aboard +the ship with him and see how comfortable the War Department had made +things for the expeditionary force. + +Mr. Cameron stopped at Robinsburg on his return to tell Ruth about it, +for she had returned to Headquarters, of course, on Monday, and was +working quite as hard as before. He brought, too, a letter for Ruth from +Tom, and just what their soldier-boy said in that missive the girl of +the Red Mill never told. + +Ruth was left, when her friends' father went on to Cheslow, with a great +feeling of emptiness in her life. It was not alone because of Tom's +departure for France; Mr. Cameron and Helen, too, would soon go across +the sea. + +Mr. Cameron had repeated Helen's offer--that Ruth should accompany them. +But the girl, though grateful, refused. She did not for a moment +belittle his efforts for the Government, or Helen's interest in the war. + +But Mr. Cameron was a member of a commission that was to investigate +certain matters and come back to make report. He would not be over there +long. + +As for Helen, Ruth was quite sure she would join some association of +wealthy women and girls in Paris, as Jennie Stone had, and consider that +she was "doing her bit." Ruth wanted something more real than that. She +was in earnest. She did not wish to be carefully sheltered from all hard +work and even from the dangers "over there." She desired a real part in +what was going forward. + +Nevertheless, while waiting her chance, she did not allow herself to +become gloomy or morose. That was not Ruth Fielding's way. + +"I always know where to come when I wish to see a cheerful face," Mr. +Mayo declared, putting his head in at her door one day. "You always have +a smile on tap. How do you do it?" + +"I practice before my glass every morning," Ruth declared, laughing. +"But sometimes, during the day, I'm afraid my expression slips. I can't +always remember to smile when I am counting and packing these sweaters, +and caps, and all, for the poor boys who, some of them, are going to +stand up and be shot, or gassed, or blinded by liquid fire." + +"It is hard," sighed the chief, wagging his head. "If it wasn't knowing +that we are doing just a little good----But not as much as I could wish! +Collections seem very small. Our report is not going to be all I could +wish this month." + +He went away, leaving Ruth with a thought that did not make it any +easier for her to smile. She saw people all day long coming into the +building and seeking out the cashier's desk, where Mrs. Mantel sat, to +hand over contributions of money to the Red Cross. If only each brought +a dollar there should be a large sum added to the local treasury each +day. + +There was no way of checking up these payments. The money passed through +the hands of the lady in black and only by her accounts on the day +ledger and a system of card index taken from that ledger by Mr. Legrand, +who worked as her assistant, could the record be found of the moneys +contributed to the Red Cross at this station. + +Ruth Fielding was not naturally of a suspicious disposition; but the +honesty of Mrs. Mantel and the real interest of that woman in the cause +were still keenly questioned in Ruth's mind. + +She wondered if Mr. Mayo knew who the woman really was. Was her story of +widowhood, and of her former business experience in New Orleans strictly +according to facts? What might be learned about the woman in black if +inquiry was made in that Southern city? + +Yet at times Ruth would have felt condemned for her suspicions had it +not been for the daily sight of Mrs. Mantel's hard smile and her black, +glittering eyes. + +"Snakes' eyes," thought the girl of the Red Mill. "Quite as bright and +quite as malevolent. Mrs. Mantel certainly does not love me, despite her +soft words and sweet smile." + +There was some stir in the headquarters at last regarding a large draft +of Red Cross workers to make up another expeditionary force to France. +Two full hospital units were going and a base supply unit as well. +Altogether several hundred men and women would sail in a month's time +for the other side. + +Ruth's heart beat quicker at the thought. Was there a prospect for her +to go over in some capacity with this quota? + +Most of the candidates for all departments of the expeditionary force +were trained in the work they were to do. It was ridiculous to hope for +an appointment in the hospital force. No nurse among them all had served +less than two years in a hospital, and many of them had served three and +four. + +She asked Mr. Mayo what billets there were open in the supply unit; but +the chief did not know. The State had supplied few workers as yet who +had been sent abroad; Robinsburg, up to this time, none at all. + +"Why, Miss Fielding, you must not think of going over there!" he cried. +"We need you here. If all our dependable women go to France, how shall +we manage here?" + +"You would manage very well," Ruth told him. "This should be a training +school for the work over there. I know that I can give any intelligent +girl such an idea of my work in three weeks that you would never miss +me." + +"Impossible, Miss Fielding!" + +"Quite possible, I assure you. I want to go. I feel I can do more over +there than I can here. A thousand girls who can't go could be found to +do what I do here. Approve my application, will you please, Mr. Mayo?" + +He did this after some hesitation. "Am I going to lose everybody at +once?" he grumbled. + +"Why, only poor little me," laughed Ruth Fielding. + +"Yours is the seventh application I have O.K.'d. And several others may +ask yet. The fire is spreading." + +"Oh! Who?" + +"We are going to lose Mrs. Mantel for one. I understand that the Red +Cross wants her for a much more important work in France." + +For a little while Ruth doubted after all if she so much desired to go +to France. The fact that Mrs. Mantel was going came as a shock to her +mind and made her hesitate. Suppose she should meet the woman in black +over there? Suppose her work should be connected with that of the woman +whom she so much suspected and disliked? + +Then her better sense and her patriotism came to the force. What had she +to do with Mrs. Mantel, after all? She was not the woman's keeper. Nor +could it be possible that Mrs. Mantel would disturb herself much over +Ruth Fielding, no matter where they might meet. + +Was Ruth Fielding willing to work for the Red Cross only in ways that +would be wholly pleasant and with people of whom she could entirely +approve? The girl asked herself this seriously. + +She put the thought behind her with distaste at her own narrowness of +vision. Born of Yankee stock, she was naturally conservative to the very +marrow of her bones. This New England attitude is not altogether a +curse; but it sometimes leads one out of broad paths. + +Surely the work was broad enough for both her and the woman in black to +do what they might without conflict. "I'll do my part; what has Mrs. +Mantel to do with me?" she determined. + +Before Ruth had a chance to tell her chum of the application she had put +in, Helen wrote her hurriedly that Mr. Cameron's commission was to sail +in two days from Boston. Ruth could not leave her work, but she wrote a +long letter to her dearest chum and sent it by special delivery to the +Boston hotel, where she knew the Camerons would stop for a night. + +It really seemed terrible, that her chum and her father should go +without Ruth seeing them again; but she did not wish to leave her work +while her application for an assignment to France was pending. It might +mean that she would lose her chance altogether. + +She only told Helen in the letter that she, too, hoped to be "over +there" some day soon. + +But several days slipped by and her case was not mentioned by Mr. Mayo. +It seemed pretty hard to Ruth. She was ready and able to go and nobody +wanted her! + +The weather chanced to be unpleasant, too, and that is often closely +linked up to one's very deepest feelings. Ruth's philosophy could not +overcome the effect of a foggy, dripping day. Her usual cheerfulness +dropped several degrees. + +It drew on toward evening, and the patter of raindrops on the panes grew +louder. The glistening umbrellas in the street, as she looked down upon +them from the window, looked like many, many black mushrooms. Ruth knew +she would have a dreary evening. + +Suddenly she heard a door bang on the floor below--a shout and then a +crash of glass. Next---- + +"Fire! Fire! Fire!" + +In an instant she was out of her room and at the head of the stairs. It +was an old building--a regular firetrap. Mr. Mayo had dashed out of his +office and was shouting up the stairs: + +"Come down! Down, every one of you! Fire!" + +Through the open transom over the door of Mrs. Mantel's office Ruth saw +that one end of the room was ablaze. + + + + +CHAPTER X--SUSPICIONS + + +There was a patter of feet overhead and racing down the stairway came +half a dozen frightened people. They had been aroused by Mr. Mayo's +shout, and they knew that if the flames reached the stairway first they +would be driven to the fire escape. + +There seemed little danger of the fire reaching the stairs, however; for +when Ruth got to the lower hall the door of the burning office had been +opened again, and she saw one of the porters squirting the chemical fire +extinguisher upon the blaze. + +Mr. Legrand had flung open the door, and he was greatly excited. He held +his left hand in his right, as though it were hurt. + +"Where is Mrs. Mantel?" demanded Mr. Mayo. + +"Gone!" gasped Legrand. "Lucky she did. That oil spread all over her +desk and papers. It's all afire." + +"I was opening a gallon of lubricating oil. It broke and spurted +everywhere. I cut myself--see?" + +He showed his hand. Ruth saw that blood seemed to be running from the +cut freely. But she was more interested in the efforts of the porter. +His extinguisher seemed to be doing very little good. + +Ruth heard Mr. Mayo trying to discover the cause of the fire; but Mr. +Legrand seemed unable to tell that. He ran out to a drugstore to have +his hand attended to. + +Mr. Mayo seized the second extinguisher from the wall. The porter flung +his down, at the same time yelling: + +"No good! No good, I tell you, Mr. Mayo! Everything's got to go. Those +extinguishers must be all wrong. The chemicals have evaporated, or +something." + +Mr. Mayo tried the one he had seized with no better result. While this +was going on Ruth Fielding suddenly remembered something--remembered it +with a shock. She had seen the man, Jose, tampering with those same +extinguishers some days before. + +While a certain spray was puffed forth from the nozzle of the +extinguisher, it seemed to have no effect on the flames which were, as +the porter declared, spreading rapidly. + +Mrs. Mantel's big desk and the file cabinet were all afire. Nothing +could save the papers and books. + +An alarm had been turned in by somebody, and now the first of the fire +department arrived. These men brought in extinguishers that had an +effect upon the flames at once. The fire was quite quenched in five +minutes more. + +Ruth had retreated to Mr. Mayo's office. She heard one of the fire +chiefs talking to the gentleman at the doorway. + +"What caused that blaze anyway?" the fireman demanded. + +"I understand some oil was spilled." + +"What kind of oil?" snapped the other. + +"Lubricating oil." + +"Nonsense! It acted more like benzine or naphtha to me. But you haven't +told me how it got lit up?" + +"I don't know. The porter says he first saw flames rising from the waste +basket between the big desk and the file cabinet," Mr. Mayo said. "Then +the fire spread both ways." + +"Well! The insurance adjusters will be after you. I've got to report my +belief. Looks as though somebody had been mighty careless with some +inflammable substance. What were you using oil at all for here?" + +"I--I could not tell you," Mr. Mayo said. "I will ask Mr. Legrand when he +comes back." + +But Ruth learned in the morning that Legrand had not returned. Nobody +seemed to know where he lived. Mrs. Mantel said he had moved recently, +but she did not know where to. + +The insurance adjusters did make a pertinent inquiry about the origin of +the fire. But nobody had been in the office with Legrand when it started +save the porter, and he had already told all he had seen. There was no +reason for charging anybody else with carelessness but the missing man. + +Save in one particular. Mrs. Mantel seemed horror-stricken when she saw +the charred remains of her desk and the file cabinet. The files of cards +were completely destroyed. The cards were merely brown husks--those that +were not ashes. The records of contributions for six months past were +completely burned. + +"But you, fortunately, have the ledgers in the safe, have you not, Mrs. +Mantel?" the Chief said. + +The woman in black broke down and wept. "How careless you will think me, +Mr. Mayo," she cried. "I left the two ledgers on my desk. Legrand said +he wished to compare certain figures----" + +"The ledgers are destroyed, too?" gasped the man. + +"There are their charred remains," declared the woman, pointing +dramatically to the burned debris where her desk had stood. + +There was not a line to show how much had been given to the Red Cross at +this station, or who had given it! When Mr. Mayo opened the safe he +found less than two thousand dollars in cash and checks and noted upon +the bank deposit book; and the month was almost ended. Payment was made +to Headquarters of all collections every thirty days. + +Mrs. Mantel seemed heartbroken. Legrand did not appear again at the Red +Cross rooms. But the woman in black declared that the funds as shown in +the safe must be altogether right, for she had locked the safe herself +and remembered that the funds were not more than the amount found. + +"But we have had some large contributions during the month, Mrs. +Mantel," Mr. Mayo said weakly. + +"Not to my knowledge, Mr. Mayo," the woman declared, her eyes flashing. +"Our contributions for some weeks have been scanty. People are getting +tired of giving to the Red Cross, I fear." + +Ruth heard something of this discussion, but not all. She did not know +what to think about Mrs. Mantel and Legrand. And then, there was Jose, +the man whom she had seen tampering with the fire extinguishers! + +Should she tell Mr. Mayo of her suspicions? Or should she go to the +office of the fire insurance adjustors? Or should she keep completely +out of the matter? + +Had Mr. Mayo been a more forceful man Ruth might have given him her +confidence. But she feared that, although he was a hard-working official +and loyal to the core, he did not possess the quality of wisdom +necessary to enable him to handle the situation successfully. + +Besides, just at this time, she heard from New York. Her application had +been investigated and she was informed that she would be accepted for +work with the base supply unit about to sail for France, with the +proviso, of course, that she passed the medical examination and would +pay her share of the unit's expenses and for her own support. + +She had to tell Mr. Mayo, bid good-bye to her fellow workers, and leave +Robinsburg within two hours. She had only three days to make ready +before going to New York, and she wished to spend all of that time at +the Red Mill. + + + + +Chapter XI--SAID IN GERMAN + + +Ruth Fielding had made preparations for travel many times before; but +this venture she was about to undertake was different from her previous +flights from the Red Mill. + +"Oh, my pretty! Oh, my pretty!" sighed Aunt Alvirah Boggs. "It seems as +though this life is just made up of partings. You ain't no more to home +than you're off again. And how do I know I shall ever set my two eyes on +you once more, Ruthie?" + +"I've always come back so far, Aunt Alvirah--like the bad penny that I +am," Ruth told her cheerfully. + +"Oh, my back! and oh, my bones!" groaned Aunt Alvirah, sinking into her +chair by the sunny window. "No bad penny in your case, my pretty. Your +returns air always like that of the bluebird's in the spring--and jest as +much for happiness as they say the bluebird is. What would your Uncle +Jabez and me do without you?" + +"But it will be only for a few months. I might remain away as long if I +returned to Ardmore for my junior year." + +"Ah, but that's not like going away over to France where there is so +much danger and trouble," the little old woman objected. + +"Don't worry about me, dear," urged Ruth, with great gentleness. + +"We don't know what may happen," continued Aunt Alvirah. "A single month +at my time o' life is longer'n a year at your age, my pretty." + +"Oh, I am sure to come back," Ruth cried. + +"We'll hope so. I shall pray for you, my pretty. But there'll be fear +eatin' at our hearts every day that you are so far from us." + +Uncle Jabez likewise expressed himself as loath to have her go; yet his +extreme patriotism inspired him to wish her Godspeed cheerfully. + +"I vum! I'd like to be goin' with you. Only with Old Betsey on my +shoulder!" declared the miller. "You don't want to take the old gun with +you, do you, Niece Ruth?" he added, with twinkling eyes. "I've had her +fixed. And she ought to be able to shoot a Hun or two yet." + +"I am not going to shoot Germans," said Ruth, shaking her head. "I only +hope to do what I can in saving our boys after the battles. I can't even +nurse them--poor dears! My all that I do seems so little." + +"Ha!" grunted Uncle Jabez. "I reckon you'll do full and plenty. If you +don't it'll be the first time in your life that you fall down on a job." + +Which was remarkably warm commendation for the miller to give, and Ruth +appreciated it deeply. + +He drove her to town himself and put her on the train for New York. +"Don't you git into no more danger over there than you kin help, Niece +Ruth," he urged. "Good-bye!" + +She traveled alone to the metropolis, and that without hearing from or +seeing any of her fellow-workers at the Red Cross rooms in Robinsburg. +She did wonder much, however, what the outcome of the fire had been. + +What had become of Mrs. Rose Mantel, the woman in black? Had she been +finally suspected by Mr. Mayo, and would she be refused further work +with the organization because of the outcome of the fire? Ruth could not +but believe that the conflagration had been caused to cover shortages in +the Red Cross accounts. + +At the Grand Central Terminal Ruth was met by a very lovely lady, a +worker in the Red Cross, who took her home to her Madison Avenue +residence, where Ruth was to remain for the few days she was to be in +the city. + +"It is all I can do," said the woman smiling, when Ruth expressed her +wonder that she should have turned her beautiful home into a clearing +house for Red Cross workers. "It is all I can do. I am quite alone now, +and it cheers me and gives me new topics of interest to see and care for +the splendid girls who are really going over there to help our +soldiers." + +Later Ruth Fielding learned that this woman's two sons were both in +France--one in a medical corps and the other in the trenches. She had +already given her all, it seemed; but she could not do too much for the +country. + +The several girls the lady entertained at this time had little +opportunity for amusement. The Red Cross ship was to sail within +forty-eight hours. + +Ruth was able to meet many of the members of her supply unit, and found +them a most interesting group. They had come from many parts of the +country and had brought with them varied ideas about the work and of +what they were "going up against." + +All, however, seemed to be deeply interested in the Red Cross and the +burden the war had laid upon them. They were not going to France to +play, but to serve in any way possible. + +There was a single disturbing element in the bustling hurry of getting +under way. At this late moment the woman who had been chosen as chief of +the supply unit was deterred from sailing. Serious illness in her family +forced her to resign her position and remain to nurse those at home. It +was quite a blow to the unit and to the Commissioner himself. + +The question, Who will take her place? became the most important thought +in the minds of the members of the unit. Ruth fully understood that to +find a person as capable as the woman already selected would not be an +easy matter. + +Until the hour the party left New York for Philadelphia, the port of +sail for the Red Cross ship, no candidate had been settled on by the +Commissioner to head the supply unit. + +"We shall find somebody. I have one person in mind right now who may be +the very one. If so, this person will be shipped by a faster vessel and +by another convoy than yours," and he laughed. "You may find your chief +in Paris when you get there." + +Ruth wondered to herself if they really would get there. At this time +the German submarines were sinking even the steamships taking Red Cross +workers and supplies across. The Huns had thrown over their last vestige +of humanity. + +The ship which carried the Red Cross units joined a squadron of other +supply ships outside Cape May. The guard ships were a number of busy and +fast sailing torpedo boat destroyers. They darted around the slower +flotilla of merchant steamships like "lucky-bugs" on a millpond. + +Ruth shared her outside cabin with a girl from Topeka, Kansas--an +exceedingly blithe and boisterous young person. + +"I never imagined there was so much water in the ocean!" declared this +young woman, Clare Biggars. "Look at it! Such a perfectly awful waste of +it. If the ocean is just a means of communication between countries, it +needn't be any wider than the Missouri River, need it?" + +"I am glad the Atlantic is a good deal wider than that," Ruth said +seriously. "The Kaiser and his armies would have been over in our +country before this in that case." + +Clare chuckled. "Lots of the farming people in my section are Germans, +and three months ago they noised it abroad that New York had been +attacked by submarines and flying machines and that a big army of their +fellow-countrymen were landing in this country at a place called Montauk +Point----" + +"The end of Long Island," interposed Ruth. + +"And were going to march inland and conquer the country as they marched. +They would do to New York State just what they have done to Belgium and +Northern France. It was thought, by their talk, that all the Germans +around Topeka would rise and seize the banks and arsenals and all." + +"Why didn't they?" asked Ruth, much amused. + +"Why," said Clare, laughing, too, "the police wouldn't let them." + +The German peril by sea, however, was not to be sneered at. As the fleet +approached the coast of France it became evident that the officers of +the Red Cross ship, as well as those of the convoy, were in much +anxiety. + +There seems no better way to safeguard the merchant ships than for the +destroyers to sail ahead and "clear the way" for the unarmored vessels. +But a sharp submarine commander may spy the coming flotilla through his +periscope, sink deep to allow the destroyers to pass over him, and then +rise to the surface between the destroyers and the larger ships and +torpedo the latter before the naval vessels can attack the subsea boat. + +For forty-eight hours none of the girls of the Red Cross supply unit had +their clothing off or went to bed. They were advised to buckle on life +preservers, and most of them remained on deck, watching for submarines. +It was scarcely possible to get them below for meals. + +The strain of the situation was great. And yet it was more excitement +over the possibility of being attacked than actual fear. + +"What's the use of going across the pond at such a time if we're not +even to see a periscope?" demanded Clare. "My brother, Ben, who is +coming over with the first expedition of the National Army, wagered me +ten dollars I wouldn't know a periscope if I saw one. I'd like to earn +that ten. Every little bit adds to what you've got, you know." + +It was not the sight of a submarine periscope that startled Ruth +Fielding the evening of the next-to-the-last day of the voyage. It was +something she heard as she leaned upon the port rail on the main deck, +quite alone, looking off across the graying water. + +Two people were behind her, and out of sight around the corner of the +deckhouse. One was a man, with a voice that had a compelling bark. +Whether his companion was a man or a woman Ruth could not tell. But the +voice she heard so distinctly began to rasp her nerves--and its +familiarity troubled her, too. + +Now and then she heard a word in English. Then, of a sudden, the man +ejaculated in German: + +"The foolish ones! As though this boat would be torpedoed with us +aboard! These Americans are crazy." + +Ruth wheeled and walked quickly down the deck to the corner of the +house. She saw the speaker sitting in a deck chair beside another person +who was so wrapped in deck rugs that she could not distinguish what he +or she looked like. + +But the silhouette of the man who had uttered those last words stood out +plainly between Ruth and the fading light. He was tall, with heavy +shoulders, and a fat, beefy face. That smoothly shaven countenance +looked like nobody that she had ever seen before; but the barking voice +sounded exactly like that of Legrand, Mrs. Rose Mantel's associate and +particular friend! + + + + +CHAPTER XII--THROUGH DANGEROUS WATERS + + +There were a number of people aboard ship whom Ruth Fielding had not +met, of course; some whom she had not even seen. And this was not to be +wondered at, for the feminine members of the supply unit were grouped +together in a certain series of staterooms; and they even had their +meals in a second cabin saloon away from the hospital units. + +She looked, for some moments, at the huge shoulders of the man who had +spoken in German, hoping he would turn to face her. She had not observed +him since coming aboard the ship at Philadelphia. + +It seemed scarcely possible that this could be Legrand, the man who she +had come to believe was actually responsible for the fire in the +Robinsburg Red Cross rooms. If he was a traitor to the organization--and +to the United States as well--how dared he sail on this ship for France, +and with an organization of people who were sworn to work for the Red +Cross? + +Was he sufficiently disguised by the shaving of his beard to risk +discovery? And with that peculiar, sharp, barking voice! "A Prussian +drill master surely could be no more abrupt," thought Ruth. + +As the ship in these dangerous waters sailed with few lamps burning, and +none at all had been turned on upon the main deck, it was too dark for +Ruth to see clearly either the man who had spoken or the person hidden +by the wraps in the deck chair. + +She saw the spotlight in the hand of an officer up the deck and she +hastened toward him. The passengers were warned not to use the little +electric hand lamps outside of the cabins and passages. She was not +mistaken in the identity of this person with the lamp. It was the +purser. + +"Oh, Mr. Savage!" she said. "Will you walk with me?" + +"Bless me, Miss Fielding! you fill me with delight. This is an +unexpected proposal I am sure," he declared in his heavy, English, but +good-humored way. + +"'Fash not yoursel' wi' pride,' as Chief Engineer Douglas would say," +laughed Ruth. "I am going to ask you to walk with me so that you can +tell me the name of another man I am suddenly interested in." + +"What! What!" cried the purser. "Who is that, I'd like to know. Who are +you so suddenly interested in?" + +She tried to explain the appearance of the round-shouldered man as she +led the purser along the deck. But when they reached the spot where Ruth +had left the individuals both had disappeared. + +"I don't know whom you could have seen," the purser said, "unless it was +Professor Perry. His stateroom is yonder--A-thirty-four. And the little +chap in the deck chair might be Signor Aristo, an Italian, who rooms +next door, in thirty-six." + +"I am not sure it was a man in the other chair." + +"Professor Perry has nothing to do with the ladies aboard, I assure +you," chuckled the purser. "A dry-as-dust old fellow, Perry, going to +France for some kind of research work. Comes from one of your Western +universities. I believe they have one in every large town, haven't +they?" + +"One what?" Ruth asked. + +"University," chuckled the Englishman. "You should get acquainted with +Perry, if his appearance so much interests you, Miss Fielding." + +But Ruth was in no mood for banter about the man whose appearance and +words had so astonished her. She said nothing to the purser or to +anybody else about what she had heard the strange man say in German. No +person who belonged--really _belonged_--on this Red Cross ship, should +have said what he did and in that tone! + +He spoke to his companion as though there was a settled and secret +understanding between them. And as though, too, he had a power of +divination about what the German U-boat commanders would do, beyond the +knowledge possessed by the officers of the steamship. + +What could a "dry-as-dust" professor from a Western university have in +common with the person known as Signor Aristo, who Ruth found was down +on the ship's list as a chef of a wealthy Fifth Avenue family, going +back to his native Italy. + +It was said the Signor had had a very bad passage. He had kept to his +room entirely, not even appearing on deck. _Was he a man at all?_ + +The thought came to Ruth Fielding and would not be put away, that this +small, retiring person known as Signor Aristo might be a woman. If +Professor Perry was the distinguished Legrand what was more possible +than that the person Ruth had seen in the deck chair was Mrs. Rose +Mantel, likewise in disguise? + +"Oh, dear me!" she told herself at last, "I am getting to be a regular +sleuth. But my suspicions do point that way. If that woman in black and +Legrand robbed the Red Cross treasury at Robinsburg, and covered their +stealings by burning the records, would they be likely to leave the +country in a Red Cross ship? + +"That would seem preposterous. And yet, what more unlikely method of +departure? It might be that such a course on the part of two criminals +would be quite sure to cover their escape." + +She wondered about it much as the ship sailed majestically into the +French port, safe at last from any peril of being torpedoed by the +enemy. And Professor Perry had been quite sure that she was safe in any +case! + +Ruth saw the professor when they landed. The Italian chef she did not +see at all. Nor did Ruth Fielding see anybody who looked like Mrs. Rose +Mantel. + +"I may be quite wrong in all my suspicions," she thought. "I would +better say nothing about them. To cause the authorities to arrest +entirely innocent people would be a very wicked thing, indeed." + +Besides, there was so much to do and to see that the girl of the Red +Mill could not keep her suspicions alive. This unknown world she and her +mates had come to quite filled their minds with new thoughts and +interests. + +Their first few hours in France was an experience long to be remembered. +Ruth might have been quite bewildered had it not been that her mind was +so set upon the novel sights and sounds about her. + +"I declare I don't know whether I am a-foot or a-horseback!" Clare +Biggars said. "Let me hang on to your coat-tail, Ruth. I know you are +real and United Statesy. But these funny French folk---- + +"My! they are like people out of a story book, after all, aren't they? I +thought I'd seen most every kind of folk at the San Francisco Fair; but +just nobody seems familiar looking here!" + +Before they were off the quay, several French women, who could not speak +a word of English save "'Ello!" welcomed the Red Cross workers with joy. +At this time Americans coming to help France against her enemies were a +new and very wonderful thing. The first marching soldiers from America +were acclaimed along the streets and country roads as heroes might have +been. + +An old woman in a close-fitting bonnet and ragged shawl--not an +over-clean person--took Ruth's hand in both hers and patted it, and said +something in her own tongue that brought the tears to the girl's eyes. +It was such a blessing as Aunt Alvirah had murmured over her when the +girl had left the Red Mill. + +She and Clare, with several of the other feminine members of the supply +unit were quartered in an old hotel almost on the quay for their first +night ashore. It was said that some troop trains had the right-of-way; +so the Red Cross workers could not go up to Paris for twenty-four hours. + +Somebody made a mistake. It could not be expected that everything would +go smoothly. The heads of the various Red Cross units were not +infallible. Besides, this supply unit to which Ruth belonged really had +no head as yet. The party at the seaside hotel was forgotten. + +Nobody came to the hotel to inform them when the unit was to entrain. +They were served very well by the hotel attendants and several chatty +ladies, who could speak English, came to see them. But Ruth and the +other girls had not come to France as tourists. + +Finally, the girl of the Red Mill, with Clare Biggars, sallied forth to +find the remainder of their unit. Fortunately, Ruth's knowledge of the +language was not superficial. Madame Picolet, her French teacher at +Briarwood Hall, had been most thorough in the drilling of her pupils; +and Madame was a Parisienne. + +But when Ruth discovered that she and her friends at the seaside hotel +had been left behind by the rest of the Red Cross contingent, she was +rather startled, and Clare was angered. + +"What do they think we are?" demanded the Western girl. "Of no account +at all? Where's our transportation? What do they suppose we'll do, +dumped down here in this fishing town? What----" + +"Whoa! Whoa!" Ruth laughed. "Don't lose your temper, my dear," she +advised soothingly. "If nothing worse than this happens to us----" + +She immediately interviewed several railroad officials, arranged for +transportation, got the passports of all viseed, and, in the middle of +the afternoon, they were off by slow train to the French capital. + +"We can't really get lost, girls," Ruth declared. "For we are Americans, +and Americans, at present, in France, are objects of considerable +interest to everybody. We'll only be a day late getting to the city on +the Seine." + +When they finally arrived in Paris, Ruth knew right where to go to reach +the Red Cross supply department headquarters. She had it all written +down in her notebook, and taxicabs brought the party in safety to the +entrance to the building in question. + +As the girls alighted from the taxis Clare seized Ruth's wrist, +whispering: + +"Why! there's that Professor Perry again--the one that came over with us +on the steamer. You remember?" + +Ruth saw the man whose voice was like Legrand's, but whose facial +appearance was nothing at all like that suspected individual. But it was +his companion that particularly attracted the attention of the girl of +the Red Mill. + +This was a slight, dark man, who hobbled as he walked. His right leg was +bent and he wore a shoe with a four-inch wooden sole. + +"Who is that, I wonder?" Ruth murmured, looking at the crippled man. + +"That is Signor Aristo," Clair said. "He's an Italian chef I am told." + +Signor Aristo was, likewise, smoothly shaven; but Ruth remarked that he +looked much like the Mexican, Jose, who had worked with Legrand at the +Red Cross rooms in Robinsburg. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII--THE NEW CHIEF + + +Ruth Fielding was troubled by her most recent discovery. Yet she was in +no mind to take Clare into her confidence--or anybody else. + +She was cautious. With nothing but suspicions to report to the Red Cross +authorities, what could she really say? What, after all, do suspicions +amount to? + +If the man calling himself Professor Perry was really Legrand, and the +Italian chef, Signor Aristo the lame man, was he who had been known as +Mr. Jose at the Robinsburg Red Cross headquarters, her identification of +them must be corroborated. How could she prove such assertions? + +It was a serious situation; but one in which Ruth felt that her hands +were tied. She must wait for something to turn up that would give her a +sure hold on these people whom she believed to be out and out crooks. + +Ruth accompanied the remainder of the "left behind" party of workers +into the building, and they found the proper office in which to report +their arrival in Paris. The other members of the supply unit met the +delayed party with much hilarity; the joke of their having been left +behind was not soon to be forgotten. + +The hospital units, better organized, and with their heads, or chiefs, +already trained and on the spot, went on toward the front that very day. +But Ruth's battalion still lacked a leader. They were scattered among +different hotels and pensions in the vicinity of the Red Cross offices, +and spent several days in comparative idleness. + +It gave the girls an opportunity of going about and seeing the French +capital, which, even in wartime, had a certain amount of gayety. Ruth +searched out Madame Picolet, and Madame was transported with joy on +seeing her one-time pupil. + +The Frenchwoman held the girl of the Red Mill in grateful remembrance, +and for more than Ruth's contribution to Madame Picolet's work among the +widows and orphans of her dear poilus. In "Ruth Fielding at Briarwood +Hall," Madame Picolet's personal history is narrated, and how Ruth had +been the means of aiding the lady in a very serious predicament is +shown. + +"Ah, my dear child!" exclaimed the Frenchwoman, "it is a blessing of _le +bon Dieu_ that we should meet again. And in this, my own country! I love +all Americans for what they are doing for our poor poilus. Your sweet +and volatile friend, Helen, is here. She has gone with her father just +now to a southern city. And even that mischievous Mam'zelle Stone is +working in a good cause. She will be delight' to see you, too." + +This was quite true. Jennie Stone welcomed Ruth in the headquarters of +the American Women's League with a scream of joy, and flew into the arms +of the girl of the Red Mill. + +The latter staggered under the shock. Jennie looked at her woefully. + +"_Don't_ tell me that work agrees with me!" she wailed. "_Don't_ say +that I am getting fat again! It's the cooking." + +"What cooking? French cooking will never make you fat in a hundred +years," declared Ruth, who had had her own experiences in the French +hotels in war times. "Don't tell me that, Jennie. + +"I don't. It's the diet kitchen. I'm in that, you know, and I'm tasting +food all the time. It--it's _dreadful_ the amount I manage to absorb +without thinking every day. I know, before this war is over, I shall be +as big as one of those British tanks they talk about." + +"My goodness, girl!" cried Ruth. "You don't have to make a tank of +yourself, do you? Exercise----" + +"Now stop right there, Ruth Fielding!" cried Jennie Stone, with flashing +eyes. "You have as little sense as the rest of these people. They tell +me to exercise, and don't you know that every time I go horseback +riding, or do anything else of a violent nature, that I have to come +right back and eat enough victuals to put on twice the number of pounds +the exercise is supposed to take off? Don't--tell--me! It's impossible to +reduce and keep one's health." + +Jennie was doing something besides putting on flesh, however. Her +practical work in the diet kitchen Ruth saw was worthy, indeed. + +The girl of the Red Mill could not see Helen at this time, but she +believed her chum and Mr. Cameron would look her up, wherever the supply +unit to which Ruth belonged was ultimately assigned. + +She received a letter from Tom Cameron about this time, too, and found +that he was hard at work in a camp right behind the French lines and had +already made one step in the line of progress, being now a first +lieutenant. He expected, with his force of Pershing's boys, to go into +the trenches for the first time within a fortnight. + +She wished she might see Tom again before his battalion went into +action; but she was under command of the Red Cross; and, in any case, +she could not have got her passport viseed for the front. Mr. Cameron, +as a representative of the United States Government, with Helen, had +been able to visit Tom in the training camp over here. + +Ruth wrote, however--wrote a letter that Tom slipped into the little +leather pouch he wore inside his shirt, and which he would surely have +with him when he endured his first round of duty in the trenches. With +the verities of life and death so near to them, these young people were +very serious, indeed. + +Yet the note of cheerfulness was never lost among the workers of the Red +Cross with whom Ruth Fielding daily associated. While she waited for her +unit to be assigned to its place the girl of the Red Mill did not waste +her time. There was always something to see and something to learn. + +When congregated at the headquarters of the Supply Department one day, +the unit was suddenly notified that their new chief had arrived. They +gathered quickly in the reception room and soon a number of Red Cross +officials entered, headed by one in a major's uniform and with several +medals on the breast of his coat. He was a medical army officer in +addition to being a Red Cross commissioner. + +"The ladies of our new base supply unit," said the commissioner, +introducing the workers, "already assigned to Lyse. That was decided +last evening. + +"And it is my pleasure," he added, "to introduce to you ladies your new +chief. She has come over especially to take charge of your unit. Madame +Mantel, ladies. Her experience, her executive ability, and her knowledge +of French makes her quite the right person for the place. I know you +will welcome her warmly." + +Even before he spoke Ruth Fielding had recognized the woman in black. +Nor did she feel any overwhelming surprise at Rose Mantel's appearance. +It was as though the girl had expected, back in her mind, something like +this to happen. + +The man who spoke like Legrand and the one who looked like Jose, +appearing at the Paris Red Cross offices, had prepared Ruth for this +very thing. "Madame" Mantel had crossed the path of the girl of the Red +Mill again. Ruth crowded behind her companions and hid herself from the +sharp and "snaky" eyes of the woman in black. + +The question of how Mrs. Mantel had obtained this place under the Red +Cross did not trouble Ruth at all. She had gained it. The thing that +made Ruth feel anxious was the object the woman in black had in +obtaining her prominent position in the organization. + +The girl could not help feeling that there was something crooked about +Rose Mantel, about Legrand, and about Jose. These three had, she +believed, robbed the organization in Robinsburg. Their "pickings" there +had perhaps been small beside the loot they could obtain with the woman +in black as chief of a base supply unit. + +Her first experience with Mrs. Mantel in Cheslow had convinced Ruth +Fielding that the woman was dishonest. The incident of the fire at +Robinsburg seemed to prove this belief correct. Yet how could she +convince the higher authorities of the Red Cross that the new chief of +this supply unit was a dangerous person? + +At least, Ruth was not minded to face Mrs. Mantel at this time. She +managed to keep out of the woman's way while they remained in Paris. In +two days the unit got their transportation for Lyse, and it was not +until they were well settled in their work at the base hospital in that +city that Ruth Fielding came in personal contact with the woman in +black, her immediate superior. + +Ruth had charge of the linen department and had taken over the supplies +before speaking with Mrs. Mantel. They met in one of the hospital +corridors--and quite suddenly. + +The woman in black, who still dressed so that this nickname was borne +out by her appearance, halted in amazement, and Ruth saw her hand go +swiftly to her bosom--was it to still her heart's increased beat, or did +she hide some weapon there? The malevolent flash of Rose Mantel's eyes +easily suggested the latter supposition. + +"Miss Fielding!" she gasped. + +"How do you do, Mrs. Mantel?" the girl of the Red Mill returned quietly. + +"How---- I had no idea you had come across. And in my unit?" + +"I was equally surprised when I discovered you, Mrs. Mantel," said the +girl. + +"You---- How odd!" murmured the woman in black. "Quite a coincidence. I +had not seen you since the fire----" + +"And I hope there will be no fire here--don't you, Madame Mantel?" +interrupted Ruth. "That would be too dreadful." + +"You are right. Quite too dreadful," agreed Mrs. Mantel, and swept past +the girl haughtily. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV--A CHANGE OF BASE + + +Ruth's daily tasks did not often bring her into contact with the chief +of her unit. This was a very large hospital--one of the most extensive +base hospitals in France. There were thousands of dollars' worth of +supplies in Ruth's single department. + +At present the American Red Cross at this point was caring for French +and Canadian wounded. As the American forces came over, were developed +into fighting men, and were brought back from the battlefield hospitals +as _grands blesses_, as the French call the more seriously wounded, this +base would finally handle American wounded only. + +Ruth went through some of the wards in her spare hours, for she had +become acquainted with several of the nurses coming over. The appeal of +the helpless men (some of them blinded) wrenched the tender heart of the +girl of the Red Mill as nothing she had ever before experienced. + +She found that in her off hours she could be of use in the hospital +wards. So many of the patients wished to write home, but could do so +only through the aid of the Red Cross workers. This task Ruth could +perform, for she could write and speak French. + +Nobody interfered with her when she undertook these extra tasks. She saw +that many of the girls in her own unit kept away from the wards because +the sight of the wounded and crippled men was hard to bear. Even Clare +Biggars had other uses for her spare moments than writing letters for +helpless _blesses_. + +Ruth was not forced into contact with the chief of her unit, and was +glad thereof. Her weekly reports went up to Madame Mantel, and that was +quite all Ruth had to do with the woman in black. + +But the girl heard her mates talking a good deal about the woman. The +latter seemed to be a favorite with most of the unit. Clare Biggars +quite "raved" about Madame Mantel. + +"And she knows so many nice people!" Clare exclaimed. "I wish my French +was better. I went to dinner last night with Madame Mantel at that +little cafe of the Chou-rouge. Half the people there seemed to know her. +And Professor Perry----" + +"Not the man who came over on the steamer with us?" Ruth asked with +sudden anxiety. + +"The very same," said Clare. "He ate at our table." + +"I don't suppose that little Italian chef, Signor Aristo, was among +those present, too?" Ruth asked suspiciously. + +"No. The only Italian I saw was not lame like Signor Aristo. Madame said +he was an Italian commissioner. He was in uniform." + +"Who was in uniform? Aristo?" + +"Why, no! How you talk! The Italian gentleman at the restaurant. Aristo +had a short leg, don't you remember? This man was dressed in an Italian +uniform--all red and green, and medals upon his coat." + +"I think I will go to the Chou-rouge myself," Ruth said dryly. "It must +be quite a popular place. But I hope they serve something to eat besides +the red cabbage the name signifies." + +Again her suspicions were aroused to fever heat. If Professor Perry was +Legrand disguised, he and Mrs. Mantel had got together again. And +Clare's mention of the Italian added to Ruth's trouble of mind, too. + +Jose could easily have assumed the heavy shoe and called himself +"Aristo." Perhaps he was an Italian, and not a Mexican, after all. The +trio of crooks, if such they were, had not joined each other here in +Lyse by accident. There was something of a criminal nature afoot, Ruth +felt sure. And yet with what evidence could she go to the Red Cross +authorities? + +Besides, something occurred to balk her intention of going to the cafe +of the Chou-rouge to get a glimpse of the professor and the Italian +commissioner. That day, much to her surprise, the medical major at the +head of the great hospital sent for the girl of the Red Mill. + +"Miss Fielding," he said, upon shaking hands with her, "you have been +recommended to me very highly as a young woman to fill a certain special +position now open at Clair. Do you mind leaving your present +employment?" + +"Why, no," the girl said slowly. + +"I think the work at Clair will appeal to you," the major continued. "I +understand that you have been working at off hours in the convalescent +wards. That is very commendable." + +"Oh, several of the other girls have been helping there as well as I." + +"I do not doubt it," he said with a smile. "But it is reported to me +that your work is especially commendable. You speak very good French. It +is to a French hospital at Clair I can send you. A representative of the +Red Cross is needed there to furnish emergency supplies when called +upon, and particularly to communicate with the families of the +_blesses_, and to furnish special services to the patients. You have a +way with you, I understand, that pleases the poor fellows and that fits +you for this position of which I speak." + +"Oh, I believe I should like it!" the girl cried, her eyes glistening. +It seemed to be just the work she had hoped for from the +beginning--coming in personal touch with the wounded. A place where her +sympathies would serve the poor fellows. + +"The position is yours. You will start to-night," declared the major. +"Clair is within sound of the guns. It has been bombarded twice; but we +shall hope the _Boches_ do not get so near again." + +Ruth was delighted with the chance to go. But suddenly a new thought +came to her mind. She asked: + +"Who recommended me, sir?" + +"You have the very best recommendation you could have, Miss Fielding," +he said pleasantly. "Your chief seems to think very highly of your +capabilities. Madame Mantel suggested your appointment." + +Fortunately, the major was not looking at Ruth as he spoke, but was +filling out her commission papers for the new place she had accepted. +The girl's emotion at that moment was too great to be wholly hidden. + +Rose Mantel to recommend her for any position! It seemed unbelievable! +Unless---- + +The thought came to Ruth that the woman in black wished her out of the +way. She feared the girl might say something regarding the Robinsburg +fire that would start an official inquiry here in France regarding Mrs. +Mantel and her particular friends. Was that the basis for the woman in +black's desire to get Ruth out of the way? Should the latter tell this +medical officer, here and now, just what she thought of Mrs. Mantel? + +How crass it would sound in his ears if she did so! Rose Mantel had +warmly recommended Ruth for a position that the girl felt was just what +she wanted. + +She could not decide before the major handed her the papers and an order +for transportation in an ambulance going to Clair. He again shook hands +with her. His abrupt manner showed that he was a busy man and that he +had no more time to give to her affairs. + +"Get your passport viseed before you start. Never neglect your passport +over here in these times," advised the major. + +Should she speak? She hesitated, and the major sat down to his desk and +took up his pen again. + +"Good-day, Miss Fielding," he said. "And the best of luck!" + +The girl left the office, still in a hesitating frame of mind. There +were yet several hours before she left the town. Her bags were quickly +packed. All the workers of the Red Cross "traveled light," as Clare +Biggars laughingly said. + +Ruth decided that she could not confide in Clare. Already the Western +girl was quite enamored of the smiling, snaky Rose Mantel. It would be +useless to ask Clare to watch the woman. Nor could Ruth feel that it +would be wise to go to the French police and tell them of her suspicions +concerning the woman in black. + +The French have a very high regard for the American Red Cross--as they +have for their own _Croix Rouge_. They can, and do, accept assistance +for their needy poilus and for others from the American Red Cross, +because, in the end, the organization is international and is not +affiliated with any particular religious sect. + +To accuse one of the Red Cross workers in this great hospital at Lyse +would be very serious--no matter to what Ruth's suspicions pointed. The +girl could not bring herself to do that. + +When she went to the prefect of police to have her passport viseed she +found a white-mustached, fatherly man, who took a great interest in her +as an _Americaine mademoiselle_ who had come across the ocean to aid +France. + +"I kiss your hand, Mademoiselle!" he said. "Your bravery and your regard +for my country touches me deeply. Good fortune attend your efforts at +Clair. You may be under bombardment there, my child. It is possible. We +shall hope for your safety." + +Ruth thanked him for his good wishes, and, finally, was tempted to give +some hint of her fears regarding the supposed Professor Perry and the +Italian Clare had spoken of. + +"They may be perfectly straightforward people," Ruth said; "but where I +was engaged in Red Cross work in America these two men--I am almost sure +they are the same--worked under the names of Legrand and Jose, one +supposedly a Frenchman and the other a Mexican. There was a fire and +property was destroyed. Legrand and Jose were suspected in the matter, +but I believe they got away without being arrested." + +"Mademoiselle, you put me under further obligations," declared the +police officer. "I shall make it my business to look up these two +men--and their associates." + +"But, Monsieur, I may be wrong." + +"If it is proved that they are in disguise, that is sufficient. We are +giving spies short shrift nowadays." + +His stern words rather troubled Ruth. Yet she believed she had done her +duty in announcing her suspicions of the two men. Of Rose Mantel she +said nothing. If the French prefect made a thorough investigation, as he +should, he could not fail to discover the connection between the men and +the chief of the Red Cross supply unit at the hospital. + +Ruth's arrangements were made in good season, and Clare and the other +girls bade her a warm good-bye at the door of their pension. The +ambulance that was going to Clair proved to be an American car of famous +make with an ambulance body, and driven by a tall, thin youth who wore +shell-bowed glasses. He was young and gawky and one could see hundreds +of his like leaving the city high schools in America at half-past three +o'clock, or pacing the walks about college campuses. + +He looked just as much out of place in the strenuous occupation of +ambulance driver as anyone could look. He seemingly was a "bookish" +young man who would probably enjoy hunting a Greek verb to its lair. Tom +Cameron would have called him "a plug"--a term meaning an over-faithful +student. + +Ruth climbed into the seat beside this driver. She then had no more than +time to wave her hand to the girls before the ambulance shot away from +the curb, turned a corner on two wheels, and, with the staccato blast of +a horn that sounded bigger than the car itself, sent dogs and +pedestrians flying for their lives. + +"Goodness!" gasped Ruth when she caught her breath. Then she favored the +bespectacled driver with a surprised stare. He looked straight ahead, +and, as they reached the edge of the town, he put on still more speed, +and the girl began to learn why people who can afford it buy automobiles +that have good springs and shock absorbers. + +"Do--do you _have_ to drive this way?" she finally shrilled above the +clatter of the car. + +"Yes. This is the best road--and that isn't saying much," the +bespectacled driver declared. + +"No! I mean so fa-a-ast!" + +"Oh! Does it jar you? I'll pull her down. Got so used to getting over +all the ground I can before I break something--or a shell comes----" + +He reduced speed until they could talk to each other. Ruth learned all +in one gush, it seemed, that his name was Charlie Bragg, that he had +been on furlough, and that they had given him a "new second-hand +flivver" to take up to Clair and beyond, as his old machine had been +quite worn out. + +He claimed unsmilingly to be more than twenty-one, that he had left a +Western college in the middle of his freshman year to come over to drive +a Red Cross car, and that he was writing a book to be called "On the +Battlefront with a Flivver," in which his brother in New York already +had a publisher interested. + +"Gee!" said this boy-man, who simply amazed Ruth Fielding, "Bob's ten +years older than I am, and he's married, and his wife makes him put on +rubbers and take an umbrella if it rains when he starts for his office. +And they used to call me 'Bubby' before I came over here." + +Ruth could appreciate that! She laughed and they became better friends. + + + + +CHAPTER XV--NEW WORK + + +The prefect of police at Lyse was quite right. Clair was within sound of +the big guns. Indeed, Ruth became aware of their steady monotone long +before the rattling car reached its destination. + +As the first hour sped by and the muttering of the guns came nearer and +nearer, the girl asked Charlie Bragg if there was danger of one of the +projectiles, that she began faintly to hear explode individually, coming +their way. Was not this road a perilous one? + +"Oh, no, ma'am!" he declared. "Oh, yes, this road has been bombarded +more than once. Don't you notice how crooked it is? We turn out for the +shell holes and make a new road, that's all. But there's no danger." + +"But aren't you frightened at all--ever?" murmured the girl of the Red +Mill. + +"What is there to be afraid of?" asked the boy, whom his family called +"Bubby." "If they get you they get you, and that's all there is to it. + +"We have to stop here and put the lights out," he added, seeing a gaunt +post beside the road on which was a half-obliterated sign. + +"If you have to do that it must be perilous," declared Ruth. + +"No. It's just an order. Maybe they've forgotten to take the sign down. +But I don't want to be stopped by one of these old territorials--or even +by one of our own military police. You don't know when you're likely to +run into one of them. Or maybe it's a marine. Those are the boys, +believe me! They're on the job first and always." + +"But this time you boys who came to France to run automobiles got ahead +of even the marine corps," laughed Ruth. "Oh! What's that?" + +They were then traveling a very dark bit of road. Right across the +gloomy way and just ahead of the machine something white dashed past. It +seemed to cross the road in two or three great leaps and then sailed +over the hedge on the left into a field. + +"Did you see it?" asked Charlie Bragg, and there was a queer shake in +his voice. + +"Why, what is it? There it goes--all white!" and the excited girl pointed +across the field, half standing up in the rocking car to do so. + +"Going for the lines," said the young driver. + +"Is it a dog? A big dog? And he didn't bark or anything!" + +"Never does bark," said her companion. "They say they can't bark." + +"Then it's a wolf! Wolves don't bark," Ruth suggested. + +"I guess that's right. They say they are dumb. Gosh! I don't know," +Charlie said. "You didn't really see anything, did you?" and he said it +so very oddly that Ruth Fielding was perfectly amazed. + +"What do you mean by that?" she demanded. "I saw just as much as you +did." + +"Well, I'm not sure that I saw anything," he told her slowly. "The +French say it's the werwolf--and that means just nothing at all." + +"Goodness!" exclaimed Ruth, repeating the word. "What old-world +superstition is that? The ghost of a wolf?" + +"They have a story that certain people, selling themselves to the Devil, +can change at will into the form of a wolf," went on Charlie. + +"Oh, I know! They have that legend in every language there is, I guess," +Ruth returned. + +"Now you've said it!" + +"How ridiculous that sounds--in this day and generation. You don't mean +that people around here believe such stories?" + +"They do." + +"And you half believe it yourself, Mr. Bragg," cried Ruth, laughing. + +"I tell you what it is," the young fellow said earnestly, while still +guiding the car through the dark way with a skill that was really +wonderful. "There are a whole lot of things I don't know in this world. +I didn't used to think so; but I do now." + +"But you don't believe in magic--either black or white?" + +"I know that that thing you saw just now--and that I have seen twice +before--flies through this country just like that, and at night. It never +makes a sound. Soldiers have shot at it, and either missed--or their +bullets go right through it." + +"Oh, how absurd!" + +"Isn't it?" and perhaps Charlie Bragg grinned. But he went on seriously +enough: "I don't know. I'm only telling you what they say. If it is a +white or gray dog, it leaps the very trenches and barbed-wire +entanglements on the front--so they say. It has been seen doing so. No +one has been able to shoot it. It crosses what they call No Man's Land +between the two battlefronts." + +"It carries despatches to the Germans, then!" cried Ruth. + +"That is what the military authorities say," said Charlie. "But these +peasants don't believe that. They say the werwolf was here long before +the war. There is a chateau over back here--not far from the outskirts of +Clair. The people say that _the woman_ lives there." + +"What do you mean--the woman?" asked Ruth, between jounces, as the car +took a particularly rough piece of the road on high gear. + +"The one who is the werwolf," said Charlie, and he tried to laugh. + +"Mr. Bragg!" + +"Well, I'm only telling you what they say," he explained. "Lots of funny +things are happening in this war. But _this_ began before August, +nineteen-fourteen, according to their tell." + +"Whose tell? And what other 'funny' things do you believe have +happened?" the girl asked, with some scorn. + +"That's all right," he declared more stoutly. "When you've been here as +long as I have you'll begin to wonder if there isn't something in all +these things you hear tell of. Why, don't you know that fifty per cent, +at least, of the French people--poilus and all--believe that the spirit of +Joan of Arc led them to victory against the Boches in the worst battle +of all?" + +"I have heard something of that," Ruth admitted quietly. "But that does +not make me believe in werwolves." + +"No. But you should hear old Gaston Pere tell about this dog, or wolf, +or ghost, or whatever it is. Gaston keeps the toll-bridge just this side +of Clair. You'll likely see him to-night. He told me all about the +woman." + +"For pity's sake, Mr. Bragg!" gasped Ruth. "Tell me more. You have got +my feelings all harrowed up. You can't possibly believe in such +things--not really?" + +"I'm only saying what Gaston--and others--say. This woman is a very great +lady. A countess. She is an Alsatian--but not the right kind." + +"What do you mean by that?" interrupted Ruth. + +"All Alsatians are not French at heart," said the young man. "This +French count married her years ago. She has two sons and both are in the +French army. But it is said that she has had influence enough to keep +them off the battle front. + +"Oh, it sounds queer, and crazy, and all!" he added, with sudden +vehemence. "But you saw that white thing flashing by yourself. It is +never seen save at night, and always coming or going between the chateau +and the battle lines, or between the lines themselves--out there in No +Man's Land. + +"It used to race the country roads in the same direction--only as far as +the then frontier--before the war. So they say. Months before the Germans +spilled over into this country. There you have it. + +"The military authorities believe it is a despatch-carrying dog. The +peasants say the old countess is a werwolf. She keeps herself shut in +the chateau with only a few servants. The military authorities can get +nothing on her, and the peasants cross themselves when they pass her +gate." + +Ruth said nothing for a minute or two. The guns grew louder in her ears, +and the car came down a slight hill to the edge of a river. Here was the +toll-bridge, and an old man came out with a shrouded lantern to take +toll--and to look at their papers, too, for he was an official. + +"Good evening, Gaston," said Charlie Bragg. + +"Evening, Monsieur," was the cheerful reply. + +The American lad stooped over his wheel to whisper: "Gaston! the werwolf +just crossed the road three miles or so back, going toward----" and he +nodded in the direction of the grumbling guns. + +"_Ma foi!_" exclaimed the old man. "It forecasts another bombardment or +air attack. Ah-h! La-la!" + +He sighed, nodded to Ruth, and stepped back to let the car go on. The +girl felt as though she were growing superstitious herself. This surely +was a new and strange world she had come to--and a new and strange +experience. + +"Do you really believe all that?" she finally asked Charlie Bragg, +point-blank. + +"I tell you I don't know what I believe," he said. "But you saw the +werwolf as well as I. Now, didn't you?" + +"I saw a light-colored dog of large size that ran across the track we +were following," said Ruth Fielding decisively, almost fiercely. "I'll +confess to nothing else." + +But she liked Charlie Bragg just the same, and thanked him warmly when +he set her down at the door of the Clair Hospital just before midnight. +He was going on to the ambulance station, several miles nearer to the +actual front. + +There were no street lights in Clair and the windows of the hospital +were all shrouded, as well as those of the dwellings left standing in +the town. Airplanes of the enemy had taken to bombing hospitals in the +work of "frightfulness." + +Ruth was welcomed by a kindly Frenchwoman, who was matron, or +_directrice_, and shown to a cell where she could sleep. Her duties +began the next morning, and it was not long before the girl of the Red +Mill was deeply engaged in this new work--so deeply engaged, indeed, that +she almost forgot her suspicions about the woman in black, and Legrand +and Jose, or whatever their real names were. + +However, Charlie Bragg's story of the werwolf, of the suspected countess +in her chateau behind Clair, and Gaston's prophecy regarding the meaning +of the ghostly appearance, were not easily forgotten. Especially, when, +two nights following Ruth's coming to the hospital, a German airman +dropped several bombs near the institution. Evidently he was trying to +get the range of the Red Cross hospital. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI--THE DAYS ROLL BY + + +Ruth Fielding had already become inured to the sights and sounds of +hospital life at Lyse, and to its work as well. Of course she was not +under the physical strain that the Red Cross nurses endured; but her +heart was racked by sympathy for the _blesses_ as greatly as the nurses' +own. + +Starting without knowing anyone in the big hospital, she quickly learned +her duties, and soon showed, too, her fitness for the special work +assigned her. Her responsibilities merely included the arranging of +special supplies and keeping the key of her supply room; but the +particular strain attending her work was connected with the spiritual +needs of the wounded. + +Their gratitude, she soon found, was a thing to touch and warm the +heart. Fretful they might be, and as unreasonable as children at times. +But in the last count they were all--even the hardest of them--grateful +for what she could do for them. + +She had read (who has not?) of the noble sacrifices of that great woman +whose work for the helpless soldiers in hospital antedates the Red Cross +and its devoted workers--Florence Nightingale. She knew how the sick and +dying soldiers in the Crimea kissed her shadow on their pillows as she +passed their cots, and blessed her with their dying breaths. + +The roughest soldier, wounded unto death, turns to the thought of +mother, of wife, of sweetheart, of sister--indeed, turns to any good +woman whose voice soothes him, whose hand cools the fever of his brow. + +Ruth Fielding began to understand better than ever before this +particular work that she was now called upon to perform, and that she +was so well fitted to perform. + +She was cheerful as well as sympathetic; she was sane beyond most young +girls in her management of men--many men. + +"Bless you, Mademoiselle!" declared the matron, "of course they will +make love to you. Let them. It will do them good--the poor _blesses_--and +do you no harm. And you have a way with you!" + +Ruth got over being worried by amatory bouts with the wounded poilus +after a while. Her best escape was to offer to write letters to the +afflicted one's wife or sweetheart. That was part of her work--to attend +to as much of the correspondence of the helplessly wounded as possible. + +And all the time she gave sympathy and care to these strangers she +hoped, if Tom Cameron should chance to be wounded, some woman would be +as kind to him! + +She had not received a second letter from Tom; but after a fortnight Mr. +Cameron and Helen came unexpectedly to Clair. Helen spent two days with +her while Mr. Cameron attended to some important business connected with +his mission in France. + +They had seen Tom lately, and reported that the boy had advanced +splendidly in his work. Mr. Cameron declared proudly that his son was a +born soldier. + +He had already been in the trenches held by both the French and British +to study their methods of defence and offence. This training all the +junior, as well as senior, officers of the American expeditionary forces +were having, for this was an altogether new warfare that was being waged +on the shell-swept fields of France and Belgium. + +Helen had arranged to remain in Paris with Jennie Stone when her father +went back to the States. She expressed herself as rather horrified at +some of the things she learned Ruth did for and endured from the wounded +men. + +"Why, they are not at all nice--some of them," she objected with a +shudder. "That great, black-whiskered man almost swore in French just +now." + +"Jean?" laughed Ruth. "I presume he did. He has terrible wounds, and +when they are dressed he lies with clenched hands and never utters a +groan. But when a man does _that_, keeping subdued the natural outlet of +pain through groans and tears, his heart must of necessity, Helen, +become bitter. His irritation spurts forth like the rain, upon the +unjust and the just--upon the guilty and innocent alike." + +"But he should consider what you are doing for him--how you step out of +your life down into his----" + +"_Up_ into his, say, rather," Ruth interrupted, flushing warmly. "It is +true he of the black beard whom you are taking exception to, is a carter +by trade. But next to him lies a count, and those two are brothers. Ah, +these Frenchmen in this trial of their patriotism are wonderful, Helen!" + +"Some of them are very dirty, unpleasant men," sighed Helen, shaking her +head. + +"You must not speak that way of my children. Sometimes I feel jealous of +the nurses," said Ruth, smiling sadly, "because they can do so much more +for them than I. But I can supply them with some comforts which the +nurses cannot." + +They were, indeed, like children, these wounded, for the most part. They +called Ruth "sister" in their tenderest moments; even "maman" when they +were delirious. The touch of her hand often quieted them when they were +feverish. She read to them when she could. And she wrote innumerable +letters--intimate, family letters that these wounded men would have +shrunk from having their mates know about. + +Ruth, too, had to share in all the "news from home" that came to the +more fortunate patients. She unpacked the boxes sent them, and took care +of such contents as were not at once gobbled down--for soldiers are +inordinately fond of "goodies." She had to obey strictly the doctors' +orders about these articles of diet, however, or some of the patients +would have failed to progress in their convalescence. + +Nor were all on the road to recovery; yet the spirit of cheerfulness was +the general tone of even the "dangerous" cases. Their unshaken belief +was that they would get well and, many of them, return to their families +again. + +"_Chere petite mere_," Louis, the little Paris tailor, shot through both +lungs, whispered to Ruth as she passed his bed, "see! I have something +to show you. It came to me only to-day in the mail. Our first--and born +since I came away. The very picture of his mother!" + +The girl looked, with sympathetic eyes, at the postcard photograph of a +very bald baby. Her ability to share in their joys and sorrows made her +work here of much value. + +"I feel now," said Louis softly, "that _le bon Dieu_ will surely let me +live--I shall live to see the child," and he said it with exalted +confidence. + +But Ruth had already heard the head physician of the hospital whisper to +the nurse that Louis had no more than twenty-four hours to live. Yet the +poilu's sublime belief kept him cheerful to the end. + +Many, many things the girl of the Red Mill was learning these days. If +they did not exactly age her, she felt that she could never again take +life so thoughtlessly and lightly. Her girlhood was behind her; she was +facing the verities of existence. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII--AT THE GATEWAY OF THE CHATEAU + + +Ruth heard from Clare Biggars and the other girls at the Lyse Hospital +on several occasions; but little was said in any of their letters +regarding Mrs. Mantel, and, of course, nothing at all of the woman's two +friends, who Ruth had reason to suspect were dishonest. + +She wondered if the prefect of police had looked up the records of +"Professor Perry" and the Italian commissioner, the latter who, she was +quite sure, could be identified as "Signor Aristo," the chef, and again +as "Jose," who had worked for the Red Cross at Robinsburg. + +France was infested, she understood, with spies. It was whispered that, +from highest to lowest, all grades of society were poisoned by the +presence of German agents. + +Whether Rose Mantel and her two friends were actually working for the +enemy or not, Ruth was quite sure they were not whole-heartedly engaged +in efforts for the Red Cross, or for France. + +However, her heart and hands were so filled with hourly duties that Ruth +could not give much thought to the unsavory trio. Rose Mantel, the woman +in black, and the two men Ruth feared and suspected, must be attended to +by the proper authorities. The girl of the Red Mill had done quite all +that could be expected of her when she warned the police head at Lyse to +be on his guard. + +Her work in the hospital and supply room engaged so much of her time +that for the first few weeks Ruth scarcely found opportunity to exercise +properly. _Madame, la Directrice_, fairly had to drive her out of the +hospital into the open air. + +The fields and lanes about the town were lovely. Here the Hun had not +seized and destroyed everything of beauty. He had been driven back too +quickly in the early weeks of the war to have wreaked vengeance upon all +that was French. + +Clair was the center of a large agricultural community. The farmers +dwelt together in the town and tilled the fields for several miles +around. This habit had come down from feudal times, for then the farmers +had to abide together for protection. And even now the inhabitants of +Clair had the habit of likewise dwelling with their draft animals and +cattle! + +The narrow courts between the houses and stables were piled high with +farm fertilizer, and the flies were a pest. The hospital authorities +could not get the citizens to clean up the town. What had been the +custom for centuries must always be custom, they thought. + +The grumbling of the big guns on the battlefront was almost continuous, +day and night. It got so that Ruth forgot the sound. At night, from the +narrow window of her cell, she could see the white glare over the +trenches far away. By day black specks swinging to and fro in the air +marked the observation balloons. Occasionally a darting airplane +attracted her to the window of her workroom. + +Clair was kept dark at night. Scarcely the glimmer of a candle was +allowed to shine forth from any window or doorway. There was a motion +picture theater in the main street; but one had to creep to it by guess, +and perhaps blunder in at the door of the grocer's shop, or the wine +merchant's, before finding the picture show. + +By day and night the French aircraft and the anti-aircraft guns were +ready to fight off enemy airplanes. During the first weeks of Ruth +Fielding's sojourn in the town there were two warnings of German air +raids at night. A deliberate attempt more than once had been made to +bomb the Red Cross hospital. + +Ruth was frightened. The first alarm came after she was in bed. She +dressed hurriedly and ran down into the nearest ward. But there was no +bustle there. The ringing of the church bells and the blowing of the +alarm siren had not disturbed the patients here, and she saw Miss +Simone, the night nurse, quietly going about her duties as though there +was no stir outside. + +Ruth remembered Charlie Bragg's statement of the case: "If they get you +they get you, and that's all there is to it!" And she was ashamed to +show fear in the presence of the nurse. + +The French drove off the raider that time. The second time the German +dropped bombs in the town, but nobody was hurt, and he did not manage to +drop the bombs near the hospital. Ruth was glad that she felt less panic +in this second raid than before. + +Thinking of Charlie Bragg must have brought that young man to see her. +He came to the hospital on his rest day; and then later appeared driving +his ambulance and asked her to ride. + +The red cross she wore gave authority for Ruth's presence in the +ambulance, and nobody questioned their object in driving through the +back roads and lanes beyond Clair. + +The country here was not torn up by marmite holes, or the chasms made by +the Big Berthas. Such a lovely, quiet country as it was! Were it not for +the steady grumbling of the guns Ruth Fielding could scarcely have +believed that there was such a thing as war. + +But it was not likely that Ruth would ride much with Charlie Bragg for +the mere pleasure of it. The young fellow drove at top speed at all +times, whether the road was smooth or rutted. + +"Really, I can't help it, Miss Ruth," he declared. "Got the habit. We +fellows want always to get as far as we can with our loads before +something breaks down, or a shell gets us. + +"By the way, seen anything of the werwolf again?" + +"Mercy! No. Do you suppose we did really see anything that night?" + +"Don't know. I know there was an attack made upon this sector two nights +after that, and a raid on an artillery base that we were keeping +particularly secret from the Boches. Somebody must have told them." + +"The Germans are always flying over and photographing everything," said +Ruth doubtfully. + +"Not that battery. Had it camouflaged and only worked on it nights. The +Boches put a barrage right behind it and sent over troops who did a lot +of damage. + +"Believe me! You don't know to what lengths these German spies and +German-lovers go. You don't know who is true and who is false about you. +And the most ingenious schemes they have," added Charlie. + +"They have tried secret wireless right here--within two miles. But the +radio makes too much noise and is sure to be spotted at last. In one +place telegraph wires were carried for several miles through the bed of +a stream and the spy on this side walked about with the telegraph +instrument in his pocket. When he got a chance he went to the hut near +the river bank, where the ends of the wire were insulated, and tapped +out his messages. + +"And pigeons! Don't say a word. They're flying all the time, and +sometimes they are shot and the quills found under their wings. I tell +you spies just swarm all along this front." + +"Then," Ruth said, ruminatingly, "it must have been a dog we saw that +night." + +"The werwolf?" asked Charlie, with a grin. + +"That is nonsense. It is a dog trained to run between the spy on this +side and somebody behind the German lines. Poor dog!" + +"Wow!" ejaculated the young fellow with disgust. "Isn't that just like a +girl? 'Poor dog,' indeed!" + +"Why! you don't suppose that a noble dog would _want_ to be a spy?" +cried Ruth. "You can scarcely imagine a dog choosing any tricky way +through life. It is only men who deliberately choose despicable means to +despicable ends." + +"Hold on! Hold on!" cried Charlie Bragg. "Spies are necessary--as long as +there is going to be war, anyway. The French have got quite as brave and +successful spies beyond the German lines as the Germans have over here; +only not so many." + +"Well--I suppose that's so," admitted Ruth, sighing. "There must be these +terrible things as long as the greater terrible thing, war, exists. Oh! +There is the chateau gateway. Drive slower, Mr. Bragg--do, please!" + +They mounted a little rise in the road. Above they had seen the walls +and towers of the chateau, and had seen them clearly for some time. But +now the boundary wall of the estate edged the road, and an arched +gateway, with high grilled gates and a small door set into the wall +beside the wider opening, came into view. + +A single thought had stung Ruth Fielding's mind, but she did not utter +it. It was: Why had none of the German aviators dropped bombs upon the +stone towers on the hill? Was it a fact that the enemy deliberately +ignored the existence of the chateau--that somebody in that great pile of +masonry won its immunity from German bombs by playing the traitor to +France and her cause? + +Charlie had really reduced the speed of the car until it was now only +crawling up the slope of the road. Something fluttered at the +postern-gate--a woman's petticoat. + +"There's the old woman," said Charlie, "Take a good look at her." + +"You don't mean the countess?" gasped Ruth. + +"Whiskers! No!" chuckled the young fellow. "She's a servant--or +something. Dresses like one of these French peasants about here. And yet +she isn't French!" + +"You have seen her before, then," murmured Ruth. + +"Twice. There! Look at her mustache, will you? She looks like a +grenadier." + +The woman at the gate was a tall, square-shouldered woman, with a hard, +lined and almost masculine countenance. She stared with gloomy look as +the Red Cross ambulance rolled by. Ruth caught Charlie's arm +convulsively. + +"Oh! what was that?" she again whispered, looking back at the woman in +the gateway. + +"What was what?" he asked. + +"That--something white--behind her--inside the gate! Why, Mr. Bragg! was it +a dog?" + +"The werwolf," chuckled the young chauffeur. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII--SHOCKING NEWS + + +From both Helen and Jennie letters reached the girl of the Red Mill +quite frequently. Ruth saw that always her correspondence was opened and +read by the censor; but that was the fate of all letters that came to +Clair. + +"We innocents," said the matron of the hospital, "are thus afflicted +because of the plague of spies--a veritable Egyptian plague!--that infests +this part of my country. Do not be troubled, Mam'zelle Americaine. You +are not singled out as though your friendliness to France was +questioned. + +"And yet there may be those working in the guise of the Red Cross who +betray their trust," the woman added. "I hear of such." + +"Who are they? Where?" Ruth asked eagerly. + +"It is said that at Lyse many of the supplies sent to the Red Cross from +your great and charitable country, Mam'zelle, have been diverted to +private dealers and sold to the citizens. Oh, our French people--some of +them--are hungry for the very luxuries that the _blesses_ should have. If +they have money they will spend it freely if good things are to be +bought." + +"At Lyse!" repeated Ruth. "Where I came from?" + +"Fear not that suspicion rests on you, _ma chere amie_," cooed the +Frenchwoman. "Indeed, no person in the active service of the Red Cross +at Lyse is suspected." + +"Nobody suspected in the supply department?" asked Ruth doubtfully. + +"Oh, no! The skirts of all are clear, I understand." + +Ruth said no more, but she was vastly worried by what she had heard. +What, really, had taken place at Lyse? If a conspiracy had been +discovered for the robbing of the Red Cross Supply Department, were not +Mrs. Mantel and Legrand and Jose engaged in it? + +Yet it seemed that the woman in black was not suspected. Ruth tried to +learn more of the particulars, but the matron of the Clair hospital did +not appear to know more than she had already stated. + +Ruth wrote to Clare Biggars immediately, asking about the rumored +trouble in their department of the Red Cross at Lyse; but naturally +there would be delay before she could receive a reply, even if the +censor allowed the information to go through the mails. + +Meanwhile Clair was shaken all through one day and night by increased +artillery fire on the battle front. Never had Ruth Fielding heard the +guns roll so terribly. It was as though a continuous thunderstorm shook +the heavens and the earth. + +The Germans tried to drive back the reserves behind the French trenches +with the heaviest barrage fire thus far experienced along this sector, +while they sent forward their shock troops to overcome the thin French +line in the dugouts. + +Here and there the Germans gained a footing in the front line of the +French trenches; but always they were driven out again, or captured. + +The return barrage from the French guns at last created such havoc among +the German troops that what remained of the latter were forced back +beyond their own front lines. + +The casualties were frightful. News of the raging battle came in with +every ambulance to the Clair Hospital. The field hospitals were +overcrowded and the wounded were being taken immediately from the +dressing stations behind the trenches to the evacuation hospitals, like +this of Clair, before being operated upon. + +This well-conducted institution, in which Ruth had been busy for so many +weeks, became in a few hours a bustling, feverish place, with only half +enough nurses and fewer doctors than were needed. + +Ruth offered herself to the matron and was given charge of one ward for +all of one night, while the surgeons and nurses battled in the operating +room and in the dangerous wards, with the broken men who were brought +in. + +Ruth's ward was a quiet one. She had already learned what to do in most +small emergencies. Besides, these patients were, most of them, well on +toward recovery, and they slept in spite of what was going on +downstairs. + +On this night Clair was astir and alight. The peril of an air raid was +forgotten as the ambulances rolled in from the north and east. The soft +roads became little better than quagmires for it had rained during a +part of the day. + +Occasionally Ruth went to an open window and looked down at the entrance +to the hospital yard, where the lantern light danced upon the glistening +cobblestones. Here the ambulances, one after another, halted, while the +stretcher-bearers and guards said but little; all was in monotone. But +the steady sound of human voices in dire pain could not be hushed. + +Some of the wounded were delirious when they were brought in. Perhaps +they were better off. + +Nor was Ruth Fielding's sympathy altogether for the wounded soldiers. It +was, as well, for these young men who drove the ambulances--who took +their lives in their hands a score of times during the twenty-four hours +as they forced their ambulances as near as possible to the front to +recover the broken men. She prayed for the ambulance drivers. + +Hour after hour dragged by until it was long past midnight. There had +been a lull in the procession of ambulances for a time; but suddenly +Ruth saw one shoot out of the gloom of the upper street and come rushing +down to the gateway of the hospital court. + +This machine was stopped promptly and the driver leaned forward, waving +something in his hand toward the sentinel. + +"Hey!" cried a voice that Ruth recognized--none other than that of +Charlie Bragg. "Is Miss Fielding still here?" + +He asked this in atrocious French, but the sentinel finally understood +him. + +"I will inquire, Monsieur." + +"Never mind the inquiring business," declared Charlie Bragg. "I've got +to be on my way. I _know_ she's here. Get this letter in to her, will +you? We're taking 'em as far as Lyse now, old man. Nice long roll for +these poor fellows who need major operations." + +He threw in his clutch again and the ambulance rocked away. Ruth left +the window and ran down to the entrance hall. The sentinel was just +coming up the steps with the note in his hand. Before Ruth reached the +man she saw that the envelope was stained with blood! + +"Oh! Is that for _me_?" the girl gasped, reaching out for it. + +"Quite so, Mam'zelle," and the man handed it to her with a polite +gesture. + +Ruth seized it, and, with only half-muttered thanks, ran back to her +ward. Her heart beat so for a minute that she felt stifled. She could +not imagine what the note could be, or what it was about. + +Yet she had that intuitive feeling of disaster that portends great and +overwhelming events. Her thought was of Tom--Tom Cameron! Who else would +send her a letter from the direction of the battle line? + +She sank into her chair by the shaded lamp behind the nurse's screen. +For a time she could not even look at the letter again, with its stain +of blood so plain upon it! + +Then she brought it into line with her vision and with the lamplight +streaming upon it. The bloody finger marks half effaced something that +was written upon the face of the envelope in a handwriting strange to +Ruth. + + "This was found in tunic pocket of an American--badly wounded--evacuated + to L----. His identification tag lost, as his arm was torn off at elbow, + and no tag around his neck." + +This brief statement was unsigned. Some kindly Red Cross worker, +perhaps, had written it. Charlie Bragg must have known that the letter +was addressed to Ruth and offered to bring it to her at Clair, the +American on whom the letter was found having been unconscious. + +The flap on the envelope had not been sealed. With trembling fingers the +girl drew the paper forth. Yes! It was in Tom Cameron's handwriting, and +it began: "Dear Ruth Fielding." + +In his usual jovial style the letter proceeded. It had evidently been +written just before Tom had been called to active duty in the trenches. + +There were no American troops in the battle line, as yet, Ruth well +knew. But their officers, in small squads, were being sent forward to +learn what it meant to be in the trenches under fire. + +And Tom had been caught in this sudden attack! Evacuated to Lyse! The +field hospitals, as well as this one at Clair, were overcrowded. It was +a long way to take wounded men to Lyse to be operated upon. + +"Operated upon!" The thought made Ruth shudder. She turned sick and +dizzy. Tom Cameron crippled and unconscious! An arm torn off! A cripple +for the rest of his life! + +She looked at the bloody fingerprints on the envelope. Tom's blood, +perhaps. + +He was being taken to Lyse, where nobody would know him and he would +know nobody! Oh, why had it not been his fate to be brought to this +hospital at Clair where Ruth was stationed? + +There was a faint call from one of the patients. It occurred twice +before the girl aroused to its significance. + +She must put aside her personal fears and troubles. She was here to +attend to the ward while the regular night nurse was engaged elsewhere. + +Because Tom Cameron was wounded--perhaps dying--she could not neglect her +duty here. She went quietly and brought a drink of cool water to the +feverish and restless _blesse_ who had called. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX--AT THE WAYSIDE CROSS + + +The early hours of that morning were the most tedious that Ruth Fielding +ever had experienced. She was tied here to the convalescent ward of the +Clair Hospital, while her every thought was bent upon that rocking +ambulance that might be taking the broken body of Tom Cameron to the +great base hospital at Lyse. + +Was it possible that Tom was in Charlie Bragg's car? What might not +happen to the ambulance on the dark and rough road over which Ruth had +once ridden with the young American chauffeur. + +While she was looking out of the window at the ambulance as it halted at +the gateway of the hospital court, was poor Tom, unconscious and +wounded, in Charlie's car? Oh! had she but suspected it! Would she not +have run down and insisted that Tom be brought in here where she might +care for him? + +Her heart was wrung by this possibility. She felt condemned that she had +not suspected Tom's presence at the time! Had not felt his nearness to +her! + +Helen was far away in Paris. Already Mr. Cameron was on the high seas. +There was nobody here so close to Tom as Ruth herself. Nor could anybody +else do more for him than Ruth, if only she could find him! + +The battle clouds and storm clouds both broke in the east with the +coming of the clammy dawn. She saw the promise of a fair day just before +sunrise; then the usual morning fog shut down, shrouding all the earth +about the town. It would be noon before the sun could suck up this +moisture. + +Two hours earlier than expected the day nurse came to relieve her. Ruth +was thankful to be allowed to go. Having spent the night here she would +not be expected to serve in her own department that day. Yet she wished +to see the matron and put to her a request. + +It was much quieter downstairs when she descended. A nodding nurse in +the hall told her that every bed and every cot in the hospital was +filled. Some of the convalescents would be removed as soon as possible +so as to make room for newly wounded poilus. + +"But where is the matron?" + +"Ah, the good mother has gone to her bed--quite fagged out. Twenty-four +hours on her feet--and she is no longer young. If I can do anything for +the Americaine mademoiselle----?" + +But Ruth told her no. She would write a note for _Madame la Directrice_, +to be given to her when she awoke. For the girl of the Red Mill was +determined to follow a plan of her own. + +By rights she should be free until the next morning. There were +twenty-four hours before her during which she need not report for +service. Had she not learned of Tom's trouble she doubtless would have +taken a short nap and then appeared to help in any department where she +might be of use. + +But, to Ruth's mind, Tom's need was greater than anything else just +then. In her walks about Clair she had become acquainted with a French +girl who drove a motor-car--Henriette Dupay. Her father was one of the +larger farmers, and the family lived in a beautiful old house some +distance out of town. Ruth made a brief toilet, a briefer breakfast, and +ran out of the hospital, taking the lane that led to the Dupay farm. + +The fog was so thick close to the ground that she could not see people +in the road until she was almost upon them. But, then, it was so early +that not many even of the early-rising farmers were astir. + +In addition, the night having been so racked with the sounds of the +guns,--now dying out, thank heaven!-and the noise of the ambulances +coming in from the front and returning thereto, that most of the +inhabitants of Clair were exhausted and slept late. + +The American girl, well wrapped in a cloak and with an automobile veil +wound about her hat and pulled down to her ears, walked on hurriedly, +stopping now and then at a crossroad to make sure she was on the right +track. + +If Henriette Dupay could get her father's car, and would drive Ruth to +Lyse, the latter would be able to assure herself about Tom one way or +another. She felt that she must know just how badly the young fellow was +wounded! + +To think! An arm torn off at the elbow--if it was really Tom who had been +picked up with the note Ruth had received in his pocket. It was dreadful +to think of. + +At one point in her swift walk Ruth found herself sobbing hysterically. +Yet she was not a girl who broke down easily. Usually she was +selfcontrolled. Helen accused her sometimes of being even phlegmatic. + +She took a new grip upon herself. Her nerves must not get the best of +her! It might not be Tom Cameron at all who was wounded. There were +other American officers mixed in with the French troops on this sector +of the battle front--surely! + +Yet, who else but Tom would have carried that letter written to "Dear +Ruth Fielding"? The more the girl of the Red Mill thought of it the more +confident she was that there could have been no mistake made. Tom had +fallen wounded in the trenches and was now in the big hospital at Lyse, +where she had worked for some weeks in the ranks of the Red Cross +recruits. + +Suddenly the girl was halted by a voice in the fog. A shrill exclamation +in a foreign tone--not French--sounded just ahead. It was a man's voice, +and a woman's answered. The two seemed to be arguing; but to hear people +talking in anything but French or English in this part of France was +enough to astonish anybody. + +"That is not German. It is a Latin tongue," thought the girl, +wonderingly. "Italian or Spanish, perhaps. Who can it be?" + +She started forward again, yet walked softly, for the moss and short +grass beside the road made her footfalls indistinguishable a few yards +away. There loomed up ahead of her a wayside cross--one of those +weather-worn and ancient monuments so often seen in that country. + +In walking with Henriette Dupay, Ruth had seen the French girl kneel a +moment at this junction of the two lanes, and whisper a prayer. Indeed, +the American girl had followed her example, for she believed that God +hears the reverent prayer wherever it is made. And Ruth had felt of late +that she had much to pray for. + +The voices of the two wrangling people suggested no worship, however. +Nor were they kneeling at the wayside shrine. She saw them, at last, +standing in the middle of the cross lane. One, she knew, had come down +from the chateau. + +Ruth saw that the woman was the heavy-faced creature whom she had once +seen at the gateway of the chateau when riding past with Charlie Bragg. +This strange-looking old woman Charlie had said was a servant of the +countess up at the chateau and that she was not a Frenchwoman. Indeed, +the countess herself was not really French, but was Alsatian, and "the +wrong kind," to use the chauffeur's expression. + +The American girl caught a glimpse of the woman's face and then hid her +own with her veil. But the man's countenance she did not behold until +she had passed the shrine and had looked back. + +He had wheeled to look after Ruth. He was a small man and suddenly she +saw, as he stepped out to trace her departure more clearly, that he was +lame. He wore a heavy shoe on one foot with a thick and clumsy sole-such +as the supposed Italian chef had worn coming over from America on the +Red Cross ship. + +Was it the man, Jose, suspected with Legrand and Mrs. Rose Mantel--all +members of a band of conspirators pledged to rob the Red Cross? Ruth +dared not halt for another glance at him. She pulled the veil further +over her face and scuttled on up the lane toward the Dupay farmhouse. + + + + +CHAPTER XX--MANY THINGS HAPPEN + + +Ruth reached the farmhouse just as the family was sitting down to +breakfast. The house and outbuildings of the Dupays were all connected, +as is the way in this part of France. No shell had fallen near the +buildings, which was very fortunate, indeed. + +Henriette's father was a one-armed man. He had lost his left arm at the +Marne, and had been honorably discharged, to go back to farming, in +order to try to raise food for the army and for the suffering people of +France. His two sons and his brothers were still away at the wars, so +every child big enough to help, and the women of the family as well, +aided in the farm work. + +No petrol could be used to drive cars for pleasure; but Henriette +sometimes had to go for supplies, or to carry things to market, or do +other errands connected with the farm work. Ruth hoped that the French +girl would be allowed to help her. + +The hospitable Dupays insisted upon the American girl's sitting down to +table with them. She was given a seat on the bench between Henriette and +Jean, a lad of four, who looked shyly up at the visitor from under heavy +brown lashes, and only played with his food. + +It was not the usual French breakfast to which Ruth Fielding had become +accustomed--coffee and bread, with possibly a little compote, or an egg. +There was meat on the table--a heavy meal, for it was to be followed by +long hours of heavy labor. + +"What brings you out so early after this awful night?" Henriette +whispered to her visitor. + +Ruth told her. She could eat but little, she was so anxious about Tom +Cameron. She made it plain to the interested French girl just why she so +desired to follow on to Lyse and learn if it really was Tom who had been +wounded, as the message on the blood-stained envelope said. + +"I might start along the road and trust to some ambulance overtaking +me," Ruth explained. "But often there is a wounded man who can sit up +riding on the seat with the driver--sometimes two. I could not take the +place of such an unfortunate." + +"It would be much too far for you to walk, Mademoiselle," said the +mother, overhearing. "We can surely help you." + +She spoke to her husband--a huge man, of whom Ruth stood rather in awe, +he was so stern-looking and taciturn. But Henriette said he had been a +"laughing man" before his experience in the war. War had changed many +people, this French girl said, nodding her head wisely. + +"The venerable Countess Marchand," pointing to the chateau on the hill, +"had been neighborly and kind until the war came. Now she shut herself +away from all the neighbors, and if a body went to the chateau it was +only to be confronted by old Bessie, who was the countess' housekeeper, +and her only personal servant now." + +"Old Bessie," Ruth judged, must be the hard-featured woman she had seen +at the chateau gate and, on this particular morning, talking to the lame +man at the wayside cross. + +The American girl waited now in some trepidation for Dupay to speak. He +seemed to consider the question of Ruth's getting to Lyse quite +seriously for some time; then he said quietly that he saw no objection +to Henriette taking the sacks of grain to M. Naubeck in the touring car +body instead of the truck, and going to-day to Lyse on that errand +instead of the next week. + +It was settled so easily. Henriette ran away to dress, while a younger +brother slipped out to see that the car was in order for the two girls. +Ruth knew she could not offer the Dupays any remuneration for the +trouble they took for her, but she was so thankful to them that she was +almost in tears when she and Henriette started for Lyse half an hour +later. + +"The main road is so cut up and rutted by the big lorries and ambulances +that we would better go another way," Henriette said, as she steered out +of the farm lane into the wider road. + +They turned away from Lyse, it seemed to Ruth; but, after circling +around the hill on which the chateau stood, they entered a more traveled +way, but one not so deeply rutted. + +A mile beyond this point, and just as the motor-car came down a gentle +slope to a small stream, crossed by a rustic bridge, the two girls spied +another automobile, likewise headed toward Lyse. It was stalled, both +wheels on the one side being deep in a muddy rut. + +There were two men with the car--a small man and a much taller +individual, who was dressed in the uniform of a French officer--a +captain, as Ruth saw when they came nearer. + +The little man stepped into the woods, perhaps for a sapling, with which +to pry up the car, before the girls reached the bottom of the hill. At +least, they only saw his back. But when Ruth gained a clear view of the +officer's face she was quite shocked. + +"What is the matter?" Henriette asked her, driving carefully past the +stalled car. + +Ruth remained silent until they were across the bridge and the French +girl had asked her question a second time, saying: + +"What is it, Mademoiselle Ruth?" + +"Do you know that man?" Ruth returned, proving herself a true Yankee by +answering one question with another. + +"The captain? No. I do not know him. There are many captains," and +Henriette laughed. + +"He--he looks like somebody I know," Ruth said hesitatingly. She did not +wish to explain her sudden shocked feeling on seeing the man's face. He +looked like the shaven Legrand who, on the ship coming over and in Lyse, +had called himself "Professor Perry." + +If this was the crook, who, Ruth believed, had set fire to the business +office of the Robinsburg Red Cross headquarters, he had evidently not +been arrested in connection with the supply department scandal, of which +the matron of the hospital had told her. At least, he was now free. And +the little fellow with him! Had not Ruth, less than two hours before, +seen Jose talking with the woman from the chateau at the wayside shrine +near Clair? + +The mysteries of these two men and their disguises troubled Ruth +Fielding vastly. It seemed that the prefect of police at Lyse had not +apprehended them. Nor was Mrs. Mantel yet in the toils. + +This was a longer way to Lyse by a number of miles than the main road; +nevertheless, it was probable that the girls gained time by following +the more roundabout route. + +It was not yet noon when Henriette stopped at a side entrance to the +hospital where Ruth had served her first few weeks for the Red Cross in +France. The girl of the Red Mill sprang out, and, asking her friend to +wait for her, ran into the building. + +The guard remembered her, and nobody stopped her on the way to the +reception office, where a record was kept of all the patients in the +great building. The girl at the desk was a stranger to Ruth, but she +answered the visitor's questions as best she could. + +She looked over the records of the wounded accepted from the battle +front or from evacuation hospitals during the past forty-eight hours. +There was no such name as Cameron on the list; and, as far as the clerk +knew, no American at all among the number. + +"Oh, there _must_ be!" gasped Ruth, wringing her hands. "Surely there is +a mistake. There is no other hospital here for him to be brought to, and +I am sure this person was brought to Lyse. They say his arm is torn off +at the elbow." + +A nurse passing through the office stopped and inquired in French of +whom Ruth was speaking. The girl of the Red Mill explained. + +"I believe we have the _blesse_ in my ward," this nurse said kindly. +"Will you come and see, Mademoiselle? He has been quite out of his head, +and perhaps he is an American, for he has not spoken French. We thought +him English." + +"Oh, let me see him!" cried Ruth, and hastened with her into one of the +wards where she knew the most serious cases were cared for. + +Her fears almost overcame the girl. Her interest in Tom Cameron was deep +and abiding. For years they had been friends, and now, of late, a +stronger feeling than friendship had developed in her heart for Tom. + +His courage, his cheerfulness, the real, solid worth of the young +fellow, could not fail to endear him to one who knew him as well as did +Ruth Fielding. If he had been shot down, mangled, injured, perhaps, to +the very death! + +How would Helen and their father feel if Tom was seriously wounded? If +Ruth found him here in the hospital, should she immediately communicate +with his twin sister in Paris, and with his father, who had doubtless +reached the States by this time? + +Her mind thus in a turmoil, she followed the nurse into the ward and +down the aisle between the rows of cots. She had helped comfort the +wounded in this very ward when she worked in this hospital; but she +looked now for no familiar face, save one. She looked ahead for the +white, strained countenance of Tom Cameron against the coarse +pillow-slip. + +The nurse stopped beside a cot. Oh, the relief! There was no screen +around it! The occupant was turned with his face away from the aisle. +The stump of the uplifted arm on his left side, bandaged and padded, was +uppermost. + +"Tom!" breathed the girl of the Red Mill, holding back just a little and +with a hand upon her breast. + +It was a head of black hair upon the pillow. It might easily have been +Tom Cameron. And in a moment Ruth was sure that he was an American from +the very contour of his visage--but it was _not_ Tom! + +"Oh! It's not! It's not!" she kept saying over and over to herself. And +then she suddenly found herself sitting in a chair at the end of the +ward and the nurse was saying to her: + +"Are you about to faint, Mademoiselle? It is the friend you look for?" + +"Oh, no! I sha'n't faint," Ruth declared, getting a grip upon her nerves +again. "It is not my friend. Oh! I cannot tell you how relieved I am." + +"Ah, yes! I know," sighed the Frenchwoman. "I have a father and a +brother in our army and after every battle I fear until I hear from +them. I am glad for your sake it is another than your friend. And +yet--_he_ will have friends who suffer, too--is it not?" + + + + +CHAPTER XXI--AGAIN THE WERWOLF + + +Ruth Fielding felt as though she needed a cup of tea more than she ever +had before in her life. And Clare Biggars had her own tea service in her +room at the pension. Ruth had inquired for Clare and learned that this +was a free hour for the Kansas girl. So Ruth and Henriette Dupay drove +to the boarding-house; for to get a good cup of tea in one of the +restaurants or cafes was impossible. + +Her relief at learning the wounded American in the hospital was not Tom +Cameron was quite overwhelming at first. Ruth had come out to the car so +white of face that the French girl was frightened. + +"Oh! Mam'zelle Fielding! It is that you haf los' your friend?" cried the +girl in the stammering English she tried so hard to make perfect. + +"I don't know that," sighed Ruth. "But, at least, if he is wounded, he +was not brought here to this hospital." + +She could not understand how that letter had been found in the pocket of +the young man she had seen in the hospital ward. Tom Cameron certainly +had written that letter. Ruth would not be free from worry until she had +heard again from Tom, or of him. + +The pension was not far away, and Ruth made her friend lock the car and +come in with her, for Clare was a hospitable soul and it was lunch time. +To her surprise Ruth found Clare in tears. + +"What is the matter, my dear girl?" cried Ruth, as Clare fled sobbing to +her arms the moment she saw the girl of the Red Mill. "What can have +happened to you?" + +"Everything!" exploded the Kansas girl. "You can't imagine! I've all but +been arrested, and the Head called me down dreadfully, and Madame----" + +"Madame Mantel?" Ruth asked sharply. "Is she the cause of your troubles? +I should have warned you----" + +"Oh, the poor dear!" groaned Clare. "She feels as bad about it as I do. +Why, they took her to the police station, too!" + +"You seem to have all been having a fine time," Ruth said, rather +tartly. "Tell me all about it. But ask us to sit down, and _do_ give us +a cup of tea. This is Henriette Dupay, Clare, and a very nice girl she +is. Try to be cordial--hold up the reputation of America, my dear." + +"How-do?" gulped Clare, giving the French girl her hand. "I _am_ glad +Ruth brought you. But it was only yesterday----" + +"What was only yesterday?" asked Ruth, as the hostess began to set out +the tea things. + +"Oh, Ruth! Haven't you heard something about the awful thing that +happened here? That Professor Perry----" + +"Ah! What about him?" asked Ruth. "You know what I wrote you--that I had +heard there was trouble in the Supply Department? You haven't answered +my letter." + +"No. I was too worried. And finally--only yesterday, as I said--I was +ordered to appear before the prefect of police." + +"A nice old gentleman with a white mustache." + +"A horrid old man who said the _meanest_ things to dear Madame Mantel!" +cried Clare hotly. + +Ruth saw that the Western girl was still enamored of the woman in black, +so she was careful what she said in comment upon Clare's story. + +All Ruth had to do was to keep still and Clare told it all. Perhaps +Henriette did not understand very clearly what the trouble was, but she +looked sympathetic, too, and that encouraged Clare. + +It seemed that Mrs. Mantel had made a companion of Clare outside of the +hospital, and Ruth could very well understand why. Clare's father was a +member of Congress and a wealthy man. It was to be presumed that Clare +seemed to the woman in black well worth cultivating. + +The Kansas girl had gone with the woman to the cafe of the Chou-rouge +more than once. Each time the so-called Professor Perry and the Italian +commissioner, whose name Clare had forgotten--"But that's of no +consequence," thought Ruth, "for he has so many names!"--had been very +friendly with the Red Cross workers. + +Then suddenly the professor and the Italian had disappeared. The head of +the Lyse hospital had begun to make inquiries into the working of the +Supply Department. There had been billed to Lyse great stores of goods +that were not accounted for. + +"Poor Madame Mantel was heartbroken," Clare said. "She wished to resign +at once. Oh, it's been terrible!" + +"Resign under fire?" suggested Ruth. + +"Oh--you understand--she felt so bad that her department should be under +suspicion. Of course, it was not her fault." + +"Did the head say _that_?" + +"Why, he didn't have to!" cried Clare. "I hope _you_ are not suspicious +of Madame Mantel, Ruth Fielding?" + +"You haven't told me enough to cause me to suspect anybody yet--save +yourself," laughed Ruth. "I suspect that you are telling the story very +badly, my dear." + +"Well, I suppose that is so," admitted Clare, and thereafter she tried +to speak more connectedly about the trouble which had finally engrossed +all her thought. + +The French police had unearthed, it was said, a wide conspiracy for the +diversion of Red Cross supplies from America to certain private hands. +These goods had been signed for in Mrs. Mantel's office; she did not +know by whom, but the writing on the receipts was not in her hand. That +was proved. And, of course, the goods had never been delivered to the +hospital at Lyse. + +The receipts must have been forged. The only point made against Mrs. +Mantel, it seemed, was that she had not reported that these goods, long +expected at Lyse, were not received. Her delay in making inquiry for the +supplies gave the thieves opportunity for disposing of the goods and +getting away with the money paid for them by dishonest French dealers. + +The men who had disposed of the supplies and had pocketed the money (or +so it was believed) were the man who called himself Professor Perry and +the Italian commissioner. + +"And what do you think?" Clare went on to say. "That professor is no +college man at all. He is a well-known French crook, they say, and +usually travels under the name of Legrand. + +"They say he had been in America until it got too hot for him there, and +he crossed on the same boat with us--you remember, Ruth?" + +"Oh, I remember," groaned the girl of the Red Mill. "The Italian, too?" + +"I don't know for sure about him. They say he isn't an Italian, but a +Mexican, anyway. And he has a police record in both hemispheres. + +"Consider! Madame Mantel and I were seen hobnobbing with them! I know +she feels just as I do. I hate to show myself on the street!" + +"I wouldn't feel that way," Ruth replied soothingly. "You could not help +it." + +"But the police--ordering me before that nasty old prefect!" exclaimed +the angry girl. "And he said such things to me! Think! He had cabled the +chief of police in my town to ask who I was and if I had a police +record. What do you suppose my father will say?" + +"I guarantee that he will laugh at you," Ruth declared. "Don't take it +so much to heart. Remember we are in a strange country, and that that +country is at war." + +"I never shall like the French system of government, just the same!" +declared Clare, with emphasis. + +"And--and what about Mrs. Mantel?" Ruth asked doubtfully. + +"I am going over to see her now," Clare said, wiping her eyes. "I am so +sorry for her. I believe that horrid prefect thinks she is mixed up in +the plot that has cost the Red Cross so much. They say nearly ten +thousand dollars worth of goods was stolen, and those two horrid +men--Professor Perry and the other--have got away and the French police +cannot find them." + +Ruth was secretly much disturbed by Clare's story. She believed that she +knew something about the pair of crooks who were accused--Rose Mantel's +two friends--that might lead to their capture. She was sure Henriette +Dupay and she had passed them with their stalled automobile on the road +to Lyse that morning. + +In addition, she believed the two crooks were connected with those +people at the Chateau Marchand, who were supposed to be pro-German. Now +she knew what language she had heard spoken by Jose and the +hard-featured Bessie of the chateau, there by the wayside cross. It was +Spanish. The woman might easily be a Mexican as well as Jose. + +Should she go to the prefect of police and tell him of these things? It +seemed to Ruth Fielding that she was much entangled in a conspiracy of +wide significance. The crooks who had robbed the Red Cross seemed lined +up with the spies of the Chateau Marchand. + +And there was the strange animal--dog, or what-not!--that was connected +with the chateau. The werwolf! Whether she believed in such traditional +tales or not, the American girl was impressed with the fact that there +was much that was suspicious in the whole affair. + +Yet she naturally shrank from getting her own fingers caught in the cogs +of this mystery that the French police were doubtless quite able to +handle in their own way, and all in good time. It was evident that even +Mrs. Mantel was not to be allowed to escape the police net. She had not +been arrested yet; but she doubtless was watched so closely now that she +could neither get away, nor aid in doing further harm. + +As for Clare Biggars, she was perfectly innocent of all wrong-doing or +intent. And she was quite old enough to take care of herself. Besides, +her father would doubtless be warned that his daughter was under +suspicion of the French police and he would communicate with the United +States Ambassador at Paris. She would be quite safe and suffer no real +trouble. + +So Ruth decided to return to Clair without going to the police, and, +after lunch, having delivered the bags of grain which had filled the +tonneau of the car, she and Henriette Dupay drove out of town again. + +They were delayed for some time by tire trouble, and the French girl +proved herself as good a mechanic as was necessary in repairing the +tube. But night was falling before they were halfway home. + +Ruth's thoughts were divided between the conspiracy, in which Mrs. +Mantel was engaged, and her worry regarding Tom Cameron. She had filed a +telegraph message at the Lyse Hospital to be sent to Tom's cantonment, +where he was training, and hoped that the censor would allow it to go +through. For she knew she could not be satisfied that Tom had not been +wounded until she heard from him. + +The American girl's nerves had been shot through by the affair of the +early morning, when the note from Tom had been brought to her. What had +followed since that hour had not served to help her regain her +self-control. + +Therefore, as Henriette drove the car on through the twilight, following +the road by which they had gone to Lyse, there was reason for Ruth +suddenly exclaiming aloud, when she saw something in the track ahead: + +"Henriette! Look! What can that be? Do you see it?" + +"What do you see, Mademoiselle Ruth?" asked the French girl, reducing +the speed of the car in apprehension. + +"There! That white----" + +"_Nom de Dieu!_" shrieked Henriette, getting sight of the object in +question. + +The girl paled visibly and shrank back into her seat. Ruth cried out, +fearing the steering wheel would get away from Henriette. + +"Oh! Did you see?" gasped the latter. + +The white object had suddenly disappeared. It seemed to Ruth as though +it had actually melted into thin air. + +"That was the werwolf!" continued the French girl, and crossed herself. +"Oh, my dear Mademoiselle, something is sure now to happen--something +very bad!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXII--THE COUNTESS AND HER DOG + + +RUTH FIELDING had almost instantly identified the swiftly moving object +in the road as the same that she had seen weeks before while riding with +Charlie Bragg toward Clair. And yet she could not admit as true the +assertion made both by the ambulance driver and the excited French girl. + +To recognize the quickly disappearing creature as a werwolf--the +beast-form of a human being, sold irrevocably to the Powers of +Darkness--was quite too much for a sane American girl like Ruth Fielding! + +"Why, Henriette!" she cried, "that is nothing but a dog." + +"A wolf, Mademoiselle. A werwolf, as I have told you. A very wicked +thing." + +"There isn't such a thing," declared Ruth bluntly. "That was a dog--a +white or a gray one. And of large size. I have seen it once +before--perhaps twice," Ruth added, remembering the glimpse she had +caught of such a creature with Bessie at the chateau gate. + +"Oh, it is such bad fortune to see it!" sighed Henriette. + +"Don't be so childish," Ruth adjured, brusquely. "Nothing about that dog +can hurt you. But I have an idea the poor creature may be doing the +French cause harm." + +"Oh, Mademoiselle! You have heard the vile talk about the dear +countess!" cried Henriette. "It is not so. She is a brave and lovely +lady. She gives her all for France. She would be filled with horror if +she knew anybody connected her with the spies of _les Boches_." + +"I thought it was generally believed that she was an Alsatian _of the +wrong kind_." + +"It is a wicked calumny," Henriette declared earnestly. "But I have +heard the tale of the werwolf ever since I was a child--long before this +dreadful war began." + +"Yes?" + +"It was often seen racing through the country by night," the girl +declared earnestly. "They say it comes from the chateau, and goes back +to it. But that the lovely countess is a wicked one, and changes herself +into a devouring wolf--ah, no, no, Mademoiselle! It is impossible! + +"The werwolf comes and goes across the battle front, it is said. Indeed, +it used to cross the old frontier into Germany in pre-war times. Why may +not some wicked German woman change herself into a wolf and course the +woods and fields at night? Why lay such a thing to the good Countess +Marchand?" + +Ruth saw that the girl was very much in earnest, and she cast no further +doubt upon the occupant of the chateau, the towers of which had been in +sight in the twilight for some few minutes. Henriette was now driving +slowly and had not recovered from her fright. They came to a road which +turned up the hill. + +"Where does that track lead?" Ruth asked quickly. + +"Past the gates of the chateau, Mademoiselle." + +"You say you will take me to the hospital at Clair before going home," +Ruth urged. "Can we not take this turn?" + +"But surely," agreed Henriette, and steered the car into the narrow and +well-kept lane. + +Ruth made no explanation for her request. But she felt sure that the +object which had startled them both, dog or whatever it was, had dived +into this lane to disappear so quickly. The "werwolf" was going toward +the chateau on this evening instead of away from it. + +There was close connection between the two criminals, who had come from +America on the Red Cross steamship, Legrand and Jose, with whatever was +going on between the Chateau Marchand and the Germans. Werwolf, or +despatch dog, Ruth was confident that the creature that ran by night +across the shell-racked fields was trained to spy work. + +Who was guilty at the chateau? That seemed to be an open question. + +Henriette's declaration that it was not the Countess Marchand, +strengthened the suspicion already rife in Ruth's mind that the old +servant, Bessie, was the German-lover. + +The latter was known to Jose, one of the crooks from America. She might +easily be of the same nationality as Jose--Mexican. And the Mexicans +largely are pro-German. + +Jose and Legrand were already under suspicion of a huge swindle in Red +Cross stores. It would seem that if these men would steal, it was fair +to presume they would betray the French Government for money. + +It was a mixed-up and doubtful situation at best. Ruth Fielding +intuitively felt that she had hold of the ends of certain threads of +evidence that must, in time, lead to the unraveling of the whole scheme +of deceit and intrigue. + +It was still light enough on the upland for the girls to see some +distance along the road ahead. Henriette drove the car slowly as they +approached the wide gateway of the chateau. + +Ruth distinguished the flutter of something white by the gate and +wondered if it was the "werwolf" or the old serving woman. But when she +called Henriette's attention to the moving object the French girl cried, +under her breath: + +"Oh! It is the countess! Look you, Mademoiselle Ruth, perhaps she will +speak to us." + +"But there's something with her. It _is_ a dog," the American girl +declared. + +"Why that is only Bubu, the old hound. He is always with the countess +when she walks out. He is a greyhound--see you? It is foolish, +Mademoiselle, to connect Bubu with the werwolf," and she shrugged her +plump shoulders. + +Ruth paid more attention to the dog at first than she did to the lady +who held the loop of his leash. He wore a dark blanket, which covered +most of his body, even to his ears. His legs were long, of course, and +Ruth discovered another thing in a moment, while the car rolled nearer. + +The thin legs of the slate-colored beast were covered with mud. That mud +was not yet dry. The dog had been running at large within the last few +minutes, the girl was sure. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII--RUTH DOES HER DUTY + + +The query that came sharply to Ruth Fielding's mind was: Without his +blanket and off his leash, what would Bubu, the greyhound, look like in +the gloaming? The next moment the tall old lady walking by the observant +dog's side, raised her hand and nodded to Henriette. + +"Oh, Madame!" gasped the French girl, and brought the car to an instant +stop. + +"I thought it was my little Hetty," the countess said in French, and +smiling. "Hast been to Lyse for the good father?" + +"Yes, Madame," replied the girl. + +"And what news do you bring?" + +The voice of the old lady was very kind. Ruth, watching her closely, +thought that if the Countess Marchand was a spy for Germany, and was +wicked at heart, she was a wonderfully good actress. + +She had a most graceful carriage. Her hair, which was snow white, was +dressed most becomingly. Her cheeks were naturally pink; yet her throat +and under her chin the skin was like old ivory and much wrinkled. She +was dressed plainly, although the cape about her shoulders was trimmed +with expensive fur. + +Henriette replied to her queries bashfully, bobbing her head at every +reply. She was much impressed by the lady's attention. Finally the +latter looked full at Ruth, and asked: + +"Your friend is from the hospital, Hetty?" + +"Oh, yes, Madame!" Henriette hastened to say. "She is an _Americaine_. +Of the Red Cross." + +"I could imagine her nativity," said the countess, bowing to Ruth, and +with cordiality. "I traveled much with the count--years ago. All over +America. I deem all Americans my friends." + +"Thank you, Madame," replied Ruth gravely. + +At the moment the stern-faced Bessie came through the little postern +gate. She approached the countess and stood for a moment respectfully +waiting her mistress' attention. + +"Ah, here is the good Bessie," said the countess, and passed the serving +woman the loop of the dog's leather leash. "Take him away, Bessie. +Naughty Bubu! Do you know, he should be punished--and punished severely. +He had slipped his collar again. See his legs? You must draw the collar +up another hole, Bessie." + +The harsh voice of the old woman replied, but Ruth could not understand +what she said. The dog was led away; but Ruth saw that Bessie stared at +her, Ruth, curiously--or was it threateningly? + +The countess turned again to speak to the two girls. "Old Bessie comes +from America, Mademoiselle," she explained. "I brought her over years +ago. She has long served me." + +"She comes from Mexico, does she not?" Ruth asked quietly. + +"Yes. I see you have bright eyes--you are observant," said the countess. +"Yes. Mexico was Bessie's birthplace, although she is not all Spanish." + +Ruth thought to herself: "I could guarantee that. She is part German. +'Elizabeth'--yes, indeed! And does this lady never suspect what her +serving woman may be?" + +The countess dismissed them with another kindly word and gesture. +Henriette was very much wrought up over the incident. + +"She is a great lady," she whispered to Ruth. "Wait till I tell my +father and mother how she spoke to me. They will be delighted." + +"And this is a republic!" smiled Ruth. Even mild toadyism did not much +please this American girl. "Still," she thought, "we are inclined to bow +down and worship a less worthy aristocracy at home--the aristocracy of +wealth." + +Henriette ran her down to the town and to the hospital gate. Ruth was +more than tired--she felt exhausted when she got out of the car. But she +saw the matron before retiring to her own cell for a few hours' sleep. + +"We shall need you, Mademoiselle," the Frenchwoman said distractedly. +"Oh! so many poor men are here. They have been bringing them in all day. +There is a lull on the front, or I do not know what we should do. The +poor, poor men!" + +Ruth had to rest for a while, however, although she did not sleep. Her +mind was too painfully active. + +Her thoughts drummed continually upon two subjects, the mystery +regarding Tom Cameron--his letter to her found in another man's pocket. +Secondly, the complications of the plot in which the woman in black, the +two crooks from America, and the occupants of the chateau seemed all +entangled. + +She hoped hourly to hear from Tom; but no word came. She wished, indeed, +that she might even see Charlie Bragg again; but nobody seemed to have +seen him about the hospital of late. The ambulance corps was shifted +around so frequently that there was no knowing where he could be found, +save at his headquarters up near the front. And Ruth Fielding felt that +she was quite as near the front here at Clair as she ever wished to be! + +She went on duty before midnight and remained at work until after supper +the next evening. She had nothing to do with the severely wounded, of +course; but there was plenty to do for those who had already been in the +hospital some time, and whom she knew. + +Ruth could aid them in simple matters, could read to them, write for +them, quiet them if they were nervous or suffering from shell-shock. She +tried to forget her personal anxieties in attending to the poor fellows +and aiding them to forget their wounds, if for only a little while. + +But she climbed to her cell at last, worn out as she was by the long +strain, with a determination to communicate with the French police-head +in Lyse regarding the men who had robbed the Red Cross supply +department. + +She wrote the letter with the deliberate intention of laying all the +mystery, as she saw it, before the authorities. She would protect the +woman in black no longer. Nor did she ignore the possibility of the +Countess Marchand and her old serving woman being in some way connected +with Legrand and Jose, the Mexican. + +She lay bare the fact that the two men from America had been in a plot +to rob the Red Cross at Robinsburg, and how they had accomplished their +ends with the connivance (as Ruth believed) of Rose Mantel. She spared +none of the particulars of this early incident. + +She wrote that she had seen the man, Jose, in his character of the lame +Italian, both on the steamship coming over, in Paris, and again here at +Clair talking with the Mexican servant of the Countess Marchand. +Legrand, too, she mentioned as being in the neighborhood of Clair, now +dressed as a captain of infantry in the French army. + +She quite realized what she was doing in writing all this. Legrand, for +instance, risked death as a spy in any case if he represented himself as +an officer. But Ruth felt that the matter was serious. Something very +bad was going on here, she was positive. + +The only thing she could not bring herself to tell of was the suspicions +she had regarding the identity of the "werwolf," as the superstitious +country people called the shadowy animal that raced the fields and roads +by night, going to and coming from the battle front. + +It seemed such a silly thing--to repeat such gossip of the country side +to the police authorities! She could not bring herself to do it. If the +occupants of the chateau were suspected of being disloyal, what Ruth had +already written, connecting Jose with Bessie, would be sufficient. + +She wrote and despatched this letter at once. She knew it would be +unopened by the local censor because of the address upon it. +Communications to the police were privileged. + +Ruth wondered much what the outcome of this step would be. She shrank +from being drawn into a police investigation; but the matter had gone so +far now and was so serious that she could not dodge her duty. + +That very next day word was sent in to Ruth from the guard at the +entrance whom she had tipped for that purpose, that the American +ambulance driver, Monsieur Bragg, was at the door. + +When Ruth hastened to the court the _brancardiers_ had shuffled in with +the last of Charlie's "load" and he was cranking up his car. The latter +looked as though it had been through No Man's Land, clear to the Boche +"ditches" it was so battered and mud-bespattered. Charlie himself had a +bandage around his head which looked like an Afghan's turban. + +"Oh, my dear boy! Are you hurt?" Ruth gasped, running down the steps to +him. + +"No," grunted the young ambulance driver. "Got this as an order of +merit. For special bravery in the performance of duty," and he grinned. +"Gosh! I can't get hurt proper. I bumped my head on a beam in the +park--pretty near cracked my skull, now I tell you! Say! How's your +friend?" + +"That is exactly what I don't know," Ruth hastened to tell him. + +"How's that? Didn't you go to Lyse?" + +"Yes. But the man in whose pocket that letter to me was found isn't Tom +Cameron at all. It was some one else!" + +"What? You don't mean it! Then how did he come by that letter? I saw it +taken out of the poor chap's pocket. Johnny Mall wrote the note to you +on the outside of it. I knew it was intended for you, of course." + +"But the man isn't Tom. I should say, Lieutenant Thomas Cameron." + +"Seems to me I've heard of that fellow," ruminated the ambulance driver, +removing his big spectacles to wipe them. "But I believe he _is_ +wounded. I'm sorry," he added, as he saw the change in Ruth's face. +"Maybe he isn't, after all. Is--is this chap a pretty close friend of +yours?" + +Ruth told him, somewhat brokenly, in truth, just how near and dear to +her the Cameron twins were. Telling more, perhaps, in the case of Tom, +than she intended. + +"I'll see what I can find out about him. He's been in this sector, I +believe," he said. "I guess he has been at our headquarters up yonder +and I've met him. + +"Well, so long," he added, hopping into his car. "Next time I'm back +this way maybe I'll have some news for you--_good_ news." + +"Oh, I hope so!" murmured Ruth, watching the battered ambulance wheel +out of the hospital court. + +Henriette Dupay had an errand in the village the next day and came to +see Ruth, too. The little French girl was very much excited. + +"Oh, my dear Mademoiselle Ruth!" she cried. "What do you think?" + +"I could not possibly think--for _you_," smiled Ruth. + +"It is so--just as I told you," wailed the other girl. "It always +happens." + +"Do tell me what you mean? What has happened now?" + +"Something bad always follows the seeing of the werwolf. My grandmere +says it is a curse on the neighborhood because many of our people +neglect the church. Think!" + +"Do tell me," begged the American girl. + +"Our best cow died," cried Henriette. "Our--ve-ry--best--cow! It is an +affliction, Mademoiselle." + +Ruth could well understand that to be so, for cows, since the German +invasion, have been very scarce in this part of France. Henriette was +quite confident that the appearance of the "werwolf" had foretold the +demise of "the poor Lally." The American girl saw that it was quite +useless to seek to change her little friend's opinion on that score. + +"Of course, the thing we saw in the road could not have been the +countess' dog?" she ventured. + +But Henriette would have none of that. "Why, Bubu's blanket is black," +she cried. "And you know the werwolf is all of a white color--and so +hu-u-uge!" + +She would have nothing of the idea that Bubu was the basis of the +countryside superstition. But the French girl had a second exciting bit +of news. + +"Think you!" she cried, "what I saw coming over to town this ve-ry day, +Mademoiselle Ruth." + +"Another mystery?" + +"Quite so. But yes. You would never, as you say, 'guess.' I passed old +Bessie, Madame la Countess' serving woman, riding fast, _fast_ in a +motor-car. Is it not a wonder?" + +The statement startled Ruth, but she hid her emotion, asking: + +"Not alone--surely? You do not mean that that old woman drives the +countess' car?" + +"Oh, no, Mademoiselle. The countess has no car. This was the strange car +you and I saw on the road that day--the one that was stalled in the rut. +You remember the tall capitaine--and the little one?" + +The shock of the French girl's statement was almost too much for Ruth's +self-control. Her voice sounded husky in her own ears when she asked: + +"Tell me, Henriette! Are you _sure_? The old woman was riding away with +those two men?" + +"But yes, Mademoiselle. And they drive fast, fast!" and she pointed +east, away from the hospital, and away from the road which led to Lyse. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV--A PARTIAL EXPOSURE + + +It was when Ruth was going off duty for the day that the matron sent for +her to come to the office before going to her own cell, as the tiny +immaculate little rooms were called in which the Red Cross workers +slept. + +Obeying the summons, Ruth crossed the wide entrance hall and saw in the +court a high-powered, open touring car in which sat two +military-appearing men, although neither was in uniform. In the matron's +room was another--a tall, dark young man, who arose from his chair the +instant the girl entered the room. + +"Monsieur Lafrane, Mademoiselle Fielding," said the matron nervously. +"Monsieur Lafrane is connected, he tells me, with the Department of +Justice." + +"With the secret police, Mademoiselle," the man said significantly. "The +prefect of police at Lyse has sent me to you," and he bowed again to +Ruth. + +The matron was evidently somewhat alarmed as well as surprised, but +Ruth's calm manner reassured her to some extent. + +"It is all right, Madame," the American girl told her. "I expected +monsieur's visit." + +"Oh, if mademoiselle is assured----?" + +"Quite, Madame." + +The Frenchwoman hurried from the office and left the girl and the secret +agent alone. The latter smiled quietly and asked Ruth to be seated. + +"It is from Monsieur Joilette, at Lyse, that I come, as I say. He +informs me you have the logic of a man--and a man's courage, +Mademoiselle. He thinks highly of you." + +"Perhaps he thinks too highly of my courage," Ruth returned, smiling. + +"Not so," proceeded Monsieur Lafrane, with rather a stern countenance, +"for it must take some courage to tell but half your story when first +you went to Monsieur Joilette. It is not--er--exactly safe to tell half +truths to the French police, Mademoiselle." + +"Not if one is an American?" smiled Ruth, not at all shaken. "Nor did I +consider that I did wrong in saying nothing about Mrs. Mantel at the +time, when I had nothing but suspicion against her. If Monsieur Joilette +is as wise as I think him, he could easily have found the connection +between those two dishonest men from America and the lady." + +"True. And he did so," said the secret agent, nodding emphatically. "But +already Legrand and this Jose had made what you Americans would call 'a +killing,' yes?" Ruth nodded, smiling. "They got away with the money. But +we are not allowing Madame Mantel, as she calls herself----" + +"That isn't her name then?" + +"Name of a name!" ejaculated the man in disgust. "I should say not. She +is Rosa Bonnet, who married an American crook four years ago and went to +the United States. He was shot, I understand, in an attempt of his gang +to rob a bank in one of your Western States." + +"Oh! And she came East and entered into our Red Cross work. How +dreadful!" + +"Rosa is a sharp woman. We believe she has done work for _les Boches_. +But then," he added, "we believe that of every crook we capture now." + +"And is she arrested?" + +"But yes, Mademoiselle," he said good-naturedly. "At least the police of +Lyse were about to gather her in as I left this afternoon to come over +here. But the men----" + +"Oh, Monsieur!" cried Ruth, with clasped hands, "they have been in this +neighborhood only to-day." + +He shot in a quick: "How do you know that, Mademoiselle Fielding?" + +She told him of the French girl's visit and of what Henriette had said +of seeing Legrand, the Mexican and Bessie riding away in a motor-car +from the chateau. + +"To be trusted, this girl? This Mademoiselle Dupay?" + +"Oh, quite!" + +"The scoundrels! They slip through our fingers at every turn. But we +will have them yet. Surely they cannot escape us for long. There are too +many looking for them--both of the secret police and of the army." + +"Then the woman, too! The old woman and that Jose may only be related. +Perhaps she has nothing to do with--with----" + +"With what, Mademoiselle?" he asked, smiling across the table at her, +and that grimly. + +"Is there not spying, too? Don't you think these people are in +communication with the Germans?" + +"Could you expect me to answer that query, Mademoiselle?" he returned, +his eyes suddenly twinkling. "But, yes! I see you are vitally +interested. And you have heard this old wives' tale of the werwolf." + +He quite startled her then, for she had said nothing of that in her +letter to the Lyse prefect of police. + +"Some matters must be cleared up. You may be able to help, Mademoiselle. +I have come to ask you to make a call with me." + +"A call? On the Dupays? I hope I have said nothing to lead you to +suppose that they are not loyal. And they have been kind to me." + +"Quite so, Mademoiselle," he rejoined again with gravity. "I would ask +you to do nothing that will make you feel an atom of disgrace. No, no! A +mere call--and you shall return here in an hour." + +Ruth knew it was a command as well as a request. She hurried for her +wrap, for the evening was damp. But she did not remove her costume of +the Red Cross. + +As she came down to the waiting car she saw that she was peered at by +several of the nurses. Some wind of what was going on evidently had got +about the hospital. + +Ruth ran down the steps and jumped into the car, the tonneau door of +which was held open by the man with whom she had talked in the matron's +office. Instantly the engine began to purr and the car slipped away from +the steps. + +Lafrane bowed to Ruth again, and said, with a gesture, as though +introducing her: + +"My comrades, Mademoiselle Fielding. Be of good courage. Like myself, +Mademoiselle, they admire the courage of _les Americaines_." + +Ruth could say nothing to that. She felt half stifled with seething +emotions. Her heart beat rapidly. What was now going to happen to her? +She had endured many strange experiences since coming to France; but she +had to admit that she was not prepared for this occurrence. + +The car shot through the tortuous roads swiftly. Suddenly she noted that +they were taking the hilly road to the Dupay farm--the longer way. They +mounted the hill toward the chateau gate. + +A light flashed ahead in the roadway. The car was pulled down to a stop +before the entrance to the Chateau Marchand. Another soldierly looking +man--this one in uniform--held the lantern and pointed to the gateway of +the estate. To Ruth's surprise the wide gates were open. + +The guard said something swiftly that the girl did not catch. The +chauffeur manipulated the clutch and again the car leaped ahead. It +turned directly into the private drive leading up to the chateau. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV--Quite Satisfactory + + +Ruth said nothing to Monsieur Lafrane, although she was startled. He had +had no idea, then, of taking her to the Dupay farm. She was somewhat +relieved by this discovery, although she was curious as to why she was +being carried to the chateau. + +It was plain that their visit was expected. The great front door of the +old pile of masonry was wide open and a flaring, swinging lamp +illuminated the entrance hall, the light shining far across the flagging +before the door. As the girl had noted, there seemed no fear here at the +chateau of German night raiders, while the village of Clair lay like a +black swamp below the hill, not a lamp, even in the hospital, being +allowed to shine from windows or doorways there. + +"Will you come in, Mademoiselle?" said the leader of the expedition +softly. + +One of his companions got out, too, and him they left in the entrance +hall, standing grim and silent against the wall like an added piece of +ancient armor, of which there were several in sight, while the secret +agent and Ruth entered an apartment on the right. + +It was a library--a long and lofty room, paneled with carved oak and +furnished in a wood quite as dark, the chairs and huge table being +massive. There were a few fine old pictures; but the bookshelves were +almost stripped of volumes. Ruth noted that but a few dozen remained. + +The floor, too, was bare; yet by the stain on the boards she saw that +once a huge rug must have almost covered the room. Everything remaining +gave the apartment a stern and poverty-stricken air. + +These things she noted at first glance. The countess was present, and it +was the countess who attracted Ruth's almost immediate attention. + +She was quite as handsome and graceful as she had seemed when Ruth saw +her walking in the road. But now she was angry, and her head was held +high and her cheeks were deeply flushed. Her scant skirts swishing in +and out of the candlelight, she walked up and down the room beyond the +table, with something of the litheness of the caged tiger. + +"And have you come back to repeat these things you have said about +Bessie?" she demanded in French of the secret agent. + +"But, yes, Madame la Countess. It is necessary that you be convinced," +he said respectfully. + +"I cannot believe it. I resent your accusation of poor Bessie. She has +been with me for twenty years." + +"It is so," said the man gravely. "And we cast no reflection upon her +faithfulness to you, Madame. But have you noted no change in her--of +late?" + +"Ah, who has not been changed by the war?" murmured the countess, +stopping to look at them across the table. Then for the first time she +seemed to apprehend Ruth's presence. She bowed distantly. "Mademoiselle +Americaine," she murmured. "What is this?" + +"I would ask the mademoiselle to tell you what she knows of the +connection of your servant with these men we are after," said the secret +agent briefly. Then he gestured for Ruth to speak. + +The latter understood now what she had been brought here for. And she +was shrewd enough to see, too, that the French secret police thought the +countess entirely trustworthy. + +Therefore Ruth began at the beginning and told of her suspicions aroused +against Legrand and Jose when still she was in America, and of all the +events which linked them to some plot, aimed against France, although +she, of course, did not know and was not likely to know what that plot +was. + +The men were proven crooks. They were in disguise. And Ruth was positive +that Jose was closely associated with the old serving woman whom Ruth +had seen with the dog. + +At mention of the greyhound the countess and the secret agent exchanged +glances. Ruth intercepted them; but she made no comment. She saw well +enough that there was a secret in that which she was not to know. + +Nor did she ever expect to learn anything more about that phase of the +matter, being unblessed with second sight. However, in our next volume, +"Ruth Fielding at the War Front; Or, The Hunt for a Lost Soldier," she +was destined to gain much information on several points connected with +the old chateau and its occupants. + +Now, however, she merely told the countess what the agent had asked her +to tell, including the fact that Bessie had been seen that afternoon +riding away from the chateau with the two criminals, Legrand and Jose. + +Her testimony seemed to convince the lady of the chateau. She bowed her +head and wiped away the tears that moistened her now paling cheeks. + +"_Ma foi!_ Who, then, is to be trusted?" she murmured, when the girl had +finished. "Your pardon, Monsieur! But, remember, I have had the poor +creature in my service for many years. + +"I must accept all your story as true. The American mademoiselle +convinces me. This Jose, then, must be Bessie's nephew. I had heard of +him. I must thank her, perhaps, that she did not allow him and his +associate to rob me before she ran away. The apaches!" + +"We will get them," said the agent cheerfully, preparing to depart. "I +leave men in the neighborhood. They will communicate with you--and you +can trust them. If the woman reappears alone we must question her. You +understand?" and he spoke with some sternness. + +The countess nodded, having recovered her self-control. "I know my duty, +Monsieur," she said. Then to Ruth, putting forth her hand, she added: + +"You have called and find me in sore trouble, my dear. Do I understand +that you work in our hospital at Clair?" + +"Yes, Madame," replied the girl. + +"Come to see me again, then--at a happier time." She pressed Ruth's hand +for a moment and went out. The secret service agent bowed low as she +disappeared. Then he said with admiration to Ruth: + +"_Ma foi!_ A countess, say you? She should be a queen." Ah, this good +republican was quite plainly a lover of the aristocracy, too! + +Ruth was whisked back to the hospital. On the way Monsieur Lafrane +assured her that she would be gratefully remembered by the French secret +police for what seemed to her, after all, a very simple thing. + +The men were confident of soon apprehending Legrand and his companions. +"And then--the jug!" ejaculated the leader, using with gusto what he +fondly believed to be another Americanism. + +It was not likely that Ruth would sleep much that night. Her mind was +greatly overwrought. But finally, about daylight, when she did fall into +a more or less refreshing sleep, an orderly came to her door and knocked +until she responded. + +"Mademoiselle has waiting for her on the steps a visitor," he said, with +a chuckle. "She should come down at once." + +"A visitor, Henri?" she cried. "Who can it be?" + +"One young _Americaine_," he replied, and went away cheerfully humming a +tune. + +"What can that Charlie Bragg want at this hour in the morning?" Ruth +murmured, yet hurrying her toilet. "Possibly he brings news of Tom!" + +Down she ran to the court as soon as she was neat. A man was sitting on +the steps, leaning against the doorpost. It was not Charlie, for he was +in military uniform and she could see an officer's insignia. He was +asleep. + +She saw as she left the stairway and crossed the entrance hall that he +wore his arm in a sling. She thought instantly of the unknown American +in Lyse Hospital who had lost his forearm. Then---- + +"Tom Cameron!" she cried, and sprang to his side. + +The soldier awoke with a start. He looked up at her and grinned. + +"Hullo, Ruthie," he observed. "Excuse this early call, but I might not +have another rest day for a long time. We're going into the +trenches--going to take over a sector of the French line, they say, +before long. So---- + +"Hullo! What's happened?" + +"Your arm, Tom! You are wounded?" she gasped. + +"Oh, shucks! Got a splinter of shell in it. Nothing much. Keeping it in +splints so it will mend quicker," he said. + +"But your letter, Tom!" she cried, and there, in the early morning, +standing upon the hospital steps, she told him the story of the +happening that had so disturbed and troubled her. + +"Don't that beat all!" exclaimed Tom. "I wondered what had happened to +that letter that I had just finished when I was called on duty. It was +Sam Hines who had his arm torn off--poor fellow. We heard from him. He's +getting on all right, but, of course, he'll have to go home. + +"He must have picked up my letter, maybe to give it to me, knowing I had +forgotten it. Well, it's all right, Ruthie. I can tell you lots more +than was in that letter--and you've got a lot to tell me." + +So they sat down, side by side, and related each to the other all their +adventures, while the great guns on the battle line boomed a rumbling +accompaniment to what was said. + + + THE END + + + + +THE RUTH FIELDING SERIES + +By ALICE B. EMERSON + +_12 mo. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors_. + + +Price 50 cents per volume. + +Postage 10 cents additional. + +Ruth Fielding was an orphan and came to live with her miserly uncle. Her +adventures and travels make stories that will hold the interest of every +reader. + +Ruth Fielding is a character that will live in juvenile fiction. + + 1. RUTH FIELDING OF THE RED MILL + 2. RUTH FIELDING AT BRIARWOOD HALL + 3. RUTH FIELDING AT SNOW CAMP + 4. RUTH FIELDING AT LIGHTHOUSE POINT + 5. RUTH FIELDING AT SILVER RANCH + 6. RUTH FIELDING ON CLIFF ISLAND + 7. RUTH FIELDING AT SUNRISE FARM + 8. RUTH FIELDING AND THE GYPSIES + 9. RUTH FIELDING IN MOVING PICTURES + 10. RUTH FIELDING DOWN IN DIXIE + 11. RUTH FIELDING AT COLLEGE + 12. RUTH FIELDING IN THE SADDLE + 13. RUTH FIELDING IN THE RED CROSS + 14. RUTH FIELDING AT THE WAR FRONT + 15. RUTH FIELDING HOMEWARD BOUND + 16. RUTH FIELDING DOWN EAST + 17. RUTH FIELDING IN THE GREAT NORTHWEST + 18. RUTH FIELDING ON THE ST. LAWRENCE + 19. RUTH FIELDING TREASURE HUNTING + 20. RUTH FIELDING IN THE FAR NORTH + 21. RUTH FIELDING AT GOLDEN PASS + 22. RUTH FIELDING IN ALASKA + 23. RUTH FIELDING IN HER GREAT SCENARIO + 24. RUTH FIELDING AT CAMERON HALL + 25. RUTH FIELDING CLEARING HER NAME + 26. RUTH FIELDING IN TALKING PICTURES + 27. RUTH FIELDING AND BABY JUNE + +CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, _Publishers_ NEW YORK + + + + +THE BARTON BOOKS FOR GIRLS + +By MAY HOLLIS BARTON + + +12mo. Cloth. Illustrated. With colored Jacket. + +Price 50 cents per volume. Postage 10 cents additional. + +May Hollis Barton is a new writer for girls who is bound to win instant +popularity. Her style is somewhat of a reminder of that of Louisa M. +Alcott, but thoroughly up-to-date in plot and action. Clean tales that +all the girls will enjoy reading. + + 1. THE GIRL FROM THE COUNTRY + 2. THREE GIRL CHUMS AT LAUREL HALL + 3. NELL GRAYSON'S RANCHING DAYS + 4. FOUR LITTLE WOMEN of ROXBY + 5. PLAIN JANE AND PRETTY BETTY + 6. LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE + 7. HAZEL HOOD'S STRANGE DISCOVERY + 8. TWO GIRLS AND A MYSTERY + 9. THE GIRLS OF LIGHTHOUSE ISLAND + 10. KATE MARTIN'S PROBLEM + 11. THE GIRL IN THE TOP FLAT + 12. THE SEARCH FOR PEGGY ANN + 13. SALLIE'S TEST OF SKILL + 14. CHARLOTTE CROSS AND AUNT DEB + +_Send for Our Free Illustrated Catalogue_ + +CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, _Publishers_ NEW YORK + + + + +THE BETTY GORDON SERIES + +By ALICE B. EMERSON + + +Author of the "Ruth Fielding Series" + +12mo. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors. + +Price 50 cents per volume. Postage 10 cents additional. + +A new series of stories bound to make this writer more popular than ever +with her host of girl readers. Every one will want to know Betty Gordon, +and every one will be sure to love her. + + 1. BETTY GORDON AT BRAMBLE FARM + 2. BETTY GORDON IN WASHINGTON + 3. BETTY GORDON IN THE LAND OF OIL + 4. BETTY GORDON AT BOARDING SCHOOL + 5. BETTY GORDON AT MOUNTAIN CAMP + 6. BETTY GORDON AT OCEAN PARK + 7. BETTY GORDON AND HER SCHOOL CHUMS + 8. BETTY GORDON AT RAINBOW RANCH + 9. BETTY GORDON IN MEXICAN WILDS + 10. BETTY GORDON AND THE LOST PEARLS + 11. BETTY GORDON ON THE CAMPUS + 12. BETTY GORDON AND THE HALE TWINS + 13. BETTY GORDON AT MYSTERY FARM + 14. BETTY GORDON ON NO-TRAIL ISLAND + +_Send for Our Free Illustrated Catalogue_ + + +CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, _Publishers_ NEW YORK + + + + +THE LINGER-NOTS SERIES + +By AGNES MILLER + + +12mo. Cloth Binding. Illustrated. + +Jacket in full colors. + +Price 50 cents per volume. Postage 10 cents additional. + +This new series of girls' books is in a new style of story writing. The +interest is in knowing the girls and seeing them solve the problems that +develop their character. Incidentally, a great deal of historical +information is imparted. + +1. THE LINGER-NOTS AND THE MYSTERY HOUSE _or the Story of Nine +Adventurous Girls_ + +How the Linger-Not girls met and formed their club, and how they made +their club serve a great purpose, introduces a new type of girlhood. + +2. THE LINGER-NOTS AND THE VALLEY FEUD _or the Great West Point Chain_ + +The Linger-Not girls had no thought of becoming mixed up with feuds or +mysteries, but their habit of being useful soon entangled them in some +surprising adventures. + +3. THE LINGER-NOTS AND THEIR GOLDEN QUEST _or The Log of the Ocean +Monarch_ + +For a club of girls to become involved in a mystery leading back into +the times of the California gold-rush, and how the girls helped one of +their friends to come into her rightful name and inheritance. + +4. THE LINGER-NOTS AND THE WHISPERING CHARM _or The Secret from Old +Alaska_ + +Whether engrossed in thrilling adventures in the Far North or occupied +with quiet home duties, the Linger-Not girls could work unitedly and +solve a colorful mystery. + +5. THE LINGER-NOTS AND THE SECRET MAZE _or The Treasure-Trove on +Battlefield Hill_ + +The discovery of a thrilling treasure-trove at the end of the maze where +the Linger-Nots learn many useful facts and the real secret of the +hidden maze. + +_Send for Our Free Illustrated Catalogue._ + +CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, _Publishers_ NEW YORK + + + + +THE GIRL SCOUT SERIES + +By LILIAN GARIS + + +12mo. Illustrated. Jacket in full colors. + +Price 50 cents per volume. Postage 10 cents additional. + +The highest ideals of girlhood as advocated by the foremost +organizations of America form the background for these stories and while +unobtrusive there is a message in every volume. + +1. THE GIRL SCOUT PIONEERS _or Winning the First B. C._ + +A story of the True Tred Troop in a Pennsylvania town. Two runaway +girls, who want to see the city, are reclaimed through troop influence. + +2. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT BELLAIRE _or Maid Mary's Awakening_ + +The story of a timid little maid who is afraid to take part in other +girls' activities, while working nobly alone for high ideals. + +3. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT SEA CREST _or the Wig Wag Rescue_ + +Luna Land, a little island by the sea, is wrapt in a mysterious +seclusion, and Kitty Scuttle, a grotesque figure, succeeds in keeping +all others at bay until the Girl Scouts come. + +4. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT CAMP COMALONG _or Peg of Tamarack Hills_ + +Their discovery of Peg, the mysterious rider, and the clearing up of her +remarkable adventures afford a vigorous plot. + +5. THE GIRL SCOUTS AT ROCKY LEDGE _or Nora's Real Vacation_ + +Her dislike for the rugged life of Girl Scouts is eventually changed to +appreciation, when the rescue of little Lucia, a woodland waif, becomes +a problem for the girls to solve. + +_Send for Our Free Illustrated Catalogue._ + +CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, _Publishers_ NEW YORK + + + + +THE PATSY CARROLL SERIES + +By GRACE GORDON + + +12mo. Illustrated. + +Beautiful cloth binding, and jacket in colors. + +Price 50 cents. + +Postage 10 cents additional. + +This fascinating series is permeated with the vibrant atmosphere of the +great outdoors. The vacations spent by Patsy Carroll and her chums, the +girl Wayfarers, in the north, east, south and west of the wonderland of +our country, comprise a succession of tales unsurpassed in plot and +action. + +PATSY CARROLL AT WILDERNESS LODGE + +Patsy Carroll succeeds in coaxing her father to lease one of the +luxurious camps at Lake Placid, for the summer. Established at +Wilderness Lodge, the Wayfarers, as they call themselves, find they are +the center of a mystery which revolves about a missing will. How the +girls solve the mystery makes a splendid story. + +PATSY CARROLL UNDER SOUTHERN SKIES + +Patsy Carroll and her three chums spend their Easter vacation in an old +mansion in Florida. An exciting mystery develops. It is solved by a +curious acrostic found by Patsy. This leads to very exciting and +satisfactory results, making a capital story. + +PATSY CARROLL IN THE GOLDEN WEST + +The Wayfarers journey to the dream city of the Movie World in the Golden +West, and there become a part of a famous film drama. + +PATSY CARROLL IN OLD NEW ENGLAND + +Set in the background of the Tercentenary of the landing of the +Pilgrims, celebrated in the year 1920, the story of Patsy Carroll in Old +New England offers a correct word picture of this historical event and +into it is woven a fascinating tale of the adventures of the Wayfarers. + +_Send for Our Free Illustrated Catalogue_ + +CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, _Publishers_ NEW YORK + + + + +THE JANE ALLEN COLLEGE SERIES + +By EDITH BANCROFT + + +12mo. Illustrated. + +Beautiful cloth binding, and jacket in colors. + +Price 50 cents. + +Postage 10 cents additional. + +This series is a decided departure from the stories usually written of +life in the modern college for young women. They contain a deep and +fascinating theme, which has to do with the inner struggle for growth. +An authoritative account of the life of the college girl as it is lived +to-day. + +JANE ALLEN OF THE SUB TEAM + +When Jane Allen left her beautiful Western home in Montana, sorely +against her will, to go East, there to become a freshman at Wellington +College, she was sure that she could never learn to endure the +restrictions of college life. But she did. + +JANE ALLEN: RIGHT GUARD + +Jane Allen becomes a sophomore at Wellington College, but she has to +face a severe trial that requires all her courage and character. The +result is a triumph for being faithful to an ideal. + +JANE ALLEN: CENTER + +Lovable Jane Allen as Junior experiences delightful days of work and +play. 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Postage 10 cents additional. + +A charming series of stories of a young American girl, Peggy Lee, living +with her family (including many unusual pets) on a large coffee +plantation in Central America, and her many adventures there and in New +York. + +The action is rapid, full of fun, and takes the reader not only to many +interesting places in Central America, but in the country as well, where +Peggy attends a school for girls. The incidents are cleverly brought +out, and Peggy in her wistful way, proves in her many adventures to be a +brave girl and an endearing heroine to her friends and readers. + + 1. PEGGY AND MICHAEL OF THE COFFEE PLANTATION + 2. PEGGY LEE OF THE GOLDEN THISTLE PLANTATION + 3. PEGGY LEE AND THE MYSTERIOUS ISLANDS + +(Other Volumes in Preparation) + +_Send for Our Free Illustrated Catalogue_ + +CUPPLES & LEON COMPANY, _Publishers_ NEW YORK + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Ruth Fielding In the Red Cross, by Alice B. 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