Part 14 (2/2)
”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 a.s.sociates.”
”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 sh.e.l.l-bowed gla.s.ses. 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 sh.e.l.l 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 sh.e.l.l 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.
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