Part 17 (2/2)
”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!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the young fellow with disgust. ”Isn't that just like a girl? 'Poor dog,' indeed!”
”Why! you don't suppose that a n.o.ble 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.
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