Part 20 (1/2)
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 s.h.i.+p 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 n.o.body 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 pa.s.sing 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 friends.h.i.+p 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!