sector."

"Oh!"

"You know that Devil Corner Charlie Bragg drove you past the other
night? The shells have torn that all to pieces. We have to go fully
two miles around by another road to get to Clair. We don't pass Mother
Gervaise's place any more."

Ruth looked at him sadly but questioningly.

"Do you believe that story they tell about one of our young officers
having gone over to the enemy?" she asked.

Holdness flushed vividly. "I didn't know him. I've got no opinion on
the matter, Miss Fielding," he said. "But somebody has mapped out the
whole sector for the Huns--and it has cost lives, and ammunition. You
can't blame folks for being suspicious."

The answer quenched her conversation. Ruth scarcely spoke again during
the remainder of the journey.

They welcomed her in most friendly fashion at the Clair Hospital. But
the first thing she did after depositing her bag in her cell was to go
to the telegraph office and put before the military censor the
following message addressed to the prefect of police at Lyse,

"Will you please communicate with M. Lafrane. I have something of
importance to tell him."

She signed her name and occupation in full to this, and was finally
assured that it would be sent. M. Lafrane was of the secret police,
and Ruth Fielding had been in communication with him on a previous
occasion.

Several days passed with no reply from her communication to the police.
Nor did any news reach her from the field hospital where she had been
engaged, nor from her friends at the front. Indeed, those working near
the battle lines really know less of what is being done in this war
than civilians in America, for instance.

Almost every night the guns thundered, and it was reported that the
Americans were making sorties into the German lines and bearing back
both prisoners and plunder. But just what was being accomplished Ruth
Fielding had no means of knowing.

Not having seen or heard from Henriette Dupay since her return, early
in the following week Ruth started out to walk briskly to the Dupay
farm one afternoon.

Of late the aeroplanes had become very numerous over this sector. They
were, for the most part, American machines. But this afternoon she
chanced to see one of the French Nieuports at close quarters.

These are the scouting, or battle planes, and carry but two men and a
machine gun. She heard the motor some moments before seeing the
aeroplane rise over the tree