she had been
through during the past thirty-six hours?

Suppose she should picture her adventure to them--just as it had
happened? Suppose she told them of her long journey with the French
major across No Man's Land?

"Where is Tom? Did you get word to him?" Helen asked.

"He will be here this morning to see you," Ruth said, and then went
back to her thoughts of her adventure.

"Goody! Dear old Tom will take us around and show us the big shell
holes--and all," Helen declared.

Shell holes! Ruth remembered the shell hole in which they had changed
steel helmets before and after crossing the swamp. How she must have
looked in that shapeless rubber garment and steel hat!

"What under the sun are you laughing at, Ruth Fielding?" demanded Helen.

"Yes. Do tell us the joke," drawled Heavy Stone.

"I--I was ju-just thinking of how fun-funny I must ha-have looked in a
hat I had on since I saw you girls!" Ruth was hysterical.

"Well! I never!" gasped Jennie.

"Dear me, Ruth," Helen said, admonishingly. "I wonder you are so
light-minded at such a time as this. You are laughing when those
horrid guns may be throwing shells right among our poor boys. Dear,
dear! I wish they would stop."

Ruth gazed at Helen with a far-away look in her eyes.

"I'm not laughing," she said slowly. "Far from it!"

"Yes, but you did laugh!" burst out Jennie.

"If I did, I didn't know it," answered Ruth. "I was thinking of
something else. Oh, girls, not now--to-morrow, perhaps--you may know
about it. Now I'm tired, so tired!"

The two girls, at last realizing that something out of the ordinary had
occurred and seeing how near the end of her strength Ruth really was,
petted her, made her as comfortable as possible, and finally left her
to rest, telling her they would still take charge of the supply room,
so that the girl of the Red Mill need not take up at once her duties in
the hospital.

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's Ruth Fielding at the War Front, by Alice B. Emerson

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