gate. Dolge opened
the postern and the two girls stepped through, followed by the French
officer. The young fellow in the American ambulance immediately hailed
Ruth.

"Oh, I say, Miss Ruth!" he cried, "sorry to hunt you out this way, but
you are needed down at the hospital."

"So I presume, or you would not have come for me, Charlie," she told
him, smiling. "What is it?"

"Supplies needed for one of the field hospitals," he said. "And I tell
you straight, Miss Ruth, they're in bad shape there. Not half enough
help. The supply room of that station is all shot away--terrible
thing."

"Oh, dear!" gasped Ruth. "Do you mean that the Germans have bombed it?"

"It wasn't an air raid. Yet it must have been done deliberately. They
dropped a Jack Johnson right on that end of the hospital. Two
orderlies hurt and the girl who ran the supply room killed. They want
somebody to come right up there and arrange a new room and new stock."

"Oh! you won't go, Mademoiselle Ruth?" shrieked Henriette.

"It would be extremely dangerous," Major Marchand said. "Another shell
might drop in the same place."

"Oh, we settled that battery. They tell me it's torn all to pieces.
When our doughboys heard the Red Cross girl was killed they were wild.
The gunners smashed the German position to smithereens. But it was
awful for her, poor thing.

"The station needs supplies dreadfully, just the same," added Charlie
Bragg. "And somebody who knows about 'em. I told the _medicin-chef_
I'd speak to you myself, Miss Ruth----"

"I'll go with you. They can get along at Clair without me for a few
days, I am sure."

"Good," returned Charlie, and moved over a little to make room on the
seat for her. Major Marchand said:

"There must be something big going on over there. Is it a general
advance, Monsieur?"

Ruth flashed him a look and laid her fingers gently on Charlie Bragg's
arm. The ambulance driver was by no means dull.

"I can't say what is on foot," he said to the French officer. "I
should think you might know more about it than I do," he added.

His engine began to rattle the somewhat infirm car. Charlie winked
openly at Henriette, who laughed at him. The car began to move. Major
Marchand stood beside the road and bowed profoundly again to Ruth--that
bow from the hips. It was German, that bow; it proved that his
military education had not been wholly gained in France.

She could not help doubting the loyalty of Ma