urgeon-in-chief
down to the last orderly and porter. Although her work was supposed to
be entirely in the supply department, she gave much of her time to the
patients themselves.

Those who could not write, or could not read, were aided by the
American girl. If there was extra work in the wards (and that happened
whenever the opposing forces on the front became active) Ruth was
called on to help the nurses.

Thus far no American wounded had been brought into the Clair
Hospital--a fact easily understood, as the entire force save Ruth was
French. It would not be long, however, before the American Red Cross
would take over that hospital and the French wounded would be sent to
the base hospital at Lyse, where Ruth had first worked on coming to
France.

Up to this very moment--and not an unexciting moment it was--Ruth
Fielding had never been so far away from Clair in this direction. In
the distance, as they mounted another ridge, she saw the flaring lights
which she had long since learned marked the battle front. The guns
still muttered.

Now and again they passed cavities where the great shells had burst.
But most of these were ancient marmite holes and the grass was again
growing in them, or water stood slimy and knee-deep, and, on the edges
of these pools, frogs croaked their evensong.

There were not many farmhouses in this direction. Indeed, this part of
France was "old-fashioned" in that the agricultural people lived in
little villages for the most part and went daily to their fields to
work, gathering at night for self-protection as they had done since
feudal times.

Now and again the ambulance passed within sight of a ruined chateau.
The Germans had left none intact when they had advanced first into this
part of the country. They rolled through two tiny villages which
remained merely battered heaps of ruins.

Orchards were razed; even the shade trees beside the pleasant roads had
been scored with the ax and now stood gaunt and dead. Some were
splintered freshly by German shells. As the light faded and the road
grew dim, Ruth Fielding saw many ugly objects which marked the
"frightfulness" of the usurpers. It all had a depressing effect on the
girl's spirits.

"Are you hungry, Miss Ruth?" Charlie Bragg asked her at last.

"I expect I shall be, Charlie," she replied. "Our tea at the chateau
was almost a fantom tea."

"Gosh! isn't it so?" he said slangily. "What these French folks live
on would