ave the range perfectly.
They caught one of my bunkies there only a week ago."

"Oh, Charlie! An American?"

"No. Scotch. Only Scotty in this section, and a mighty nice fellow.
Well, he'll never drive that boat again."

"Oh!" gasped Ruth. "Was he killed?"

"Shucks! No!" scoffed Charlie. "But his ambulance was smashed to
bits. Luckily he hadn't any load with him at the time. But it would
have been all one to the Boches."

Bragg got in beside the girl again, tried out his levers, and suddenly
shot the car ahead.

"Hang on!" cried Charlie Bragg under his breath.

The ambulance shot down to the corner. It was all black shadow there,
and, as Charlie intimated, he dared use no lights. If there was an
obstruction they would crash into it!

The dusk had fallen suddenly. The sky was overcast, so not a star
flecked the firmament. Through the gloom the ambulance raced, the
young fellow stooping low over the steering wheel, trying to peer ahead.

How many hundreds of times had he made similar runs? Ruth had never
before appreciated just what it meant to be driving an ambulance
through these roads so near the battle front.

For five minutes a heavy gun had not spoken. Suddenly the horizon
ahead lit up with a broad white flare. There came the resonant report
of a huge gun--so distant that Ruth knew it could be nothing but a
German Bertha.

Almost instantly the whine of a shell was audible--coming nearer and
nearer! Ruth Fielding, cowering on the seat of the automobile, felt as
though the awful missile must be aimed directly at her!

The car shot around the curve where the broken trees stood. With a
yell like that of a lost soul--a demon from the Pit--the shell went
over their heads and exploded in the grove.

The ambulance was spattered with a hail that might have been shrapnel,
or stones and gravel--Ruth did not know. The hood sheltered her. She
was on the far side of the seat, anyway.

And then, with a shout of warning, Charlie shut down and tried to stop
the car within its own length. Ruth saw a hole yawning before them--a
pit in the very middle of the road.

"They've dropped one here since I came along!" yelled the young man,
just as the ambulance pitched, nose first, into the cavity.

They were stalled. Suppose the Boches sent another shell hurtling to
this spot? They were likely to be wiped out in a breath.

CHAPTER V

MOTHER GERVAISE

Neither Ruth nor the driver was thrown o