Are you crazy,
Charlie Bragg?"

"There you go," he grumbled. "I told you I didn't know anything--for
sure. But I heard some gossip."

"About Tom?"

"I didn't know it was about Tom. And I don't know now. But what you
say about how funny those chaps acted----"

"_Do_ explain!" begged Ruth. "Come right out with it, Charlie."

"Why, I heard a chap had been accused of giving information to the
enemy. Yes. One of our own chaps--an American. It's said he met a
Boche spy on listening post--right out there between the lines. He was
seen twice."

"Not Tom?"

"No name told when I heard it. First a fellow saw him talking to a
figure that stole away toward the German line. This fellow told his
top sergeant, and toppy told his captain. They waited and watched.
Three men saw the same thing happen. They were going to have the
blamed traitor up before the brass hats when all of a sudden he
disappeared."

"Who disappeared?" gasped Ruth Fielding.

"This chap they suspect gave information to the Boches. He's
gone--like that!"

"Captured?" questioned Ruth breathlessly.

"Or gone over to them," returned Charlie, with evident unwillingness.

Ruth sighed. "But that never could be Tom Cameron!"

"You wouldn't think so," was the reply. "But that's all I can guess
that those fellows had in mind when they would not answer you--good
gracious, look at that!"

He braked madly. The ambulance rocked and came to an abrupt
standstill. Across the track, scarcely two yards before the nose of
the car, had dashed a white object, which, soundlessly, was gone in
half a minute--swallowed up in the shadowy field beside the road.

"We see it again, Ruth," said Charlie Bragg, with a strange solemnity.

"What do you mean?" she demanded, but her voice, too, shook.

"The werwolf. That dog--whatever it is. Ghost or despatch-bearer,
whatever you call it. I got a good sight of it again, Miss Ruth.
Didn't _you_?"

CHAPTER VII

WHERE IS TOM CAMERON?

That the peasants of the surrounding territory should believe in that
old and wicked legend of the werwolf was not to be considered strange.
There is not a country in Europe where the tale of the human being who
can change his form at will to that of a wolf, is not repeated.

Ruth Fielding had come across the superstition--and for the first time
in the company of Charlie Bragg--as she had approached the town of
Clair to begin her work in that hospital some months before.