Ruth spent one night in Lyse, where she went to the pension patronized
by a girl friend from Kansas City, Clare Biggars. She was obliged to
have somebody assist her in dressing and disrobing, but she was in no
pain. Merely she was warned to keep her shoulder in one position and she
wore her arm in a black silk sling.
"It is quite the fashion to 'sling' an arm," said Clare, laughing. "They
should pin the _Croix de Guerre_ on you, anyway, Ruth Fielding. After
what you have been through!"
"Deliver us from our friends!" groaned Ruth. "Why should you wish to
embarrass me? How could I explain a war cross?"
"I don't know. One of the Kansas City boys was here on leave a few weeks
ago and he wore a French war cross. I tried to find out why, but all he
would tell me was that it was given him for a reward for killing his
first ten thousand cooties!"
"That is all right," laughed Ruth. "They make fun of them, but the boys
are proud of being cited and allowed to wear such a mark of distinction,
just the same. Only, you know how it is with American boys; they hate to
be made conspicuous."
"How about American girls?" returned Clare slyly.
That evening Ruth held a reception in the parlor of the pension. And
among those who came to see her was a little, stiff-backed, white-haired
and moustached old gentleman, with a row of orders across his chest. He
was the prefect of police of the town, and he thought he had good reason
for considering the "_Mademoiselle Americaine_" quite a wonderful young
woman. It was by her aid that the police had captured three
international crooks of notorious character.
Off again in the morning, this time by rail. In the best of times the
ordinary train in France is not the most comfortable traveling equipage
in the world. In war time Ruth found the journey most abominable. Troop
trains going forward, many of them filled with khaki-uniformed fighters
from the States, and supply trains as well, forced the ordinary
passenger trains on to side tracks. But at length they rolled into the
Gare du Nord, and there Helen and Jennie were waiting for the girl of
the Red Mill.
"Oh! She looks completely done up!" gasped Helen, as greeting.
"Come over to the canteen and get some nice soup," begged Jennie. "I
have just tasted it. It is fine."
"'Tasted it!'" repeated Helen scornfully. "Ruthie, she ate two plates of
it. She is beginning to put on flesh again. What do you suppose Colonel
Henri will say?"
"As though _he_ would care!" smiled Jennie Stone. "If I weighed a ton he
would continue to call me _petite poulet_."
"'Chicken Little!' No less!" exclaimed Helen. "Honest, Ruthie, I don't
know how I bear this fat and sentimental girl. I--I wish I was engaged
myself so I could be just as silly as she is!"
"How about you, Ruthie?" asked Jennie, suspiciously. "Let me see your
left hand. What! Has he not put anything on that third finger yet?"
"Have a care! A broken shoulderbone is enough," gasped Ruth. "I am
looking for no other ornament at present, thank you."
"We are going to take you to Madame Picolet's," Helen declared the next
minute, as they left the great train shed and found a taxicab. "You
would not disappoint her, would you? She so wants you with her while you
remain in Paris."
"Of course," said Ruth, who had a warm feeling for the French teacher
with whom she had been so friendly at Briarwood Hall. "And she has such
a cosy and quiet little place."
But after Ruth had rested from her train journey, Madame Picolet's
apartment did not prove to be so quiet a place. Besides Helen Cameron
and Jennie Stone, there were a lot of other young women whom Ruth knew
in Paris, working for the Red Cross or for other war institutions.
Of all their clique, Ruth had been the only girl who had worked right up
on the battleline and had really seen much of the war. The visitors
wanted to know all about it. And that Ruth had been injured by a Hun
bomb made her all the more interesting to these young American women
who, if they were not all of the calibre of the girl of the Red Mill,
were certainly in earnest and interested in their own part of the work.
The surgeons had been wise, perhaps, in advising Ruth to take boat as
soon as possible for the American side of the Atlantic. The Red Cross
authorities gave her but a few days in Paris before she had to go on to
Brest--that great port which the United States had built over for its war
needs.
Helen and Jennie insisted on going with her to Brest. Indeed, Ruth found
herself so weak that she was glad to have friends with her. She knew,
however, that there would be those aboard the _Admiral Pekhard_, the
British transport ship to which she was assigned, who would give her any
needed attention during the voyage.
Up to the hour of sailing, Ruth received messages and
presents--especially flowers--from friends she was leaving behind in
France. Down to the ship came a boy from a famous florist in
Paris--having traveled all the way by mail train carrying a huge bunch of
roses.
"It's from Tom," cried Helen excitedly, "I bet a penny!"
"What a spendthrift you are, Helen," drawled Jennie. But she watched
Ruth narrowly as the latter opened the sealed letter accompanying the
flowers.
"You lose," said Ruth cheerfully, the moment she saw the card. "But
somebody at the front has remembered me just the same, even if Tom did
not."
"Well!" exclaimed Tom's sister, "what do you know about _that_?"
"Who is the gallant, Ruthie?" demanded Jennie.
"Charlie Bragg. The dear boy! And a steamer letter, too!"
Helen Cameron was evidently amazed that Tom was not heard from at this
time. Ruth had kept to herself the knowledge that Tom was going to the
aviation camp and expected to make his first trip into the air in the
company of his friend, the American ace. This was a secret she thought
Helen would better not share with her.
After she had opened Charlie Bragg's letter on the ship she was very
glad indeed she had said nothing to Helen about this. For along with
other news the young ambulance driver wrote the following:
* * * * *
"Hard luck for one of our best flying men. Ralph Stillinger. You've
heard of him? The French call him an ace, for he has brought down more
than five Hun machines.
"I hear that he took up a passenger the other day. An army captain, I
understand, but I did not catch the name. There was a sudden raid from
the German side, and Stillinger's machine was seen to fly off toward the
sea in an endeavor to get around the flank of the Hun squadron.
"Forced so far away from the French and American planes, it was thought
Stillinger must have got into serious trouble. At least, it is reported
here that an American airplane was seen fighting one of those
sea-going-Zeppelins--the kind the Hun uses to bomb London and the English
coast, you know.
"Hard luck for Stillinger and his passenger, sure enough. The American
airplane was seen to fall, and, although a searching party discovered
the wrecked machine, neither its pilot nor the passenger was found."
* * * * *
Charlie Bragg had no idea when he wrote this that he was causing Ruth
Fielding, homeward bound, heartache and anxiety. She dared tell Helen
nothing about this, although she read the letter before the _Admiral
Pekhard_ drew away from the pier and Helen and Jennie went ashore.
Of course, Stillinger's passenger might not have been Tom Cameron. Yet
Tom had been going to the aviation field expecting to fly with the
American ace. And the fact that Tom had allowed her, Ruth, to sail
without a word of remembrance almost convinced the girl of the Red Mill
that something untoward had happened to him.
It was a secret which she felt she could share with nobody. She set sail
upon the venturesome voyage to America with this added weight of sorrow
on her heart.