THE MYSTERY
Ruth Fielding's rising fear was quenched when she saw the faces of the
newcomers more clearly. They were those of young men belonging to the
American Expeditionary Forces, as their uniforms betrayed. And they
were teasing Mother Gervaise in the free and easy way of American youth.
Nor was she anywhere near as angry as she assumed. They pushed her
into the cottage and crowded in themselves before they saw Ruth
standing at the end of the long table. Then, quite suddenly, their
voices fell.
Not so Mother Gervaise. She fetched one of her tormentors a sharp
smack with the palm of her hand.
"_Un vaurien_!" she cried, meaning, in the slang of the day,
"good-for-nothing." "You would take my house by storm! Do you think
it is a Boche dugout you charge when you come to Mother Gervaise?"
The silence of the rough and careless fellows was becoming marked.
Already the Frenchwoman was noticing it. She turned, saw their eyes
fixed upon Ruth, and remarked:
"Ha! It's well they respect the mademoiselle. Come in, wicked ones,
and shut the door."
Ruth, relieved, saw that all were young commissioned officers--a very,
very young captain, two first lieutenants, and several subalterns.
They bowed rather bashfully to Ruth, and could not take their eyes off
her.
One finally said: "You must be the lady at the Clair Hospital--Miss
Fielding? You're the only American girl at that station."
"I am Miss Fielding," Ruth returned. Her eyes shone, her tone grew
softer. She saw that he belonged to Tom Cameron's regiment. "I have a
friend in your regiment--Mr. Cameron. Lieutenant Thomas Cameron. Is
he on duty with you?"
Their respectful silence when they tumbled in and saw her was marked.
But the utter dumbness that followed this question was so impressive
that Ruth could almost hear her own heart beat.
"What---- He is not _hurt_?" she cried, looking from one to the other.
"I believe not, Miss Fielding," the captain said. "He is not on duty
with us. I can tell you nothing about Lieutenant Cameron."
The decision with which he spoke and the expression upon the faces of
the others, appalled the girl. She could not find breath to ask
another question.
Mother Gervaise bustled forward to set upon the napkin she had spread a
plate of the ragout for Ruth. The latter sank into the chair. The
young officers gathered upon the other side of the hearth. They were
hopelessly dumb.
There was a noise outside--the chugging of a car. It was a welcome
relief. The door opened again and Charlie Bragg and the other two boys
entered.
"Well, the Boches didn't get us that time," said Charlie, with
satisfaction. "Nor the old fliver, either. Hello! Here's General
Haig and all his staff. Or is it General Disorder? Hurry up with the
Mulligan, Mother Gervaise--we've got to gobble and go."
He slipped into the seat next to Ruth, smiling at her. He was just a
hungry, slangy boy. But those others----
Ruth could scarcely force the food down; but she determined to make a
meal for her body's sake. She did not know what was before her--how
much work, or how hard it would be, before she obtained another meal.
She managed to ask:
"Is the car all right again, Charlie?"
"You can't bust it!" he declared enthusiastically. "The Britishers
make all manner of fun of 'em. Call 'em 'mechanical fleas' and all
that. But with a hammer, a monkey-wrench, and some bale-wire, a fellow
can perform major and minor operations on a fliver in the middle of a
garageless wilderness and come through all right when better cars are
left for the junk department to gather up and salvage."
The other two ambulance drivers to whom Ruth had been introduced came
to the table and finished their suppers, Mother Gervaise grumblingly
dishing up more hot stew for them.
"It is for you and such as you I slave and slave," she said. "And what
thanks do I get?"
"For _la zozotte_ do you work, Mother," said one, laughing. "And who
would want better thanks than money?"
But Ruth kissed the woman when she rose to depart. She believed Mother
Gervaise was "tender under her rough skin," as is the saying.
The young officers had not come to the table while Ruth remained; nor
did Charlie pay much attention to them. At least, he did not try to
introduce them, and Ruth was glad of that.
There was something wrong. There was a mystery. Why should Tom
Cameron's own associates act so oddly when his name was mentioned?
She merely bowed to the officers, but shook hands with Charlie's
brother _ambulanciers_. There seemed to her something very wholesome
and fine about these youths who drove the ambulances. They had--most
of them--come to France and enlisted in their present employment before
the United States got into the war at all.
She suspected that many of them were of that class known about their
home neighborhoods as "that boy of Jones'," or "that Jackson kid." In
other words, their overflow of animal spirits, or ambition, or whatever
it was, had probably made them something of a trial to their neighbors,
if not to their families.
Ruth began to see them in a sort of golden glow of heroism. They were
the truer heroes because they denied this designation. Charlie grew
red and gruff if she as much as suggested that he was doing anything
out of the ordinary. Yet she knew he had written a book about his
first year's experiences and his brother had found a publisher for it
in New York. His share of the proceeds from that book was going to the
Red Cross.
Into the ambulance they climbed, and again they were rolling over the
dark and rough road. Ruth gathered together all her courage and asked:
"Do you know anything about Tom Cameron?"
"Tom Cameron?"
"Yes," she said. "I want to know what's happened to him, Charlie."
"For the love of Pete!" gasped the young fellow. "I didn't know
anything had happened to him--again."
"I must know," Ruth told him, her voice quivering. "Some of those
officers belonged to his battalion. _All_ were of his regiment. But
when I asked about him they refused to answer."
"You don't mean it!" Plainly Charlie Bragg was nonplussed. "I thought
they acted funny," he said, with a sudden grin, which she sensed rather
than saw. "But I thought it was girlitis. It has a terrible effect
upon these fellows that haven't seen a real American girl for so long."
"I am serious, Charlie," she told him. "Something has happened to
Tom--or about him. It seems to me that those officers were afraid to
speak of it. As though there was something--something disgraceful
about it!"
"Oh, say!" murmured Charlie. "That's not sense, you know."
"Of course Tom could do nothing disgraceful. But why should those men
be afraid to speak of him?" cried the shaken girl. "He can't be
wounded again. That can't be it. Haven't you heard a word?"
She suddenly realized that her companion had grown silent. He made no
comment now upon her speech. She waited a full minute before bursting
out again:
"You _have_ heard something, Charlie! Something about Tom!"
"I--I don't know," he muttered. "I didn't know it was Tom."
"What is it?" she demanded with rising eagerness.
"I don't know that it's about Cameron _now_," he muttered. "I should
hope not."
"Charlie Bragg! Do you want to drive me wild?" she demanded, clutching
at his arm.
"Hold on! You'll have us in the ditch," he warned her.
"You answer me--at once!" she commanded.
"Oh---- But what can I say? I don't know anything. I don't believe
Tom Cameron would be tricky--not a bit. And as for selling out to the
Boches----"
"What _do_ you mean?" almost shrieked the girl. "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_?"