CHAPTER XI
THE FLYING MAN
While yet the silent figure was some rods away Ruth Fielding realizedthat it was no human being. It was not one of the men she had seen inthe garden of Nicko's cottage.
This creature came too swiftly up the path and skimmed the ground tooclosely. A light-colored object--swift, silent and threatening ofaspect.
The girl shrank against the hedge, and the next instant--with a rush ofpassage that stirred the air all about her--the Thing was gone! It wasagain that strange and incomprehensible apparition of the werwolf!
If it was Bubu, the greyhound she had seen at the Chateau Marchand, hewas much lighter in color than when he appeared pacing beside hismistress on the chateau lawns. The phantom had dashed past so rapidlythat, in the gathering dusk, Ruth could make out little of its realappearance.
Headed toward the battle lines, it had disappeared within seconds. Thegirl, her limbs still trembling, followed in haste to the highway.Already the creature had been swallowed up in the shadows.
She went on toward the hospital gateway and had scarcely recovered herself-control when she arrived there. Altogether, her evening'sexperience had been most disconcerting.
The two men, dressed alike and apparently of the same height andshambling manner, whom she had seen in Nicko's garden, worried herquite as much--indeed, worried her even more than the sight of themysterious creature the peasants called the werwolf.
More than ever was she determined to take into her confidence somebodywho would be able to explain the mystery of it all. At least, he wouldbe able to judge if what made her so anxious was of moment.
And Tom Cameron's disappearance, too! Ruth's worry of mind regardingher old friend propped her eyes open that night.
In the morning she went over the stock shelves again with the girl shehad trained, and finally announced to Mrs. Strang that she felt shemust return to Clair. After all, she had been assigned to the jobthere and must not desert it.
An ambulance was going down to Clair with its burden of wounded men,and Ruth was assigned to the seat beside the driver. He chanced to be"Cub" Holdness, one of the ambulance drivers to whom Ruth had beenintroduced by Charlie Bragg at Mother Gervaise's cottage the night ofher trip up to the field hospital.
Holdness was plainly delighted to have the girl with him for the driveto Clair. He was a Philadelphia boy, and he confessed to having had nochance to drive a girl--even in an ambulance--since coming over.
"I had one of those 'reckless roadsters' back home," he sighed. "Dadsaid every time his telephone rang he expected it was me calling fromsome outlying police station for him to come and bail me out foroverspeeding.
"And there was a bunch of girls I knew who were just crazy to have metake 'em for a spin out around Fairmount Park and along the speedways.Just think, Miss Fielding, of the difference between those times andthese," and he nodded solemnly.
"I should say there was a difference," laughed Ruth, trying to appearin good spirits. "Don't you get dreadfully tired of all these awfulsights and sounds?"
"No. Excitement keeps us keyed up, I guess," he replied. "You know,there is almost always something doing."
"I should say there was!"
She saw that while he talked he did not for a moment forget that he wasdriving three sorely wounded men. He eased the ambulance over therough parts of the road and around the sharp turns with infinite skill.It was actually wonderful how smoothly the ambulance ran.
Occasionally they were caught in a tight corner and the machine jouncedso that moans of agony were wrung from the lips of the wounded behindthem on the stretchers. This, however, occurred but seldom.
Once one of the men begged for water--water to drink and its coolnesson his head. They were passing a trickling stream that looked clearand refreshing.
"Let me get out a moment and get him some," begged Ruth.
"Can't do it. Against orders. We're commanded not to taste water fromany stream, spring, or well in this sector--let alone give it to thewounded. Nobody knows when the water is poisoned."
"But the Germans have been gone from this district so long now!" shecried.
"They may have their spies here. In fact," grumbled Holdness, "we aresure they do have friends in the sector."
"Oh!"
"You know that Devil Corner Charlie Bragg drove you past the othernight? The shells have torn that all to pieces. We have to go fullytwo miles around by another road to get to Clair. We don't pass MotherGervaise's place any more."
Ruth looked at him sadly but questioningly.
"Do you believe that story they tell about one of our young officershaving gone over to the enemy?" she asked.
Holdness flushed vividly. "I didn't know him. I've got no opinion onthe matter, Miss Fielding," he said. "But somebody has mapped out thewhole sector for the Huns--and it has cost lives, and ammunition. Youcan't blame folks for being suspicious."
The answer quenched her conversation. Ruth scarcely spoke again duringthe remainder of the journey.
They welcomed her in most friendly fashion at the Clair Hospital. Butthe first thing she did after depositing her bag in her cell was to goto the telegraph office and put before the military censor thefollowing message addressed to the prefect of police at Lyse,
"Will you please communicate with M. Lafrane. I have something ofimportance to tell him."
She signed her name and occupation in full to this, and was finallyassured that it would be sent. M. Lafrane was of the secret police,and Ruth Fielding had been in communication with him on a previousoccasion.
Several days passed with no reply from her communication to the police.Nor did any news reach her from the field hospital where she had beenengaged, nor from her friends at the front. Indeed, those working nearthe battle lines really know less of what is being done in this warthan civilians in America, for instance.
Almost every night the guns thundered, and it was reported that theAmericans were making sorties into the German lines and bearing backboth prisoners and plunder. But just what was being accomplished RuthFielding had no means of knowing.
Not having seen or heard from Henriette Dupay since her return, earlyin the following week Ruth started out to walk briskly to the Dupayfarm one afternoon.
Of late the aeroplanes had become very numerous over this sector. Theywere, for the most part, American machines. But this afternoon shechanced to see one of the French Nieuports at close quarters.
These are the scouting, or battle planes, and carry but two men and amachine gun. She heard the motor some moments before seeing theaeroplane rise over the tree tops. She knew it must have leaped from alarge field on this side of the Dupay farm and not far below thegateway of the Chateau Marchand.
Ruth stopped to gaze upward at the soaring airplane. Her figure stoodout plainly in the country road and the two men aboard the Nieuportmust have immediately spied her.
The machine dipped and scaled downward until she could have thrown astone upward and hit it. One of the men--masked and helmeted as theflying men always are--leaned from his seat, and she saw him lookingdown upon her through the tangle of stay-wires.
Then he dropped a small white object that fell like a plummet at herfeet!
"What in the world can that be?" murmured the girl to herself.
For a breath she was frightened. Although the aeroplane carried theFrench insignia it might be an enemy machine. She, too, was obsessedwith the fear of spies!
But the object that fell was not an explosive bomb. It was a weightedball of oiled silk. As the machine soared again and rapidly rose tothe upper air levels, the girl picked up the strange object and burstit open.
The lead pellets that weighted the globe were scattered on the ground.Within there was nothing else but a strip of heavy document paper. Onthis was traced in a handwriting she knew well, this unsigned message:
"Don't believe everything you hear."
It was Tom Cameron's handwriting--and
Ruth knew that the message wasmeant for her eye and her eye only!