f what she would do--in detail, that is.
She had put herself in the hands of Major Marchand and must wait to
hear from him.

She dared not breathe to Helen a word of Tom's trouble. Nobody must
know that she, Ruth, hoped in some way to aid him to escape from beyond
the German lines.

It seemed almost impossible for a girl--any girl--to pass from one side
of the battle front to the other. From the sea on the Belgian coast to
the Alps the trenches ran in continuous lines. Division after division
of Belgians, British and their colonial troops, French, and Americans
held the trenches on this side, facing a great horde of Germans.

In places the huge guns stood so close together they all but touched.
Beyond these were the front trenches, in which the sharpshooters and
the machine-gun men watched the enemy. And beyond again were the
listening posts and the wire entanglements.

How could a girl ever get through the jungle of barbed wire? And in
places the Huns had strung live wires, carrying voltages strong enough
to kill a man, just as they did along the borderland of Holland.

When Ruth thought of these things she lost hope. But she tried not to
think at all. Major Marchand had bade her be of good hope.

She kept her mind occupied in showing the two girls their duties and in
introducing them to such of the nurses and other workers as Ruth
herself knew well.

It was rather late in the afternoon, and she had heard no word of the
major, when Ruth and her two friends came out of a lower ward to the
main entrance of the hospital just as an ambulance rolled in. Two of
the _brancardiers_ came out of the hospital and drew forth one
stretcher on which a convalescent patient lay.

"Oh, the poor man!" murmured Helen. "What do they do with him now?"

"He has come in from a field hospital," began Ruth. And then she saw
the face of the ambulance driver. "Oh, Charlie Bragg!" she called.

"What did I tell you?" said Jennie solemnly. "She knows 'em all. They
grow on bushes around here, I warrant."

"They don't grow 'em like Charlie on bushes, I assure you," declared
Ruth, laughing, and she ran down the steps to speak to the ambulance
driver, for she saw that he wanted to say something to her.

"Miss Ruth, I was told to whisper something in your private ear, and
when I have said it, you are to do it, instantly."

"Goodness! What do you mean, Charlie Bragg?" she gasped.

"Listen. Those two _brancardiers_ are comin