"We have to stop here and put the lights out," he added, seeing a gaunt post beside the road on which was a half-obliterated sign.
"If you have to do that it must be perilous," declared Ruth.
"No. It"s just an order. Maybe they"ve forgotten to take the sign down.
But I don"t want to be stopped by one of these old territorials-or even by one of our own military police. You don"t know when you"re likely to run into one of them. Or maybe it"s a marine. Those are the boys, believe me! They"re on the job first and always."
"But this time you boys who came to France to run automobiles got ahead of even the marine corps," laughed Ruth. "Oh! What"s that?"
They were then traveling a very dark bit of road. Right across the gloomy way and just ahead of the machine something white dashed past. It seemed to cross the road in two or three great leaps and then sailed over the hedge on the left into a field.
"Did you see it?" asked Charlie Bragg, and there was a queer shake in his voice.
"Why, what is it? There it goes-all white!" and the excited girl pointed across the field, half standing up in the rocking car to do so.
"Going for the lines," said the young driver.
"Is it a dog? A big dog? And he didn"t bark or anything!"
"Never does bark," said her companion. "They say they can"t bark."
"Then it"s a wolf! Wolves don"t bark," Ruth suggested.
"I guess that"s right. They say they are dumb. Gosh! I don"t know,"
Charlie said. "You didn"t really see anything, did you?" and he said it so very oddly that Ruth Fielding was perfectly amazed.
"What do you mean by that?" she demanded. "I saw just as much as you did."
"Well, I"m not sure that I saw anything," he told her slowly. "The French say it"s the werwolf-and that means just nothing at all."
"Goodness!" exclaimed Ruth, repeating the word. "What old-world superst.i.tion is that? The ghost of a wolf?"
"They have a story that certain people, selling themselves to the Devil, can change at will into the form of a wolf," went on Charlie.
"Oh, I know! They have that legend in every language there is, I guess,"
Ruth returned.
"Now you"ve said it!"
"How ridiculous that sounds-in this day and generation. You don"t mean that people around here believe such stories?"
"They do."
"And you half believe it yourself, Mr. Bragg," cried Ruth, laughing.
"I tell you what it is," the young fellow said earnestly, while still guiding the car through the dark way with a skill that was really wonderful. "There are a whole lot of things I don"t know in this world.
I didn"t used to think so; but I do now."
"But you don"t believe in magic-either black or white?"
"I know that that thing you saw just now-and that I have seen twice before-flies through this country just like that, and at night. It never makes a sound. Soldiers have shot at it, and either missed-or their bullets go right through it."
"Oh, how absurd!"
"Isn"t it?" and perhaps Charlie Bragg grinned. But he went on seriously enough: "I don"t know. I"m only telling you what they say. If it is a white or gray dog, it leaps the very trenches and barbed-wire entanglements on the front-so they say. It has been seen doing so. No one has been able to shoot it. It crosses what they call No Man"s Land between the two battlefronts."
"It carries despatches to the Germans, then!" cried Ruth.
"That is what the military authorities say," said Charlie. "But these peasants don"t believe that. They say the werwolf was here long before the war. There is a chateau over back here-not far from the outskirts of Clair. The people say that _the woman_ lives there."
"What do you mean-the woman?" asked Ruth, between jounces, as the car took a particularly rough piece of the road on high gear.
"The one who is the werwolf," said Charlie, and he tried to laugh.
"Mr. Bragg!"
"Well, I"m only telling you what they say," he explained. "Lots of funny things are happening in this war. But _this_ began before August, nineteen-fourteen, according to their tell."
"Whose tell? And what other "funny" things do you believe have happened?" the girl asked, with some scorn.
"That"s all right," he declared more stoutly. "When you"ve been here as long as I have you"ll begin to wonder if there isn"t something in all these things you hear tell of. Why, don"t you know that fifty per cent, at least, of the French people-poilus and all-believe that the spirit of Joan of Arc led them to victory against the Boches in the worst battle of all?"
"I have heard something of that," Ruth admitted quietly. "But that does not make me believe in werwolves."
"No. But you should hear old Gaston Pere tell about this dog, or wolf, or ghost, or whatever it is. Gaston keeps the toll-bridge just this side of Clair. You"ll likely see him to-night. He told me all about the woman."
"For pity"s sake, Mr. Bragg!" gasped Ruth. "Tell me more. You have got my feelings all harrowed up. You can"t possibly believe in such things-not really?"
"I"m only saying what Gaston-and others-say. This woman is a very great lady. A countess. She is an Alsatian-but not the right kind."
"What do you mean by that?" interrupted Ruth.
"All Alsatians are not French at heart," said the young man. "This French count married her years ago. She has two sons and both are in the French army. But it is said that she has had influence enough to keep them off the battle front.
"Oh, it sounds queer, and crazy, and all!" he added, with sudden vehemence. "But you saw that white thing flashing by yourself. It is never seen save at night, and always coming or going between the chateau and the battle lines, or between the lines themselves-out there in No Man"s Land.
"It used to race the country roads in the same direction-only as far as the then frontier-before the war. So they say. Months before the Germans spilled over into this country. There you have it.
"The military authorities believe it is a despatch-carrying dog. The peasants say the old countess is a werwolf. She keeps herself shut in the chateau with only a few servants. The military authorities can get nothing on her, and the peasants cross themselves when they pa.s.s her gate."
Ruth said nothing for a minute or two. The guns grew louder in her ears, and the car came down a slight hill to the edge of a river. Here was the toll-bridge, and an old man came out with a shrouded lantern to take toll-and to look at their papers, too, for he was an official.
"Good evening, Gaston," said Charlie Bragg.
"Evening, Monsieur," was the cheerful reply.
The American lad stooped over his wheel to whisper: "Gaston! the werwolf just crossed the road three miles or so back, going toward--" and he nodded in the direction of the grumbling guns.
"_Ma foi!_" exclaimed the old man. "It forecasts another bombardment or air attack. Ah-h! La-la!"