The Camp Fire Girls in Glorious France. Vandercook Margaret

Aisne a second time to some place of greater security. But I agree with you, the idea seems impossible. To think of the Germans again overrunning the dear little French villages which have so recently been restored is a nightmare. Personally I won’t even consider it. Suppose the Germans are enjoying another temporary success, they will be thrust back eventually.”

      As if anxious fully to absorb the beauty and tranquility of the scene about them, until they were really convinced that there was no further danger threatening the Allied lines in France, the Camp Fire guardian and the group of girls surrounding her remained silent a moment, after Peggy’s speech.

      Nevertheless, each one of them concealed a nervousness, impossible under the circumstances to confess.

      Rumors, none of them especially reliable, but gaining strength through their number, had recently been reaching the Camp Fire farmhouse on the Aisne that the German attack against the British line further north was meeting with unexpected triumph. This did not mean that the victory would continue, or that the enemy would ever reach the neighborhood of the Aisne.

      Yet each one of the present group of Camp Fire girls had lately faced this possibility.

      Peggy’s words may have been intended to reassure them as well as herself.

      Perhaps with an effort to interrupt an unhappy train of thought, suddenly, with a smothered exclamation compounded of amusement and horror, Mrs. Burton pointed toward Miss Patricia Lord.

      At the instant Miss Patricia was descending from her tractor and was soon standing in the center of her freshly plowed field. In this situation her costume appeared more remarkable than ever. Yet one had to accept the fact that it represented a new order of American service in France.

      “What impression do you think our French neighbors receive of Aunt Patricia?” Mrs. Burton demanded. “I know most of them are puzzled by her and a few of them are genuinely afraid of her and yet she has accomplished more for their happiness in the last few months than half a dozen other persons. Yet she will wear the clothes she likes and she will not attempt to speak French that any human being can understand.”

      A little in the French fashion, since one is apt to be influenced by the mannerisms about one, Mrs. Burton now shrugged her shoulders.

      “At least, girls, you know no one can move Aunt Patricia!”

      Talking without any special significance, the Camp Fire guardian had observed that Miss Lord and Mary Gilchrist were no longer standing alone in the freshly plowed field not far from the farmhouse yard.

      Running toward them across the heavy furrows was old Jean, the French peasant who had been assisting Miss Patricia with the work of the farm.

      A little in advance of him was a French boy of about fourteen.

      Ordinarily old Jean’s back was bent with age and long years of outdoor toil, yet at the present time he held himself nearly erect. He was panting and seemed nearly exhausted. The boy was running like a young race horse, and under the influence of an intense excitement.

      Hearing their approach both Miss Patricia and Mary Gilchrist started toward them.

      “Suppose we go and find out what news old Jean is bringing us,” Mrs. Burton suggested, her voice as controlled and quiet as usual. “He looks as if he had something important to say!”

      As she was compelled to walk slowly and as the Camp Fire girls would not desert her, before they had gone any distance, Miss Patricia was seen to turn from old Jean and to come stalking toward them, followed by Mary Gilchrist.

      She appeared like a general about to assume command of his troops.

      “Polly Burton, within twenty-four hours you must be ready to leave our farmhouse and to take the Camp Fire girls with you. Jean has just arrived with the story that the Germans will soon begin an attack in this neighborhood. There is a possibility that they may push forward a certain distance. Personally I don’t believe a word of it, yet I can’t have you and a group of girls here on my hands. Besides, Jean says we are to have no choice. The French authorities insist that all women and girls, children and old men, move further back from the battle line.

      “You will go first to Yvonne Fleury’s château, which is nearer the road to Paris. As Jean says there is no immediate danger, you will wait there for a few days until I can make arrangements to join you. If the Germans ever arrive at our farmhouse – and understand I don’t believe for a moment this will occur – why they will find very little for their refreshment.

      “I shall probably keep Vera Lagerloff here with me, as she is the most sensible of the Camp Fire girls. But, Polly Burton, will you kindly not stand there staring at me as if you did not grasp what I have just told you. I assure you the Germans are again laying waste this beautiful French country. It really seems to me that I cannot endure it.”

      And half leading, half carrying Mrs. Burton, Miss Patricia Lord entered the old French farmhouse.

      CHAPTER II

      The Château Yvonne

      It was night in the Château Yvonne.

      The old house was unlighted and extraordinarily still. Now and then from the recesses of a vine-covered wall, a screech owl sounded his lament, while from the banks of a small lake nearby a company of frogs croaked their approval.

      Otherwise the château appeared deserted, and in the moonlight one could see that portions of it were in ruins and that only the oldest part, which originally had been built of stone, remained intact.

      Nevertheless, at present the old château was not uninhabited. It was now after midnight and a figure, carrying a candle, moved through the wide hall of the second floor. So silently the figure moved that unless one were listening intently, one would have heard no footfall.

      The apparition was a woman, with her hair bound in two long braids, her figure slender and agile as a girl’s. Yet she had a look of courage, of hardly fought anxiety, which, together with her delicacy, held no suggestion of youth.

      As she entered one of the bedrooms, one saw that she was not alone in the old house, two girls lay asleep in a large, old-fashioned French bedstead, a third girl in a cot nearby.

      Their sleep must have been partly due to exhaustion, because as the light of the candle flickered across their faces, no one of them spoke or stirred.

      A moment later, slipping as noiselessly into a second room, there was a faint movement from one of a pair of sleepers. A girl’s lips framed a question, but before the words were spoken the intruder had moved away.

      Now she walked to the front of the house and stood before a tall French window whose shutters were tightly closed; through the slats came faint streaks of light.

      She seemed to be hesitating. Then blowing out her candle and with difficulty opening one of the heavy shutters, she climbed out upon a small balcony. The balcony, which was only a few feet in width, commanded an unusual view of the surrounding country.

      As there were no large objects to obstruct the vision, one could see an extraordinary distance in the clear and brilliant moonlight. Not a single tree of any size guarded the old French château, although one might reasonably have expected to find it surrounded by a forest of a century’s growth.

      Only a few years before, the trees on this French estate had been famous throughout the countryside. An avenue of oaks bordering either side the road to the house had been half a mile in length and of great age and beauty. Strangers in the neighborhood were driven through the grounds of the château, chiefly that they might admire its extraordinary old trees.

      Tonight, looking out from the little balcony down this selfsame avenue, one could see only a few gnarled trunks of the once famous trees, still standing like sentinels faithful at their posts till death.

      When, soon after the outbreak of the European war the Germans swept across the Marne, the Château Yvonne and its grounds had been made an object of their special mania for destruction. Such trees as had not been destroyed by bursting shells and poisonous gases they had deliberately set afire.

      Yet at present, Mrs. Burton, as she stood on the little balcony and looked