The Camp Fire Girls in Glorious France. Vandercook Margaret

She was thus able to observe so much more of the surrounding landscape. There was no human being in sight.

      For the past four days she and five of the Camp Fire girls had been in hiding in the Château Yvonne, and within these four days the face of the world seemed to have changed.

      Already it has grown difficult for some of us to recall the last week in March in the year 1918, when the Germans again appeared to have a chance of victory and the Allied lines were seen to waver and then recede from northern to southern France.

      It was within this fateful week, with the channel ports and Paris again threatened, that the Camp Fire guardian and her group of American girls, had been vainly awaiting at the Château Yvonne the arrival of Miss Patricia Lord, Vera Lagerloff and Sally Ashton, in order that they might continue their retreat to Paris.

      As Mrs. Burton now gazed out over the landscape, shining serenely in the clear beauty of the moonlight, she was interested in only two problems. What had become of Miss Patricia and her companions and how far away from the Château Yvonne at this hour was the German army?

      In leaving the farmhouse on the Aisne and journeying to the château, instead of withdrawing from danger, they seemed to have approached nearer it. Yet no one possessed exact information concerning the results of the last few days of the great struggles. The persons admitted within the château had brought with them conflicting stories. One of them reported that the enemy was nearing Soissons, another that the French and American troops were holding the Germans at Château-Thierry. It was impossible to reach a definite decision. Yet always there was this conclusion. The French refugees were all hurrying on toward Paris; Mrs. Burton and her companions should join them at once.

      Now as Mrs. Burton considered the situation for the hundredth time within the past twenty-four hours, she was as far from a conclusion as ever.

      Against her will, but agreeing with Miss Patricia’s wish, she had gone on ahead, Miss Patricia firmly declining to leave the farmhouse until her livestock and farming implements, acquired with such difficulty and of so great use to the French peasants, could be safely hidden from the approaching enemy.

      At the time there had seemed no immediate danger to be feared. In proof of this Vera Lagerloff had not only remained behind, but by her own request, Sally Ashton, and Sally had always insisted that she was the least courageous of her group of Camp Fire girls.

      Expecting to make the same journey later, now four days had passed without word of any kind from them.

      There was the possibility that, upon learning there might be greater danger along the route which Mrs. Burton had traveled, Miss Patricia had decided to take some other road.

      Yet considering this suggestion, again Mrs. Burton remained unconvinced. Miss Patricia Lord was a woman of her word; having told her to await her coming at the Château Yvonne, she would reach there finally if it were humanly possible. Otherwise Miss Patricia would fear that they might stay at the château indefinitely and so become involved in another tragedy of the Marne.

      Finally, however, Mrs. Burton crouched down in the ledge of the window jutting out into the balcony. Having reached a halfway decision she at last could admit to herself her own fatigue.

      In the morning the Camp Fire girls, who were her present companions, must start off alone toward Paris, leaving her at the château.

      She could plead the excuse that she had become too exhausted to travel further until she had an opportunity to rest.

      In the midst of her reflections, Mrs. Burton was even able to smile a little whimsically. Since the hour when Jean had brought the news of danger to the quiet farmhouse on the Aisne how completely she seemed to have ignored, if not to have forgotten, her own invalidism. And yet until that hour no one of her household had believed her equal to the least exertion!

      Only a short time before, her husband, Captain Burton, had at last considered her to have grown sufficiently strong for him to leave, in order that he might continue his Red Cross work in France. And afterwards how strictly she had been guarded by Miss Patricia and the Camp Fire girls!

      There is a familiar axiom that necessity knows no law. At present Mrs. Burton did not believe that she felt any the worse from her recent experiences save an increasing weariness.

      The Camp Fire girls would undoubtedly oppose her wish to wait for Miss Patricia alone, she must therefore summon the strength to enforce her will.

      The March winds were growing colder. At this moment, although wrapped in a heavy coat, Mrs. Burton shivered, partly with apprehension and partly from cold.

      She knew that the five girls were not far off and yet, in the silence and loneliness of the night, with no human being in sight, she suddenly felt desperately solitary.

      She was frightened. Notwithstanding her fear was not so much for herself, though she dreaded being left perhaps to face an oncoming German horde, her greater fear was that the Camp Fire girls might meet with disaster, traveling without their guardian and with a horde of French refugees, toward greater security in Paris.

      How greatly she longed at this moment for a sight of Miss Patricia Lord’s gaunt and homely figure, always a tower of strength in adversity.

      Yet not only was there no sign of her approach, there was an ominous quiet over the entire countryside.

      “Mrs. Burton!”

      The older woman started, a cold hand had touched her own and a girl, climbing through the window, sat beside her.

      “Yvonne!”

      Mrs. Burton’s hand closed round Yvonne Fleury’s.

      Nearly four years before the young French girl, who was now a member of Mrs. Burton’s Camp Fire, had been forced to escape from her home during the first victory of the Germans along the Marne. In the flight her younger brother had been killed and her mother had afterwards died. Her older brother, Lieutenant Fleury, whom she afterwards believed to have been killed at the front, was at that time fighting with the French army.

      Small wonder that tonight, Yvonne, perhaps facing another flight from her home, was unable to sleep.

      “I must talk, Mrs. Burton, if you don’t mind,” she whispered. “I will disturb no one. Tell me you do not believe the Germans will cross the Marne a second time. If they do, nevertheless, I mean to stay on here at my home. I have just concluded to beg you and the Camp Fire girls to leave the château in the morning and go on with your journey to Paris. I will be here when Miss Patricia arrives to explain and later she can follow the route you will take. If my home is to be destroyed a second time I shall be here when the destruction takes place.”

      Understanding the young French girl’s mood too well to argue with her at this moment, Mrs. Burton answered:

      “Perhaps the situation is not so tragic as we fear, Yvonne. But in any case you must remember that your brother, Lieutenant Fleury, is again at the front fighting for the honor and glory of France. You cannot of your own choice add to his sorrows. Besides, you and I never doubt for a single moment that the Allies will ultimately win. Then you will have your home and your brother restored to you again!”

      At present Mrs. Burton was able to say no more. At this moment toward the southeastern line of the horizon, suddenly the sky had become a flaring crimson. The next instant there followed the noise of an explosion and a sound of distant firing.

      CHAPTER III

      The Retreat

      “As soon as we finish breakfast I think it wiser that you girls make your arrangements to start on toward Paris at once.”

      In the old kitchen of the French château the Camp Fire girls were seated about an ancient oak table, eating as quietly as if nothing had occurred to disturb them in the night.

      The noise of the firing, which had interrupted Mrs. Burton’s and Yvonne’s conversation, had not lasted long, and no one knew from what source it had come, whether the Germans were making a surprise attack nearby, or the allied troops repulsing one.

      At dawn, hearing a knocking at the kitchen door, Mrs. Burton had admitted an old French peasant woman and her small grandson.