And how—and how—and how——?
Her queries and surmises were utterly unanswerable. She turned the bit of paper over and over in her fingers. She could not be mistaken about Tom's handwriting. He had penciled those words.
It was true, any friend of Tom's who knew his handwriting and might have picked up the loaded paper bomb, would have considered the written line a personal message.
"Don't believe everything you hear."
But, then, what friends had Tom in this sector of the battle front save his military associates and Ruth Fielding? The girl never for one moment considered that the written line might have been meant for anybody but herself.
And she did with it the very wisest thing she could have done. She tore the paper into the tiniest of bits, and, as she continued her walk to the Dupay farm, she dribbled the scraps along the grassy road.
She began to have a faint and misty idea of what it all meant—Tom's disappearance, the general belief among his comrades that he was a traitor, and this communication which had reached her hands in seemingly so wonderful a manner.
Tom Cameron had been selected for some dangerous and secret mission. It might have occasioned his entrance through the enemy's lines. He was on secret service beyond the great bombarding German guns!
If this was so he was in extreme peril! But he was doing his duty!
Ruth's heart throbbed to the thought—to both thoughts! His dangerous work was not done yet. But it was very evident that he had means of knowing what went on upon this side of the line of battle.