RUTH FIELDING had almost instantly identified the swiftly moving object in the road as the same that she had seen weeks before while riding with Charlie Bragg toward Clair. And yet she could not admit as true the assertion made both by the ambulance driver and the excited French girl.
To recognize the quickly disappearing creature as a werwolf—the beast-form of a human being, sold irrevocably to the Powers of Darkness—was quite too much for a sane American girl like Ruth Fielding!
“Why, Henriette!” she cried, “that is nothing but a dog.”
“A wolf, Mademoiselle. A werwolf, as I have told you. A very wicked thing.”
“There isn’t such a thing,” declared Ruth bluntly. “That was a dog—a white or a gray one. And of large size. I have seen it once before—perhaps twice,” Ruth added, remembering the glimpse she had caught of such a creature with Bessie at the chateau gate.
“Oh, it is such bad fortune to see it!” sighed Henriette.
“Don’t be so childish,” Ruth adjured, brusquely. “Nothing about that dog can hurt you. But I have an idea the poor creature may be doing the French cause harm.”
“Oh, Mademoiselle! You have heard the vile talk about the dear countess!” cried Henriette. “It is not so. She is a brave and lovely lady. She gives her all for France. She would be filled with horror if she knew anybody connected her with the spies of les Boches.”
“I thought it was generally believed that she was an Alsatian of the wrong kind.”
“It is a wicked calumny,” Henriette declared earnestly. “But I have heard the tale of the werwolf ever since I was a child—long before this dreadful war began.”