"_Oui, Monsieur!_ But I must have a little pepper, too. I am 'strong,' as you Americans say, for plentiful seasoning."

"Isn't he cute?" demanded Jenny Stone. "He takes to American slang like a bird to the air."

"Poetry barred!" declared Helen.

"Say," Tom remarked aside to the colonel, "you've got all the pep necessary, sure enough, in Jennie."

"She is one dear!" sighed the Frenchman.

"And she just said you were a bird. You'll have a regular zoo about you yet. Come on. Let's see if we can get this baggage aboard the good ship.

It does look a good deal of an ark, doesn't it?"

Although Ruth and Aunt Kate had not joined in this repartee, the girl of the Red Mill, as well as their lovely chaperon, enjoyed the fun immensely.

Ruth had revived in spirits on meeting her friends. Jennie had flown to her arms at the first greeting, and hugged the girl of the Red Mill with due regard to the mending shoulder.

"My dear! My dear!" she had cried. "I _dream_ of you lying all so pale and b.l.o.o.d.y under that window-sill stone. And what I hear of your and Tom's experiences coming over----"

"But worse has happened to me since I arrived home," Ruth said woefully.

"No? Impossible!"

"Yes. I have had an irreparable loss," sighed Ruth. "I'll tell you about it later."

But for the most part the greetings of the two parties was made up as Tom said of "Ohs and Ahs."

"Take it from me," the naughty Tom declared to Marchand, "two girls separated for over-night can find more to tell each other about the next morning than we could think of if we should meet at the Resurrection!"

The two Cameron cars stood in the station yard, and as the other waiting cars, taxicabs and "flivvers" departed, "the sacred odor of gasoline,"

which Jennie had remarked upon, was soon dissipated.

The big touring car was expertly packed with baggage, and had a big hamper on either running-board as well. There was room remaining, however, for the ladies if they would sit there. But as Tom was to drive the big car he insisted that Ruth sit with him in the front seat for company. As for his racing car, he had turned that over to Marchand. It, too, was well laden; but at the start Jennie squeezed in beside her colonel, and the maroon speeder was at once whisperingly dubbed by the others "the honeymoon car."

"Poor children!" said Aunt Kate in private to the two other girls. "They cannot marry until the war is over. _That_ my brother is firm upon, although he thinks well of Colonel Henri. And who could help liking him?

He is a most lovable boy."

"'Boy!'" repeated Ruth. "And he is one of the most famous spies France has produced in this war! And a great actor!"

"But we believe he is not acting when he tells us he loves Jennie," Aunt Kate said.

"Surely not!" cried Helen.

"He is the soul of honor," Ruth declared. "I trust him as I do--well, Tom.

I never had a brother."

"I've always shared Tom with you," pouted Helen.

"So you have, dear," admitted Ruth. "But a girl who has had no really-truly brother really has missed something. Perhaps good, perhaps bad. But, at least, if you have brothers you understand men better."

"Listen to the wisdom of the owl!" scoffed Helen. "Why, Tommy is only a girl turned inside out. A girl keeps all her best and softest attributes to the fore, while a boy thinks it is more manly to show a p.r.i.c.kly surface--like the burr of a chestnut."

"Listen to them!" exclaimed Aunt Kate, with laughter. "All the wise sayings of the ancient world must be crammed under those pretty caps you wear, along with your hair."

"That is what we get at college," said Helen seriously. "Dear old Ardmore!

Ruth! won't you be glad to get back to the grind again?"

"I--don't--know," said her chum slowly. "We have seen so much greater things than college. It's going to be rather tame, isn't it?"

But this conversation was all before they were distributed into their seats and had started. Colonel Marchand was an excellent driver, and he soon understood clearly the mechanism of the smaller car. Tom gave him the directions for the first few miles and they pulled out of the yard with Mr. Curtis, the station master, and his lame daughter, who now acted as telegraph operator, waving the party good-bye.

They would not go by the way of the Red Mill, for that would take them out of the way they had chosen. The inn they had in mind to stop at on this first night was a long four hours' ride.

"Eastward, Ho!" shouted Tom. "This is to be a voyage of discovery, but don't discover any punctures or blow-outs this evening."

Then he glanced at Ruth's rather serious face beside him and muttered to himself:

"And we want to discover princ.i.p.ally the smile that Ruth Fielding seems to have permanently lost!"

CHAPTER VI

"THE NEVERGETOVERS"

After crossing the Cheslow Hills and the Lumano by the Long Bridge about twenty miles below the Red Mill, the touring party debouched upon one of the very best State roads. They left much of the dust from which they had first suffered behind them, and Tom could now lead the way with the big car without smothering the occupants of the honeymoon car in the rear.

The highway wound along a pretty ridge for some miles, with farms dotting the landscape and lush meadows or fruit-growing farms dipping to the edge of the distant river.

"Ah," sighed Henri Marchand. "Like _la belle_ France before the war. Such peace and quietude we knew, too. Fortunate you are, my friends, that _le Boche_ has not trampled these fields into b.l.o.o.d.y mire."

This comment he made when they halted the cars at a certain overlook to view the landscape. But they could not stop often. Their first objective inn was still a long way ahead.

They did not, however, reach the inn, which was a resort well known to motorists. Five miles away Tom noticed that the car was acting strangely.

"What is it, Tom?" demanded Ruth quickly.

"Steering gear, I am afraid. Something is loose."

It did not take him long to make an examination, and in the meantime the second car came alongside.

"It might hold out until we get to the hotel ahead; but I think we had better stop before that time if we can," was Tom's comment. "I do not want the thing to break and send us flying over a stone wall or up a tree."

"But you can fix it, Tom?" questioned Ruth.

"Sure! But it will take half an hour or more."

After that they ran along slowly and presently came in sight of a place called the Drovers' Tavern.