The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army   By: Margaret Vandercook (1876-)

[Illustration: BARBARA PRESENTED HIM WITH THE ELECTRIC LAMP. ( See page 150. )]

The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army

By MARGARET VANDERCOOK

Author of "The Ranch Girls Series," "Stories about Camp Fire Girls Series," etc.

Illustrated

The John C. Winston Company Philadelphia

Copyright, 1916, by THE JOHN C. WINSTON CO.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. A PEASANT'S HUT IN RUSSIA 7

II. A FORMER ACQUAINTANCE 23

III. GENERAL ALEXIS 37

IV. AN ENCOUNTER 53

V. OUT OF THE PAST 67

VI. THE ARREST 80

VII. A RUSSIAN CHURCH 92

VIII. ANOTHER WARNING 104

IX. THE ATTACK 118

X. MILDRED'S OPPORTUNITY 134

XI. A RUSSIAN RETREAT 148

XII. PETROGRAD 158

XIII. THE NEXT STEP 174

XIV. MILDRED'S RETURN 191

XV. THE WINTER PALACE 206

XVI. THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS 217

XVII. THE DEPARTURE 236

XVIII. A POEM AND A CONVERSATION 247

XIX. THE REUNION 256

CHAPTER I

A Peasant's Hut in Russia

In the last volume of the Red Cross series the four American girls spent six months in tragic little Belgium. There, in an American hospital in Brussels, devoted to the care, not of wounded soldiers, but of ill Belgians, three of the girls lived and worked.

But Eugenia went alone to dwell in a house in the woods because the cry of the children in Belgium made the strongest appeal to her. The house was a lonely one, supposed to be haunted, yet in spite of this Eugenia moved in. There the money of the girl whom her friend had once believed "poor as a church mouse" fed and cared for her quickly acquired family.

In Eugenia's haunted house were other sojourners furnishing the mystery of this story and endangering her liberty, almost her life. They were a Belgian officer and his family whom the Red Cross girl kept in hiding. Somehow the officer had managed to return to his own country from the fighting line in Belgium. After securing the papers he desired from the enemy, by Eugenia's aid, he was enabled to return once more to King Albert and the Allied armies. Thus Eugenia was left alone to bear the brunt of the German displeasure after the discovery of her misdeeds. She was imprisoned in Brussels, and became dangerously ill. Finally, because she was an American, Eugenia was made to leave the country, rather than to suffer the punishment which would have been hers had she belonged to another nationality.

But the four American Red Cross girls also had the companionship of Dick Thornton during their stay in the once lovely capital of Belgium.

Dick had not recovered the use of his arm, but in spite of this had come to Brussels to help with the work of the American Relief society.

Here his once friendly relation with Barbara Meade no longer existed. Because of her change of attitude he apparently grew more attached to Nona Davis.

However, at the close of the story, when Barbara is taking Eugenia back to southern France, she and Dick unexpectedly meet aboard a fog bound ship. And in the darkness the light finally shines when Dick and Barbara discover at last that their feeling for each other is stronger than friendship.

Later, near "the pool of truth" not far from the "Farmhouse with the Blue Front Door," Eugenia Peabody again meets Captain Henri Castaigne, the young French officer whom she had once nursed back to health. A short time afterwards he and Eugenia are married.

Later the three other American Red Cross girls decide to continue their nursing of the wounded soldiers of the Allied armies in far off Russia.