Grace Harlowe with the American Army on the Rhine

“Stop it!” shouted Mrs. Chadsey Smythe.

Ahead there were open spots and Grace made for them, dodging, swerving, the car careening, the horn sounding until the drivers ahead, thinking a staff officer was coming, made all the room they could for the charging army automobile. Madame was expostulating, threatening, jouncing about until speech became an unintelligible stutter. Reaching a clear stretch of road, by clever manipulation Grace sent the car into a series of skids that would have excited the envy of a fighting aviator. That it did not turn over was because there was no obstruction in the road to catch the tires and send the car hurtling into the ditch.

“For the love of Heaven, stop it, Grace Harlowe!” gasped Miss Briggs. “I’m on the verge of nervous prostration. You’ll have us all in the hospital or worse.”

Grace grinned but made no reply. She straightened up a little as the officer’s car finally shot past her, and it was then that she saw she had been racing with a general, though she did not know who the general might be. She hoped he did not know who it was that had cut him off, but of course he could not expect her to look behind her when driving in that tangle of traffic. That was good logic, so she devoted her attention and thought wholly to the work in hand, and, putting on more speed, rapidly drew up on the charging automobile ahead, reasoning that the general would have a fairly clear road, which road would be hers provided she were able to keep up with him.

Ahead of them a short distance she espied a concrete bridge. There was a concrete barrier on either side of the bridge, but the bridge was amply wide to permit two vehicles to pass. The general’s car took the bridge at high speed, army trucks drawing to their right so as to leave him plenty of room. Grace followed, driving at the bridge at top speed, but when within a few yards of the structure a truck driver swayed over past the center of the span, evidently not having heard her horn.

The girl thought she could still go through, but discovered too late that the truck was too far over to permit her passing. The emergency brakes went on and the horn shrieked, but too late. The truck driver, losing his head, swung further to the left instead of to the right as he should have done, thus crowding Grace further over toward the concrete wall-railing.

“Hold fast!” shouted Grace.

Ere the passengers could “hold fast” the car met the end of the concrete railing head-on with a mighty crash, the rear of the car shot up into the air and the passengers were hurled over the dash. They cleared the obstruction and went hurtling into the river, disappearing beneath its surface. The car lurched sideways until half its length hung over, threatening any moment to slip down after them into the stream. Harlowe luck had not improved. This time Grace had overreached the mark.

Those readers who have followed Grace through the eventful years from her exciting days in the Oakdale High School have learned to love her for her gentle qualities and to admire her for her pluck and achievements, for the sterling qualities that from her early school days drew to her so many loyal friends.

It was in “Grace Harlowe’s Plebe Year at High School” that the readers of this series first became acquainted with her. They followed her through her high school course as told in “Grace Harlowe’s Sophomore Year at High School,” “Grace Harlowe’s Junior Year at High School” and “Grace Harlowe’s Senior Year at High School,” in which those dear friends of her girlhood days, Nora O’Malley, Anne Pierson and Jessica Bright – the Original Four – shared her joys and her sorrows.

After high school came college, Grace and Anne going to Overton, Nora and Jessica choosing for their further education an eastern conservatory of music. At Overton new friends rallied to Grace’s colors, such as Elfreda Briggs, Arline Thayer, Emma Dean, Mabel Ashe and many others. Four eventful years were spent at old Overton, the experiences of those college years being related in “Grace Harlowe’s First Year at Overton College,” “Grace Harlowe’s Second Year at Overton College,” “Grace Harlowe’s Third Year at Overton College” and “Grace Harlowe’s Fourth Year at Overton College,” followed by “Grace Harlowe’s Return to Overton Campus” and “Grace Harlowe’s Problem.”

The story of the fruition of the Overton girl’s dreams is told in “Grace Harlowe’s Golden Summer,” when she became the bride of her lifelong friend and chum, Tom Gray, and went to “Haven Home” a happy wife. Grace’s home life was a brief one, for the great world war enveloped the big white “House Behind the World,” as she had so happily characterized it. First Tom Gray went away to serve his country in its hour of need, then Grace followed him as a member of the Overton unit, and in “Grace Harlowe Overseas” is related the story of how she became involved in the plots of the Old World nearly to her own undoing. In “Grace Harlowe with the Red Cross in France” she is assigned to drive an ambulance at the front, which she had long yearned to do, and out there in the thick of the fighting she is called upon to face death in many forms. It is, however, in a following volume, “Grace Harlowe with the Marines at Chateau Thierry,” however, that the Overton girl meets with hardships and perils that nearly cost her her life. Yet more thrilling even than this were her experiences as related in “Grace Harlowe with the U. S. Army in the Argonne,” where perhaps the most desperate fighting of the war occurred.

“Grace Harlowe with the Yankee Shock Boys at St. Quentin” finds Grace an active participant in that most brilliant single achievement of the war, the breaking of the Hindenburg Line, in which, by sheer pluck and daring, she saves an entire regiment from certain annihilation and wins a decoration for her heroism.

Following the signing of the armistice the march of the American troops toward the Rhine began. With them went Grace Harlowe and her faithful friend, J. Elfreda Briggs, Anne Nesbit having been left behind to continue her work in a hospital.

Just how it had come about that Grace and Elfreda were to accompany the troops neither girl knew. The assignment brought joy to both girls, and especially to Grace, for when the sound of the big guns died away and an unnatural stillness settled over war-torn Europe she felt ill at ease, felt as if there were something lacking, though down deep in her heart was a thankfulness that overbalanced the regret that the excitement of months in the war zone was a thing of the past. She was first thankful for the soldiers, then for her husband, Tom Gray, who also was on his way to the Rhine, and for the little Yvonne, now their daughter, the child whom Grace had picked up as a waif in a deserted French village under fire.

Grace, at her own request, was permitted to drive through with her friend, in an army car. The first day she carried, besides herself, supplies for canteen work, for both she and Elfreda Briggs were now welfare workers. It had been understood that Mrs. Smythe was to go with the invading army, but that she would take an active part in directing the work neither girl considered probable, for, as a rule, such workers left the actual directing to some person of experience. Not so with Mrs. Chadsey Smythe. She proposed to be a working head, and she was. At least she had been an active participant on the march to the Rhine since she came up with Grace Harlowe. Her real troubles began with the starting of the car with Grace at the wheel, and the troubles continued without a second’s intermission right up to and including that fatal second when Grace collided with the bridge rail and Mrs. “Chadsey,” together with the other occupants of the car, took an unexpected dive into the river.

Fortunately for the five women in the car, the machine had remained on the road, else it might have fallen on them and finished them entirely.

Grace came up to the surface first, shook the water from her eyes, and then dived and brought up one of the welfare workers who had accompanied Mrs. “Chadsey.” The other woman and Elfreda came up of their own accord and Grace quickly went in search of Mrs. “Chadsey.”

“There she is,” gasped Elfreda, pointing downstream, where the welfare supervisor was seen floundering, fighting desperately to get to shore, not realizing that the water at that point was shallow enough to permit her to stand up and keep her chin above water.

Grace swam to her quickly and grasped the supervisor by the hair of her head just as Mrs. “Chadsey,” giving up, had gone under. Even though the water there was only about five feet deep, Grace had never come nearer to drowning, for not only did Mrs. “Chadsey” grip her with both arms, but fought desperately, when Grace got her head above water.

“Stop it!” gasped Grace, struggling to free herself from the grip of those really strong arms. “You’ll drown us both.”

“Let me go!” screamed the supervisor, fastening a hand in the Overton girl’s hair.

One of Grace’s hands being thus freed she took a firm grip in the hair of her opponent, pushed her head under the water and both sank out of sight.

CHAPTER II

“GRACE HARLOWE, TROUBLE-MAKER”

WHEN Mrs. Smythe and Grace came to the surface, the fight had been all taken out of the supervisor. She was limp, choking and gasping, but not in a serious condition, as the Overton girl observed, though the water was chill and serious consequences might follow the wetting, there being no way to secure dry clothing until they arrived at the end of the day’s march, a few miles further on.

“You will be all right now,” comforted Grace. “Don’t fight. Give me half a chance to get you ashore. I’m sorry, Mrs. Smythe. The water is not over our heads, so please try to walk in.”

The woman screamed and choked some more, so Grace grasped her by the collar of her blouse and began swimming toward shore with her. They had not gone more than half of the way, when doughboys who had witnessed the accident plunged into the river and went to the rescue. Grace turned over her burden to them quite willingly, but waved the soldiers aside when they offered to assist her. The men had their hands full in getting the supervisor ashore, where they laid her down on the bank and shook her until she was able to sit up.

“Please wring the water out of me, Grace,” begged the disheveled J. Elfreda Briggs, who was shivering.

“That will not help any. Keep moving, is my advice. Were you hurt, Elfreda?”

“My feelings were very much hurt. Grace Harlowe, you are the original trouble-maker. I blame myself wholly in this matter, not you at all, for I should have known better than to remain in that car for an instant after I saw that look in your eyes. It was a perfectly safe intimation that something terrible was about to occur.”

“There’s the lieutenant talking with Mrs. Smythe. I must see what she has to say.”

“Probably recommending you for the Congressional Medal,” observed Miss Briggs sourly.

Mrs. Smythe was sitting on the bank wringing the water out of her blouse when Grace came up, the lieutenant standing by and apparently not knowing what he should do in the circumstances. The supervisor’s hair was down over her shoulders and she was half crying, half raging. Grace was filled with regret.

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Smythe,” she said, bending over the supervisor. “May I assist you to your feet? You must not sit here, you know. The ground is cold and you are very wet.”

Mrs. Chadsey Smythe blinked at the Overton girl and struggled for words. The words finally came, a torrent of them.

“She did it!” screamed the woman. “She did it on purpose! She set out to mur – ”

“Mrs. Smythe, you know better than that,” rebuked Grace.

“Arrest that woman!” commanded Mrs. Smythe.

“Well, I – I don’t know about that. Do you wish to make a charge against her, Madame?”

“Of course. She threw me into the river.”

“But,” protested the officer, “she did no more to you than she did to herself and the others in the car. Of course you may make a complaint to the captain, or to your superior whoever he or she may be, but I do not think this woman can be arrested, because the wreck plainly was an accident.”

“It was not! I tell you she did it on purpose!”

The lieutenant shrugged his shoulders.

“I will inform my superior, Captain Rowland,” answered the lieutenant gravely. “You are – ”

“Mrs. Chadsey Smythe, in command of the welfare workers.”

The officer turned to Grace inquiringly.

“Mrs. Grace Gray, former ambulance driver on the western front, now a welfare worker on the march to the Rhine, sir,” answered Grace meekly, out of the corners of her eyes observing that the lieutenant was passing a hand over his face, to hide the grin that had appeared there.

“Anything to say, Mrs. Gray?”

“I think not, sir, except that we should be moving.”