“You’re a mountaineer, Fleury, you told me,” said Scott, “and you should be able to judge how sound travels through gorges.  I suppose you yodel, of course?”

“Yodel, what’s that?”

“To make a long singing cry on a peak which is supposed to reach to somebody on another peak who sends back the same kind of a singing cry.  We have a general impression in America that European mountaineers don’t do much but stand in fancy costumes on crests and ridges and yodel to one another.”

“It may have been so once,” said the young Savoyard, “but this is a bad year for yodeling.  The voice of the cannon carries so far that the voice of man doesn’t amount to much.  But what sound did you want me to interpret?”

“That of the cannon.  Does its volume move eastward or westward?  I should think it’s much like your mountain storms and you know how they travel among the ridges.”

“The comparison is just, but I can’t yet tell any shifting of the artillery fire.  The wind brings the sound toward us, and if there’s any great advance or retreat I should be able to detect it.  I should say that as far as the second day is concerned nothing decisive has happened yet.”

“Do you know this country?”

“A little.  My regiment marched through here about three weeks ago and we made two camps not far from this spot.  This is the wood of Senouart, and the brook here runs down to the river Marne.”

“And we’re not far from that river.  Then we’ve pressed back the Germans farther than I thought.  It’s strange that the German army here does not move.”

“It’s waiting, and I fancy it doesn’t know what to do.  I’ve an idea that our victory yesterday was greater than the French and British have realized, but which the Germans, of course, understand.  Why do they leave us here, almost neglected, and why do their officers walk about, looking so doubtful and anxious?  I’ve heard that the Germans were approaching Paris with five armies.  It may be that we’ve cut off at least one of those armies and that it’s in mortal danger.”

“It may be so.  But have you thought, Fleury, of the extraordinary difference between this morning and yesterday morning?”

“I have.  In conditions they’re worlds apart.  Hark!  Listen now, Scott, my friend!”

He lay on the grass and put his ear to the ground, just as John had often done.  Listening intently for at least two minutes, he announced with conviction that the cannonade was moving eastward.

“Which means that the Germans are withdrawing again?” said John.

“Undoubtedly,” said Fleury, his face glowing.