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.
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