Betty looked at him with a flush of angry excitement:
"General McClellan is counting on Pope's defeat to-day?"
"Yes."
"Then it's true that he is not really trying to help him?"
"Why should he wish to sacrifice his brave men under the leadership of a fool?"
"He is, in fact, defying the orders of the President, isn't he?"
"You might say that if you strain a point," John admitted.
Again the long roar of guns boomed on the Western horizon, louder, clearer. The dull echoes became continuous now, and the quickening breeze brought the faint din from the vast field of death whose blazing smoke covered lines stretched over seven miles.
"Boom-boom-boom, boom!—boom! boom!"
Again they drew rein and listened.