"'Yes, they're a fine bunch of young fighters,' the colonel answered. And, oh girls, I wish you could have seen the way he looked, so splendidly straight and martial and proud. 'I tell you, Major,' he said, 'it's a great thing to have the leadership of such lads as those. They're the pick of the nation.'
"And then I went on and my heart was beating so hard I had to hold on to it," Betty finished. "It seemed to me I could almost hear the cannon and see the boys—our boys—"
Her voice trailed off into silence, and for a long time no one spoke. Each one of these young girls, who, a few short months before, had scarcely known the meaning of the word war except as they had read about it in their histories, was striving desperately to visualize the battle front—the trenches, great guns belching forth a deadly hail of shells, the roar of cannon, the moans of dying men—
And there, perhaps, in the mire and horror of it all—the boys—their boys—
CHAPTER XIII
THE COPPERHEAD
Betty was the first to break the silence.
"But, of course," she said, and they started at the sound of her voice—so far away had their thoughts been wandering, "it may only be one more of those rumors the boys are always talking about."
"I suppose so," said Grace, with a sigh. "Anyway, it won't do any good to worry about it till the time comes."