"You didn't guess fur from right this time, Dan! Scrape off a little more dirt, and we'll haul up the carcass. Needn't be partic'lar 'bout scrapin' very keerful, nuther. He's a mean shoat, whoever he is; one o' them cussed Union-shriekers. Wish they was all planted like he is! Hope we shall find five or six more. Ketch holt, Dan!" Dan caught hold. The body was dragged from the lonely resting-place to which it had been consigned. Parts of it, which had not been protected by the superincumbent bulk of the horse, were hideously burned. Ropes rolled it over on the back, and kicked it, to knock off the dirt. He turned up the face in the moonlight--a frightful face! One side was roasted; and what was left of the hair and beard was full of sand. "Damn him!" said Ropes, giving it a wipe with the spade. The eyes were open, and they too were full of sand. But the features were still recognizable. The men started back with horror. They knew their comrade. It was the spy who had been sent out to watch the fugitives. It was "the sleeper," whom nought could waken more. It was Gad. "Wal, if I ain't beat!" said Silas, with a ghastly look. "Fool! how did he come hyar?" This question has never been satisfactorily answered. The fatal leap of the terrified horse with his rider is known; but how came Gad on the horse? Those who knew the character of the man account for it in this way: He had been something of a horse-thief in his day; and it is supposed that, finding Stackridge's horse on the mountain, he fell once more into temptation. He was probably a little drunk at the time; and he was a man who would never walk if he could ride, especially when he was tipsy. So he mounted. But he had no sooner commenced the descent of the mountain, than the fire, which had been previously concealed from the animal by the clump of trees behind which he was hampered, burst upon his sight, and filled him with uncontrollable frenzy. Dan, who had witnessed the flight and plunge, could have contributed an item towards the solution of the mystery. But he opened not his mouth. "Them cussed traitors shall pay fur this!" said Ropes. This was the only consolatory thought that occurred to him. Having uttered it, he looked remorsefully at the spade with which he had rudely wiped the face of his dead friend. "I thought 'twas one o' them rotten scoundrels, or I--But never mind! Kiver him up agin, boys! We can't take him with us, and we've no time to lose." So they laid the corpse once more in the grave, and heaped the sand upon it. XXXVI. _CARL FINDS A GEOLOGICAL SPECIMEN._ In the mean time Carl ascended the moonlit slope, with Sprowl's pistol on one side of him, and the corporal's bayonet on the other. Between the two he felt that he had little chance. But he did not despair. He reasoned thus with himself:--