Lafe edged himself forward, and looked out through the bushes. They were on the crest of a little mound which jutted out slightly from the descending face of the hillside. The bottom of the ravine lay only thirty feet or so below them. Save for scattered clumps of dwarf firs, hardly higher than the mullein stalks about them, the ground was clear, and the short grass told Lafe's practised eye that it was pasture land. Beyond, there was the gravelled bed of a stream, along which a small rivulet wandered from side to side. At the first glance his eye had taken in various splashes of color dotting the grass, which suggested bluebells. He saw now that these were made by the uniforms of men, who lay sprawled in various unnatural postures, flat on the green earth. Most of them were on their faces, and not one of them stirred. Lafe moved his head about among the screening bushes, and was able to count twenty-six of these motionless figures. The boy had seen such sights before, and had even helped bring in the wounded from the field of Payne's Farm during the most of a long, cold night in the previous November. This experience guided him now to remark a curious thing. No muskets, knapsacks, or canteens were scattered about beside these fallen men. And another odd detail--they were all barefooted. "Some one's been along, after the fighting was over, and skinned everything clean," he muttered to his companion. Foldeen nodded again, and once more held up a warning hand. He himself was intently watching something beneath, from his side of the leafy cover. The boy shifted his position, and craning his neck over the other's shoulder, saw that just below them, where the ascent began, there stretched a rough, newly made ridge of sods, fence rails and tree-tops, which had evidently been used as a breastwork. Behind this there were other human forms, also lying prone, but clad in gray or butternut instead of blue. Here, too, there was no sign of life, but only that fixed absence of motion to which the remote thunder of gun-fire gave such a bitter meaning. "Anybody there?" whispered the boy. "I dink so," returned Foldeen, under his breath. "Dere is some, what you call it, hanky-banky, goes on here. Look yourself!" He moved aside, and Lafe crowded into his place, and put his head out cautiously through the bushes. In one corner of the breastwork there was to be seen a big pile of accoutrements--knapsacks, muskets, swords, water-bottles, and the like, as well as a heap of old boots and miscellaneous foot-gear. "Vell, how you make it out?" asked Foldeen. Lafe drew in his head. "The way I figure it," he whispered, "is first, that they held this place against our men, and drove 'em off. Then they went out, and gathered up these traps, and brought 'em in there. Then some more of our men came along, and chased them out. That's what it looks like." "Well, den, vare is gone dem second men of ours?" the German demanded.