"The rebs have gobbled it," said Lafe. "Our folks were skedaddling and the rebs were coming in the last I saw." The man gave a low whistle of surprise and interest. He began walking about again, bending his ugly brows in thought meanwhile. From time to time he paused to ask other questions, as to which way the people of the brigade camp had fled, how large was the force which had captured the camp, and the like. The news evidently impressed him a good deal. Lafe got the idea that somehow it changed his plans. What were these plans? the boy wondered. The whole thing was very hard to make out. More than once he had had it in mind to say that he had left another member of the band, a very nice fellow indeed, up on the side-hill above them, who must also be hungry, and to suggest that he should call him down. But every time, when this rose to his tongue, a glance at the evil face of the man restrained him. He could not but remember what Foldeen had hinted, that there was some "deviltry" going on down below here. What was it? "There must have been some pretty tough fighting right here," he ventured to remark, after a while. "You bet there was!" the other assented. He seemed not averse to a little talk, though his mind was still on other things. "I don't quite figure it out," the boy went on, cautiously. "Of course, wrastling round in the woods like this, you can't make head nor tail of how things go, or who's on top, or where--but how does it stand--right here, I mean? We're in our own lines here, ain't we?" The stranger fixed a long, inquiring glance upon the boy's face. Lafe returned the gaze with all the calmness he could muster. He could not help feeling that there was a good deal of stupidity in the stare under which he bore up. The man was not quick-minded; that was clear enough. But it was also plain that he was both a stubborn and a brutal creature. "Yes," he growled, after he had stared Lafe out of countenance, "yes, these are our own lines." The phrase seemed to tickle his fancy, for something like the beginning of a grin stirred on the stubbly surface about his mouth. "Yes--our own lines," he repeated. How strange it was! All at once, like a flash, Lafe remembered having seen this man before. That slow, sulky wavering of a grimace on his lips betrayed him. Swiftly pursuing the clue, the boy reconstructed in his mind a scene in which this man had played the chief part. It must have been in the early part of the previous December--just after the army went into winter quarters behind the line of the Orange railroad, cooped up in its earth-huts all the way from Culpeper Court House to Brandy Station. Lafe had gone over on leave one afternoon to the corps headquarters--it must have been of a Thursday, because there was to be a military execution the next day, and these were always fixed for Friday.