Like a flash, after I succeeded in restraining myself from giving an alarm, came the knowledge, I know not how, that he who had stumbled upon me was no less frightened than I, and, clutching Sergeant Corney's leg nervously to attract his attention, I sprang upon the newcomer, believing him to be some Indian straggler whom it was absolutely necessary we should silence in order to save our own lives. So quick had been my motions that the fellow had no opportunity to get away, save at the cost of betraying himself to us, and by what seemed to be the most fortunate chance, I succeeded, when leaping blindly forward, in gripping him by the throat. We went down together, I on top striving most earnestly to strangle him to death, and he fighting quite as strenuously to throw off my hold. Before one could have counted ten I began to realize that this stranger who was at my mercy appeared quite as much afraid of making a noise as did I, and involuntarily my grasp was loosened ever so slightly, for I understood that had it been an Indian he would have done his best to attract the attention of those near the camp-fire. With this thought came the knowledge that I had beneath me one clad much like myself, and not the half-naked body of such villains as marched in Thayendanega's train. Then it was, and just as Sergeant Corney came up to us, that I loosened my grasp entirely in order to pass my hands over the stranger's face and head. There were no feathers, no daubs of paint, which should have been apparent to the touch, and I whispered, with my mouth close to the fellow's ear, while yet pinioning his arms in such a fashion that he could not well move: "Who are you?" "A white man," came the reply, the words sounding thick and muffled because of the squeezing which the speaker's throat had received. Then like a flash came to me that which I should have suspected before! It was my comrade for whom we had been searching that I was grappling with, and, just as the old soldier knelt by my side knife in hand to put an end to the struggle, I whispered, for the darkness was so intense that I could not even see the face which was but a few inches from my own: "Are you Jacob Sitz?" "Ay; an' you?" "It is the sergeant an' Noel, lad, an' right glad am I that we came to know each other just as we did, else would your blood have been on our hands." Jacob apparently gave no heed to the close shave which had been his, so great was the delight at knowing we were with him once more, and we three sat with our heads close together in order that we might question and be questioned without fear of betraying our whereabouts. "Where have you been all this time?" I asked, and Jacob replied, softly: "Hangin' around this camp. Twice have I come near bein' discovered, an' of a verity I believed, when you clutched my throat, that this was the last--the endin' of it all." "Have you seen your father?" Sergeant Corney asked, and the lad replied, triumphantly: