Not knowing how to cope with this new situation he began cautiously to crawl away, feeling for a corpse to hide behind should another lot of stars go up and expose him there; yet when his fingers touched a cold, bearded face he nearly cried aloud. A sudden loathing for this inanimate thing almost sent him running;--the next second, answering a silent command, he stretched beside it as though he and it were bunkies in a cantonment. But his heart was beating unmercifully, confusing his ears which strained for every sound. Regularly the spades and picks continued their work; minute dragged into minute, till another iridescence pierced the smoke. He then peeped out. To his surprise there was but one man in sight; a solitary sentinel standing above an excavation--Jeb could not tell how deep. When darkness again fell he was more than ever confused. Whether these men were inside their own lines laying mines for an expected advance, or by some cunning had got behind the Allies for a devilish purpose, taxed his ingenuity to decide. At any rate, this was no place for him; no ingenuity was required to determine that. He felt that somewhere to the right the French must be, but it was a guess based largely upon hope. Right or wrong, an effort must be made at once to report this digging party, and slowly he crept off; prone at first, then arising to his hands and knees. In this way he must have gone a thousand yards when the terrain began sharply to ascend, and more than ever puzzled he stopped again, listening. Only the far off, spasmodic growling of the "heavies" told that fifteen miles away someone was being unmercifully plastered; but the nearer artillery slept. With eyes and ears straining to their utmost, with muscles held ready to relax and let him flatten out at the first sign of enemies, he continued up this new and very dangerous slope, possessing no idea where it would lead, knowing only that he must reach his own lines before dawn. And now he realized that the air was becoming more pure. Frequently after sundown in this part of France a light mist rises in the lowlands. To-night there had been no mist, but the terrain had lent itself to cup the hovering battle smoke, holding it in depressions as lakes of vapor, while the higher points stood clear. Jeb was now creeping up one of these higher points; and within half an hour his eyes looked at the stars, his grateful nostrils breathed a pure, untainted atmosphere. Like a snake he slid head-first into the nearest shell hole, climbed warily back to its edge, and watched.