Things grew black before Lafe\'s eyes as the iron clutch about his throat tightened. He strove desperately to twist himself loose, using in a frantic way the wrestling tricks he knew; but the grip of the bounty-jumper was too powerful. Lafe\'s head seemed swelling in the effort to burst, and feeling in all his body below that fatal circlet became numb. There was room for but a single thought—this was what being choked to death meant!

Afterward it never seemed to the boy that he entirely lost consciousness. He could remember that there was a violent sidewise jerk at his neck, and then the sense of intolerable squeezing there ceased. But there was still an awful buzzing inside his head, and midnight blackness, shot with interlacing lines of crazy light, spread itself indefinitely about him.

Gradually he perceived that he was breathing again, and that he could feel his arms and legs once more to be parts of him. He knew that he was exceedingly tired and sleepy, and felt only that the one desirable thing was to lie still, just as he was. He mentally resolved that he would not stir nor open his eyes for anybody.

"How vas it mit you, Lafe?"

The words were undoubtedly in the air. He realized that, and lay very still, lazily confident that he would hear them again.

Things began to assort themselves in his brain. Foldeen and he had been on a big, overhanging rock, which had tumbled with them, and by some chance they hadn\'t both been killed, and now Foldeen was looking for him. But he would lie still and rest.

"Vake up! Lafe! Vake up!"

The boy heard these words, too. The heavy drowsiness upon him seemed to be lifting, and he felt some one fumbling at his breast, inside his shirt. On the instant he was awake and sitting up, wonderingly staring.

A tall figure had risen away from him as he opened his eyes. The sun had come out, and was falling warm and full upon the mass of young green which covered the hillside. This erect standing figure was for a moment or two very indistinct against the dazzling light. Then Lafe made out that this was Foldeen.

Almost in the same glance he saw that he was sitting among the heap of knapsacks and battle-field débris in the corner of the breastwork. Close beside him—so near that he felt he must have been lying upon him when he recovered consciousness—sprawled the burly figure of the bounty-jumper, face downward, and quite still.

Lafe was so contented with the spectacle on which his eyes rested that it did not occur to him to ask what had happened.

It was pleasanter to look at Foldeen\'s honest face, beaming satisfaction back into the boy\'s slow and inquiring regard. The German said nothing, but just smiled at Lafe.

As the boy\'s memory cleared itself, the fact that Foldeen had had no breakfast, and that he had left him in his covert on the hillside with very little compunction, rose above everything else.

Lafe pointed to the knapsacks, and attempted to speak. His throat and windpipe, the roots of his tongue and everything else involved in vocal sounds, seemed at the effort to shrivel up in pain. At first he thought he could not manage to utter a syllable. Then, at the cost of some suffering, he forced out the words, "Bread—there." They sounded quite strange in his ears.

Foldeen nodded his head, still with the jubilant grin on his round, kindly face. "Ya vole," he said, in a matter-of-fact way. "But first I fix me up dis fellow dight."

He sorted out of the pile of stolen property two officers\' sashes of knitted crimson silk, and kneeling down beside the outstretched form of the bounty-jumper, proceeded calmly to bind his legs together at the ankles with one of them.

Then, with some roughness, he dragged the prostrate man\'s arms together till their wrists met on the small of his back, and there tied them securely.

"He ain\'t dead, then?" commented Lafe, his throat feeling easier.

"Vell, maybe he is," said Foldeen. "I hit him shtraight by the top of his head mit dot gun-barrel, und he vent down like if he vas a tousand bricks. But it makes nodding. Ven he is dead, den he is good tied up. Ven he is alife, den he is much better tied up. Now ve eat us our breakfast in kviet. Bread, you say? Show me dot bread."

Foldeen needed no showing, but was on the instant wolfing huge mouthfuls from the half-loaf which the nearest haversack furnished. Lafe leaned back and watched him, his mind filled with formless emotions of thanksgiving.

In such intervals as he could spare from the bread, Foldeen lightly told what had happened. From his perch up on the hillside he had seen everything, and though beyond earshot, had been able to follow pretty well what was going on.

When the rascal drew the pistol, Foldeen slipped out from his hiding-place, and began letting himself noiselessly down the hill. He had entered the breastwork just at the critical moment, and had dealt Lafe\'s assailant a crushing blow on the skull with a gun he picked up. That was all. It was very simple.

"And mighty lucky for me, too!" was the boy\'s heartfelt comment. "Foldeen, do you know what this fellow here\'s been doing?"

"I haf some brains on my head. I haf seen his business. He is a dief."

"He got these things together here," said Lafe, "and he told me there was a lot more over on the other side of the creek. He was going to make me help him bring them here. That was what he had the pistol out for. But what beats me is, what did he expect to do with them? A man can\'t get out of the lines with a load of traps like this, even if he could carry \'em."

For answer Foldeen rose, and turned the sprawling, inert form of his captive over on its back. The pallor of the thief\'s face, contrasted with the coarse, sandy hair and stubble of beard, made it seem more repellent than ever.

The German bent over to examine this countenance more carefully.

"By jiminy priest! I bet me anydings I know dot man!" he exclaimed, staring downward intently. "Vake up dere, you!" he called out, pushing the recumbent figure with his foot. "I know you, Red Pete! Dot\'s no use, your making out you vas asleep! Vake up, kvick now!" and he stirred him with his boot again.

"I bet he\'s dead," said Lafe.

No! The man half opened his eyes and moved his head restlessly. The color came back into his face, the muscles of which were drawn now into an angry scowl by pain. He fell back helpless after an instinctive effort to lift himself to a sitting posture. Then, shifting his head, he discovered the two friends, and fixed upon them a stolid, half-stupefied stare.

"How you like him, dot Red Pete, eh?" Foldeen burst forth, with exultation, never taking his jubilant glance from the face of the wretch on the ground. "Dots a beauty, ain\'d it? Dot\'s a first-glass Ghristmas bresent, eh, to find in your shtocking! Or no, he is too big. Ve hang him on a dree, eh? A nize Ghristmas-dree, all by ourselves, eh? O Red Pete, you vas git the best place by dot dree, right in front, on the biggest branch!"

The man on the ground had been staring upward at the speaker in a puzzled fashion. He had slowly taken in the situation that he was disabled, bound hand and foot, and at the German\'s mercy. At last he seemed to recall who it was who was talking to him.

"I never done you no harm!" he growled.

"So-o!" ejaculated Foldeen, with loud sarcasm. "Dot vas no harm, eh, dot vas only some little fun, eh, to make me on fire und burn me up mit the rest in dot shteam-boat? Just some funny joke, eh? Veil, den, now I will haf me my funny liddle jokes mit you."

Speaking with such swift volubility that Lafe followed with difficulty the thread of his narrative, Foldeen unfolded a curious tale. Before the war he had drifted about in the South a good deal, playing in orchestras in New Orleans some of the time, and then for whole seasons travelling up and down the Mississippi in the bands of the old passenger steamers.

This man, Red Pete, was a well-known character on the river, too well known all the way from Cairo to the last levee. Sometimes he was in charge of a squad of slaves, sometimes travelling on his own account as a gambler, slave-buyer, or even for a trip as minor boat officer—but always an evil-minded scoundrel.