By this time the army was stirring once more and preparations for the approaching day were being made. The great matter for rejoicing with Noel and Dennis was the fact that there had been no attack by the enemy during the preceding night.
Hasty arrangements were made for the burial of the dead. The young soldier was marvelously impressed by the peaceful expression of most of the upturned faces which he saw.
The first question among the living, however, was, "Where is the enemy?"
In front of the fence which General Ricketts's troops were still holding there was no sign of the Confederates. Indeed, a strange, almost unnatural, silence rested over the entire region. The little stretch between the men and the cornfield seemed to be entirely free from the presence of soldiers. There was a slight mist resting on the mountain-side and through this could be dimly seen the fallen dead of the enemy.
With others Noel had been designated to care for the bodies of his comrades who had been killed in the fight. As he was moving about among the rocks and stumps, suddenly, a slight, boyish form without any weapon and clad in the customary gray uniform of the Confederate soldiers, was seen by Noel kneeling over the body of a fallen man. To his inexpressible horror Noel saw that the man was using his knife and trying to remove a ring from the finger of the dead soldier.
Startled by the approach of Noel, the man suddenly looked up, and, instantly rising, said quickly, "Don't shoot! Don't shoot me! I vas your prisoner."
The feeling of rage and disgust which had seized upon Noel's heart quickly gave way when to his surprise he saw that the approaching man was none other than the little sutler, Levi Kadoff.