topped raining, I knew that in
all likelihood we should have a thick fog which would prolong the duty
of the vedettes and make another relief necessary.

When Willis appeared again, three other men were following--good men of
Company D. I could hear him say to my two fellows; "Go on back to the
line; your time's not up, but you are relieved."

When he reached me, he put Thompson in my place, and led the way back a
short distance and into the edge of the woods.

"Now, men," says he; "we're going to make a fort of that ravine. We want
to fill these sand-bags, and we want some straw or something to screen
them. Jones, you must go twenty yards or so beyond the gully till I
whistle for you, or call you. The rest of us will do the work while
you watch."

The sergeant's little scheme for having his fun was now clear enough.
One of the party had brought a spade, and I noticed that others seemed
to have come up in no light marching order. Willis meant to occupy the
ravine and remain for the day, if possible, in this advanced post, so
near the rebels that his bullets would not fall short. It was all
clear enough.

The party had begun work before I went forward. Passing Thompson, I
skirted the edge of the woods, and went some thirty or forty yards to my
right oblique in the open, and then lay flat, with my eyes to the front.
Soon I heard muffled sounds behind me; the men were filling the
sand-bags. My position cramped me, my neck became stiff. No sound
reached me from the front; I supposed that the nearest rebel vedette was
not nearer than two hundred yards, unless at a point more advanced from
his lines there was some natural protection for him. But what prevented
my being surprised from the woods on my left? I lay flat and stiffened
my neck; light was beginning to show.

At length I heard Willis call me, and I didn't make him call twice. The
ravine, as the light became greater, showed itself almost impregnable
against an equal force of skirmishers. Just where an angle in the
western edge presented a flank of wall toward the north, Willis and his
gang had cut away the earth into a shelf some three feet beneath the
top. Ten sand-bags filled with earth surmounted the summit, with open
spaces between, in order that a musket might be fired through, these
handy port-holes, and the sand-bags were covered with, sedge from the
open field. I congratulated our commander on his engineering feat.

The sun had risen, perhaps, but the