wind which felt as if it might
bring snow. I was getting so tired that I could scarce drag my feet
and was having another fit of the shivers thinking about the outlaws,
when suddenly, as I stood in front of Taggart's, something popped into
my head which I had not thought of for almost three months. This was
the big can of powder inside the store.

I forgot my shivers and ran to the hotel for the lantern. Then I had
another look at the powder-can. It was like any tin can, only big,
almost, as a keg. There was an opening in the top with a cover which
screwed on. I was wondering if there was not some way that I could put
the can under the floor of the bank and blow up the robbers if they
tried to open the safe. I felt that the chances for beating them off
again in a fight, with no fortifications, were very slim. You may
think it strange that I felt so sure the robbers would come again,
after having been beaten off once. I was not certain of it, of course,
but I knew Pike was not a man to give up easily, and that he must
have fully understood how much the snow helped to defeat them. I knew
that since the weather had moderated a spy might have come in the
night and discovered that I was alone and how defenseless the town
was.

I had heard of fuse, but it happened that I had never seen any in my
life. I remember I thought it must be white and soft like the string
of a firecracker. So I began to rummage through all the drawers and
boxes for fuse. One of the first things I came across was a coil of
black, stiff, tarry string, but I threw it to one side and went on
looking for fuse. After I had hunted half an hour and found none, I
gave up. As I stood there thinking, a good deal discouraged, my eye
lighted on the black coil again. My curiosity made me pick it up, and
on looking at one end closely I thought I could see powder. I cut off
about six inches of it and touched one end to the lantern flame. There
was a little fizz of fire and I stood holding it in my hand and
wondering what it was doing inside, when suddenly there was a bigger
fizz at the other end and a streak of fire shot down inside my sleeve
to my elbow. I concluded that I had found some fuse.

In five minutes I had the powder and fuse in the bank. Then the
hopelessness of putting it under the floor dawned upon me. I looked
under the building and found a solid square of stones laid up beneath
where the safe stood to keep the floor from settling. Everywhere else