here."

"P'r'aps so, sir; but if he was a stranger how did he know where the
corn store was?"

"Can't say, sergeant. Try away."

"Right, sir," said the man, proceeding slowly step by step, with the
open lantern very close to the ground, and making a regular circle, in
the hope of cutting the way at last by which the supposed thief had gone
off after his last rest.

But minute succeeded minute without success, and Lennox was about to
urge his companion onward in another direction, when the sergeant
uttered a sharp ejaculation as if of alarm, jerking up the lantern as he
started back, and in the same movement blew out the light and shut the
lantern door with a loud snap.

Lennox, who was a couple of yards behind, sprang forward, unfastening
the cover of his pistol-holster and catching his companion by the arm,
while all around now was intensely dark.

"Enemy coming?" he whispered.

"Dunno yet, sir," panted the sergeant, whose voice sounded broken and
strange. "Something awfully wrong, sir."

"Speak out, man! What do you mean?" whispered Lennox, whose heart now
began to beat heavily.

"I've come upon something down here, sir."

"Ah! The thief--asleep?"

"No, sir," said the sergeant, and his fingers were heard fumbling with
the fastening of the lantern.

"What are you doing, man? Why don't you speak?"

"Making sure the light's quite out, sir. Can't speak for a moment--feel
choking."

"Then you hear the enemy approaching?"

"No, sir.--Ha! It's quite out! Now, sir, just you go down on one knee
and feel."

"I don't understand you, sergeant," whispered Lennox; but all the same
he bent down on one knee and felt about with his right hand, fully
expecting to touch a heap of the stolen grain.

"No corn," he said at the end of a few seconds; "but what's this--sand?"

"Take a pinch up, and taste it, sir. I hope it is."

"Taste it?" said Lennox half-angrily.

"Yes, sir," said the sergeant out of the darkness, and the faint rustle
he made and then a peculiar sound from his lips indicated that he was
setting the example.

The young officer hesitated no longer, but gathering up a pinch of the
dry sand from the ground, he just held it to the tip of his tongue.

"Why, sergeant," he whispered excitedly, "it's powder!"

"That's right, sir," replied the man. "Gunpowder--a train; a heavy
train running right and left."

"Nonsense!"

"Truth, sir. I had the lantern close to it, and might have fired it