if I should have occasion to give it -- three revolver-
shots in quick succession. Sentry-duty was discarded
for the night, and the corral left empty of life; I
ordered that quiet be maintained in the cave, and the
electric lights turned down to a glimmer.

As soon as it was good and dark, I shut off the
current from all the fences, and then groped my way
out to the embankment bordering our side of the great
dynamite ditch. I crept to the top of it and lay there
on the slant of the muck to watch. But it was too
dark to see anything. As for sounds, there were none.
The stillness was deathlike. True, there were the
usual night-sounds of the country -- the whir of night-
birds, the buzzing of insects, the barking of distant