position, and
guessing by the sound of their voices that they were discussing the
advisability of executing their diabolical scheme, our hero coolly
stepped back some thirty feet, placed a light to his train, and as he
saw the fire spurt forward along the sinuous inky-looking line of
powder, darted out of his burrow, and reached the exit from the rock as
the whole place seemed to be rent and torn by an ear-splitting report,
and the outside air, which was for one brief moment lighted by the awful
glare of the explosion, resumed its normal blackness, the silence of
which was instantly broken by the groans of agony from the mutilated and
dying Mormons, who had indeed been hoisted with their own petard.
Quickly calling his party back to the rock, which, to his delight, was
uninjured, Grenville directed Amaxosa to fire one of the oil wells,
feeling sure that a Mormon rush would now be made under the impression
that the audacious little band of invaders had perished.

Scarcely was this done than a small army of Mormons debouched from the
woods at a run. Grenville let them get within three hundred yards of
the rock, and then his party opened fire, knocking the astonished
cowards over like ninepins, and in less than ten minutes the blazing
pillar of fire showed only the open glade, strewn thickly with corpses,
its sickly glare revealing also a mighty gaping rent in the ground, from
which smoke still issued, looking as if Nature had herself prepared a
Stygian grave for the dishonoured dead.

Seeing that all fear of another attack was over for the present, the
little party thankfully regained the shelter of the rock, in order to
discuss at their leisure the probable result of the latest Mormon
disaster; and in a very short time the tired and hungry quintette of
miners were enjoying a hearty breakfast, if a meal served at about three
in the morning merits such a denomination.

The men were all so utterly worn out that the girls, upon their own
earnest entreaty, were for once allowed to keep guard whilst the
fighting brigade took their much-needed repose. Grenville felt that the
watch was a mere matter of form, and so the result proved, for it was
ten in the morning before he was awakened by the soft hand of Rose, who
came with the astounding news that a Mormon had appeared on the edge of
the forest belt, where he now stood waving a white flag, and signifying
his desire to communicate with the besieged.

In a moment all had s