pointing
the gun at least twenty feet to one side of where the box was
located, but he said nothing, for from experiences in the past, he
realized that Tom knew what he was doing.

There was a little clicking sound, as the youth moved some gear
wheel on his gun. Then there came a faint crackling noise, like some
distant wireless apparatus beginning to flash a message through
space.

Suddenly a little ball of purplish light shot through the darkness
and sped forward like some miniature meteor. It shed a curious
illuminating glow all about, and the ground, and the objects on it
were brought into relief as by a lightning flash.

An instant later the light increased in intensity, and seemed to
burst like some piece of aerial fireworks. There was a bright glare,
in which Ned and the others could see the various buildings about
the shed. They could see each other's faces, and they looked pale
and ghastly in the queer glow. They could see the box, brought into
bold relief, where Ned and the engineer had placed it.

Then, before the light had died away, they witnessed a curious
sight. The heavy wooden box seemed to dissolve, to collapse and to
crumple up like one of paper, and ere the last rays of the
illuminating bullet faded, the watchers saw the splinters of wood
fall back with a clatter in a little heap on the spot where the
dry-goods case had been.

A silence followed, and the darkness was all the blacker by contrast
with the intense light. At length Tom spoke, and he could not keep
from his voice a note of triumph.

"Well, did I do it?" he asked.

"You sure did!" exclaimed Ned heartily.

"Fine!" cried Mr. Swift.

"Golly! I wouldn't gib much fo' de hide ob any burglar what comed
around heah!" muttered Eradicate Sampson. "Dat box am knocked clean
into nuffiness, Massa Tom."

"That's what I wanted to do," explained the lad. "And I guess this
will end the test for tonight."

"But I don't exactly understand it," spoke Ned, as they all moved
toward the Swift home, Eradicate going to the stable to see how his
mule was. "Do you have two kinds of bullets, Tom, one for night and
one for the daytime?"

"No," answered Tom, "there is only one kind of bullet, and, as I
have said, that isn't a bullet at all. That is, you can't see it, or
handle it, but you can feel it. Strictly speaking, it is a
concentrated discharge of wireless electricity directed against a
certain object. You can't see it any more than you can see