y clothing,
and then went out on the porch.

Though the night was dark the air was delicious. The combined odors of
many flowers came in on the faintly stirring breeze.

Tom leaned back in a chair, his feet on the porch railing. His senses
lulled by the quiet and repose of the night he was in danger of falling
asleep.

Of a sudden he came to with a start. Off among the trees to the eastward,
near the road, a human being was stirring.

Reade rose, moving swiftly back more into the shadow. Then he watched,
every sense alert. Yes; some one was moving, out there amid the trees.
What he could not see, Tom discovered by his acute sense of hearing.

"I'll put a hot pebble in that fellow's bonnet, whoever he is!" Tom
muttered vengefully. Entering the house, he left at the rear, then made
a stealthy, roundabout trip that brought him at the farther edge of the
litte grove of trees.

Now the young engineer crouched close to the ground as he listened. Once
more he heard that some one moving, not many yards away. It was
pitch-black in there amid the trees. Guided by his ears, Tom moved closer
and closer without making a betraying sound. Suddenly he found the tall
figure looming up almost in his path.

"Now, I've got you!" cried Tom exultantly, making a bound that should have
carried his hands to the throat of the prowler.

But the other, like a flash, went on the defensive. Tom felt himself
parried, then clutched at. The next instant the prowler had the young
engineer in a tackle that carried Tom Reade back to the good old high
school days at home. The young engineer was dumped on the ground as though
he had been a sack of flour.

"Great Scott!" quivered Tom Reade. "No one but Dick Prescott ever had
that tackle down fine!"

"Well, you blithering idiot!" came the indignant answer. "That's who I
am---Prescott!"

CHAPTER XVIII

THE ARMY "ON THE JOB"

"You, Dick?" gasped Tom, stumbling ruefully to his feet. Then he leaped
at his late foe, throwing his arms around him. The two fairly hugged each
other, Yes; here was Dick Prescott, not so many weeks a graduate of the
Military Academy at West Point, and now, if you please, Second Lieutenant
Richard Prescott, United States Army!

"Well, of all the strange things that the Illinois Central Railroad brings
into Alabama!" grunted Tom, now gripping Dick by the hand and holding on
as though he never meant to let go.

"If the Illinois Central had built