He bedded down Jerry, the horse, and fed him, for it was early twilight. He locked the barn and went up to the incubator shed where he lodged. He always kept a fire here, and the temperature of the seed boxes had never fallen below 65°, and he usually managed to keep the heat at about 70°. He knew that a drop below 55° would seriously affect the germination of the corn, and at night Hiram wrapped bags about the boxes and covered them well. The conditions under which he had made his tests of Mr. Brown's corn had been ideal. When he uncovered the boxes he saw at once that all the ears he had selected kernels from were not strong and vigorous. Any kernel of corn that does not send out vigorous sprouts of both root and stem within four or five days is too weak to germinate properly under ordinary field conditions. Hiram discarded promptly all of twenty ears in this lot--feeding some of the discarded ones to Jerry the next morning for his breakfast. "They look all right," Hiram observed to himself. "But looks are sometimes deceiving. I have an idea that Mr. Brown plants a whole lot of seed that either does not come up at all, or does not improve his general crop. I wonder if I am going to beat him at his own game and with his own corn." He immediately selected more of the Brown corn for testing and filled the squares of the seed boxes again. Later he proposed to test some of the seed corn he had bought from other farmers. Some of the seed boxes were in far from a good condition, and the young farmer spent the best part of half an hour in fixing them. A smile of satisfaction crossed his features as he surveyed his work. "They can't say that I haven't tried to do this right," he thought to himself. Then he gave a long stretch. "My! but there's a lot to this farm work," he murmured. By the time the work on the boxes had been completed Hiram felt hungry. It was growing dark, and he concluded that he had better get something to eat before doing anything else. There was a dishful of cold potatoes on the shelf, and these he sliced for frying. Then he brought out what was left of some cold meat; he next prepared to make himself something hot to drink. The young farmer was working around the stove when he heard an unusual noise outside. He listened for a few seconds, and then went to the door and threw it open. "Not a soul in sight," he murmured to himself. "That's queer. I thought I heard somebody coming. I wonder if it can be some stray animal?" He walked outside and gave another look around. Neither man nor beast was in sight, and, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, he returned to the shed. Hiram cooked his supper and then lit a lantern to make his usual turn about the premises before going to bed. The barn doors were padlocked, but there were small sheds into which wayfarers might crawl and, as Yancey Battick had suggested, the tramp who smokes is the farmer's deadly enemy.