Then Tommy appeared. He dashed across a glade in the cedar thickets, running half bent over like some ungainly animal. He was so far away he was just a little black dot but I saw him look back over his shoulder at the dogs. They were right behind him. I heard them break into an excited bugling as they saw their prey and started running by sight instead of by scent. Tommy frantically ran into the cedars. The dogs raced across the glade after him. There were four of them, running in a bunch, and giving tongue as they ran. _They vanished in a puff of white light._ It happened almost too fast for the mind to grasp it. One second four bloodhounds were running across the glade, the next second there was an intense puff of light, the third second the whole glade seemed to take wings and fly up into the air, the fourth second-- _Boom!_ The sound of the explosion reached us. A ball of smoke leaped upward and the cedar trees bent over in a blast of air. In the silence that followed came the faint clatter of stones falling back to the ground. There wasn't another bark from those dogs. There weren't any dogs left to do any barking. * * * * * The sheriff's face turned a pasty gray. I believe from the bottom of my heart that he is scared of nothing, that he doesn't know the meaning of fear, but when that explosion came his face turned gray. He glanced once at Ellen as if he was asking her if this confirmed the wisdom of his decision to send a posse after Tommy Sonofagun. So far as I was concerned, it did. Then he started walking away. "Where are we going?" I called after him. "Down there," he said, nodding toward the glade where the explosion had taken place. "I reckon maybe I better get Tommy, if I can." Ellen and I stayed on top of the ridge and watched. Ellen hadn't spoken a word since the explosion but from the way she was holding on to my arm, I knew how scared she was. I could feel her tremble. The sheriff vanished among the cedars down below but I knew he was down there somewhere stalking Tommy Sonofagun. I also knew that other deputies were moving up from below while still another group had probably cut across the valley up above. A grim trap was closing. "What can it possibly mean?" Ellen whispered. "It means you had better go home," I answered. She wouldn't go. She was the Relief Lady and Tommy was somebody who might need help. It was already late in the afternoon. We stayed there on top of the ridge while darkness fell and waited for--anything. I shivered every time I thought of the explosion that had killed those four dogs. A hand grenade would not have caused so much destruction. There wasn't any chance of coincidence either. Those dogs had been after Tommy and he had destroyed them. "Ben," said Ellen suddenly. "We've got to find Tommy." "Huh?" Even the idea startled me.