“I hear it sputtering somewhere!” exclaimed Amos, excitedly, as he turned this way and that without apparently being able to make any sort of discovery. “And I can smell burnt powder plainly!” echoed Jack, not content to stand still and look around, but beginning a hasty search. It was a moment of intense anxiety to both lads. They could not tell how long a fuse had been left by the trooper who was the last to ride away. He had seemed to be in something of a hurry, though this might spring from a desire to catch up with his comrades before they had gone very far on their way. Jack used common-sense in his search. He noted first of all which way the air current was setting, and this told him the fumes of the burning powder must be coming toward him from a certain quarter. When the other boy, actually shivering with suspense, saw Jack give a sudden leap forward and strike downward with his foot he judged that the other must have made an important discovery of some sort. “Did you find it?” he asked, eagerly. “Yes, come here and see,” Jack told him. Upon looking, Amos discovered the bomb, which was only a small affair, though no doubt of tremendous power, for those Germans were master-hands at manufacturing terrible weapons of destruction, chemistry being one of their strongest holds. “Oh! you got it just in time, seems like, Jack,” observed Amos, as he noted the short fuse remaining after his cousin had extinguished the fire. “It might have lasted half a minute longer, I reckon,” said Jack, coolly. “Plenty of time for us to get clear, if only we hadn’t been afraid of being seen by the cavalrymen.” “What next?” demanded Amos, who many times felt willing to put the responsibility of affairs on the broad shoulders of his chum. “We must get out of this, that’s sure,” replied Jack. “The only thing I don’t like is that when there isn’t an explosion that trooper may think it his duty to gallop back here again so as to start things afresh.” “But we ought to be somewhere among the bushes by that time, hadn’t we?” suggested Amos, uneasily. “I have a better plan than that,” he was informed. “By now the man who fired the fuse is out of sight. I imagine he has drawn in his horse, and is waiting to hear the explosion. Amos, get outside where you can skip along when I come rushing out in a big hurry.” “Are you meaning to put a match to the fuse again?” asked Amos. “Yes, there is no danger of it’s going off before we get away; but don’t stop to argue about it, please. It’s the best thing we can do.” Accordingly Amos bustled off, and as soon as he had left the interior of the old windmill structure, Jack scratched a match. He joined his chum a few seconds later. “Now streak it like fun!” he exclaimed, and the pair started off as fast as they could run. Jack had figured it all out, and made certain that they were headed in the right direction. He did not fancy running slap up against that trooper returning to see why the bomb failed to explode.