“Nothing happen yet,” spoke Koku significantly, “but maybe he come pretty soon, and then I get him.”

“Get who, Koku?” asked Tom, with quick suspicion.

“I do not know, but Eradicate say he hear someone sneaking around his chicken coop, and I think maybe it be same man who was here once before.”

“Oh, you mean the rivals, who were trying to get my moving picture camera?”

“That’s what!” exclaimed Koku.

“Hum!” mused Tom.  “I must be on the look-out.  I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Koku.  I’ll set my automatic camera to take the moving pictures of any one who tries to get in my shop, or in the chicken coop.  I’ll also set the burglar alarm.  But you may also stay on the watch, and if anything happens—­”

“If anything happens, I will un-happen him!” exclaimed the giant, brandishing a big club he had beside him.

“All right,” laughed Tom.  “I’m sleepy, and I’m going to bed, but I’ll set the automatic camera, and fix it with fuse flashlights, so they will go off if the locks are even touched.”

This Tom did, fixing up the wizard camera, which I have told you about in the book bearing that title.  It would take moving pictures automatically, once Tom had set the mechanism to unreel the films back of the shutter and lens.  The lights would instantly flash, when the electrical connections on the door locks were tampered with, and the pictures would be taken.

Then Tom set the burglar alarm, and, before going to bed he focused a searchlight, from one of his airships, on the shed and chicken coop, fastening it outside his room window.

“There!” he exclaimed, as he got ready to turn in, not having awakened the rest of the household, “when the burglar alarm goes off, if it does, it will also start the searchlight, and I’ll get a view of who the chicken thief is.  I’ll also get some pictures.”

Then, thinking over the events of the evening, and wondering if he would succeed in his fight with the smugglers, providing he undertook it, Tom fell asleep.

It must have been some time after midnight that he was awakened by the violent ringing of a bell at his ear.  At first he thought it was the call to breakfast, and he leaped from bed crying out: 

“Yes, Mrs. Baggert, I’m coming!”

A moment later he realized what it was.

“The burglar alarm!” he cried.  “Koku, are you there?  Someone is trying to get into the chicken coop!” for a glance at the automatic indicator, in connection with the alarm, had shown Tom that the henhouse, and not his shop, had been the object of attack.

“I here!” cried Koku, “I got him!”

A series of startled cries bore eloquent testimony to this.

“I’m coming!” cried Tom.  And then he saw a wonderful sight.  The whole garden, his shop, the henhouse and all the surrounding territory was lighted up with a radiance almost like daylight.  The beams of illumination came from the searchlight Tom had fixed outside his window, but never before had the lantern given such a glow.