"What is it?" asked the elder brother without looking up.
"What are you going to burn them out with?"
"With that little rod," answered Sam, tossing a bit of iron about six inches long towards his brother, "I brought it with me on purpose."
"Well, but it won't reach; you've got to reach all the joints you know, and the rod must be as long as the cane."
"Oh no, not by any means."
"Yes it must, of course it must," exclaimed all the boys in a breath. "It's just like burning out a pipe stem with a wire."
"No it is not," replied Sam, smiling, "but suppose it is. I can burn out a pipe stem with a wire half as long as the stem."
"How?" asked two or three boys at once.
"By burning first from one end and then from the other."
"Yes, that's so," answered Sid Russell slowly, drawling his words out as if he had to drag them up through his long legs, "but that don't tell how you're goin' to bore out a big cane, fifteen feet long with a little iron rod not more 'n six or eight inches long."