"What—in two days!" exclaimed Joe Williams. "You surely couldn't use your steam shovel for that job, it would be too big and heavy."
"I'll be using no steam shovel, Williams," said the contractor. "I'll use dynamite."
"Why, how could you do that?" asked Bob, interested at once.
"Sure, my boy, there's many easier ways than digging a trench with a pick and shovel. I have some dynamite in town now that would be just the thing to blast out your trench. Of course, it will scatter the dirt around some, for dynamite is usually used to make an open ditch rather than one that is to be re-filled, but it will be less work to gather up the dirt than to dig through the hard shale, and that reminds me," he continued, "when you come to put in your concrete fence posts, don't break your back digging holes if you strike hard shale; just put in a stick of dynamite and loosen her up—you'll find it will save you lots of backaches."
"How much would it cost, Brady?" asked Joe Williams much interested. "Let me see," said the contractor. "You, say it's about 1400 feet long and four feet deep. That will mean putting down 470 holes, three feet six inches deep, and require 360 pounds of dynamite."
He figured for a moment on a memorandum pad and added:
"I'll do the whole job for $100.00, which is about one-fourth of what it will cost you to open up the ditch, and I'll complete it in two days. You may have to level off the bottom of the trench here and there for the pipe, but at that it will be easier than digging the entire trench."
"All right, Brady," said Joe Williams; "when will you start?"
"To-morrow morning," said the contractor. "I'll get the dynamite to- day."
"But isn't dynamite dangerous, Mr. Brady?" asked Bob.