“Yes, and a lot of good earth, too.”
“Well, let’s try it anyhow. We’ll only use a little at first. If it works all right, we can use more.”
Though expressing his doubts as to the success of the experiment, the younger boy finally yielded, and, going to camp, they returned with three sticks of the explosive, caps, and fuses.
Making a hole among the roots of a particularly dense growth of scrub bushes, Ted planted a stick of dynamite, placed the cap, attached the fuse, and went into another clump of brush some two rods distant, to repeat the operation, for it was his purpose to explode the three charges at the same time by way of experiment to learn how much territory they would clear.
Before he had more than made the hole for the second stick, however, Phil shouted:
“How do I stop the fuse, Ted? I’ve lighted it.”
“Stamp on it,” Ted yelled, springing to his feet.
But before he could part the bushes to see what his brother had done, he heard a frantic scream “Run!” followed by the crackling and snapping of branches as the elder boy fled from the scene.
Realizing the danger that the other two sticks of dynamite might be exploded by the force of the detonation, Ted hurriedly flung them with all his might in the direction opposite to that from which Phil’s voice had come, then bent low, and dashed through the brush.
Not a yard had he gained, however, before there came a deafening roar, the ground rose under him and, in the midst of a cloud of earth, roots, and brush, he rose in the air.