Presently they were well behind the ridge in the forest, and out of range of any flying splinters of machine or ice.
"I feel as I used to when I was a schoolboy, and hid with the rest of the gang out in the woods and shot off charges of gunpowder in a gas-pipe bomb," grinned Barney, as he screwed one wire to a post of a battery.
"Now we'll—" he exclaimed breathlessly.
His last word was lost in the roar of a tremendous explosion. The shores of the bay took up the sound and sent it echoing and reechoing through the forest. Fine bits of ice came rattling down through the trees, while a great cloud of smoke and mist floated lazily over their heads.
"Whew! Some explosion!" murmured Barney.
Bruce was silent. His face was white.
"What's up?" asked Barney.
"Nothing. I'm all right," Bruce smiled grimly. "I was only thinking what might have happened yesterday."
"Forget it," grumbled Barney. "C'mon, let's see the ruins."
"Fish!" exclaimed Bruce, as they emerged from the forest. And assuredly there were fish in abundance. The thirty-foot wide pool, from which the ice had been blown, was white with them. There were salmon, salmon-trout, white-fish, lake-trout, flounders, and others the boys did not know. Hundreds and hundreds of them, stunned by the explosion, floated on the surface only waiting to be harvested.