“Seems solid,” he remarked, giving two or three hard prods. But he had scarcely said so, when, to our surprise, several bits of rough ice about as big as my hand bobbed up from the bottom.
“Hallo!” exclaimed Yetmore. “Ground ice!”
“What’s ground ice?” I asked.
“Why, ice formed at the bottom of the pool. It is not uncommon, I believe, though I don’t remember to have seen any before. Pretty dirty stuff, isn’t it? Must be a sandy bottom.”
So saying, he stooped down, and picking up the only bit of ice which happened to be within reach, he examined its under side. As he did so, I saw him give a little start, as though there were something about it to cause him surprise, but just as I reached out my hand to ask him to let me see it, he threw it back into the water out of reach—an action which struck me as being hardly polite.
“I must be off,” said he, in apparent haste, “so, good-bye. Hope you will get your crop in before it snows. Looks threatening to me; you’ll have to hurry, I think.”
This prediction seemed to me rather absurd, with the thermometer at zero and the sky as clear as crystal; but Yetmore was an indoor man and could not be expected to judge as can one whose daily work depends so much upon what the weather is doing or is going to do. It did not occur to me then—though it did later—that he only wanted us to get to work again at once, and so divert our minds from the subject of the ground ice.
As I made no comment on his remark, Yetmore walked away, remounted his horse and rode off; while Joe and I went briskly to work again.
We had been at it some time, when Joe stopped sawing, and straightening up, said: