It was a grand ride down the creek, but when they came out on the mill-pond, Mrs. Chittenden exclaimed:
"I'd no idea it was so wide. Dear me! If I had dreamed of any such risk as this, I'd never have come."
"Nonsense!" said Aunt Dorcas. "If Mr. Harms's end of the boat keeps above water, all the rest will."
"He's a very heavy man," sighed Mrs. Chittenden.
So he was, and when they reached the drag way, around the mill-dam, and saw him put a roller on the grass and gravel, and drag those boats around, one after the other, on the roller, and put them in the water below, they understood that his weight counted for something.
Three-quarters of a mile further down the creek; and now it grew wide and ran slowly, and seemed to have formed a habit of being generally deeper. The easterly bank sloped away from the water's edge, becoming higher and steeper the further they drifted down. It was Biddy McCue who first shouted:
"Yon's the quarry. See the min on the ridge above? Uncle Mike said there might be less than a hundred of thim."
It looked as if there were at least a score or two, and the bald, perpendicular front of the great limestone ledge was worth looking at for a moment.
"Katy," said Lois, eagerly, "do you see the quarry? That's what they're going to blow away."
"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Chittenden. "Mr. Harms, is there any danger?"