"Not unless there's an awful pile of that new powder behind those rocks. What they want to do is to tumble the upper front of the ledge over, so it'll fall into the quarry and they can get at it. I'd just like to see a rock like that come down, pretty nigh a hundred feet."
"Uncle Mike," said Felix, "told us he'd blown up hapes of stone in his day, but he'd niver fired a blast like this wan."
"Misther Harms, what wud become of us all if the powdher worruked the wrong way?"
"What way would that be?" said Mr. Harms.
"The other way. I mean, if instead of blowing out the front of the rock, it lift that all shtanding where it is, and blew out the country to the back of it?"
Before the big blacksmith could answer this question, Aunt Dorcas, who had been looking at her watch, remarked:
"Half-past eleven o'clock. If that thing's going to go off before dinner-time, it's got to go pretty soon."
"Boys," shouted Rube, "see 'em run! There's only one left on the ridge."
"That's me uncle Mike," said Felix, proudly. "He always touches off the big blasts himself, and thin there's no powdher wasted."
"He's running too," said Bun. "He's afraid the new powder might get ahead of him."