"Master, him do that?" he asked.
"I did," Tom replied. "But I didn't think you'd walk out of the woods, just at the wrong time, and sit down on that rock."
"Um," murmured the giant. "Koku—he—he—Oh, by golly!" he yelled. And then, as if realizing what he had escaped, and being incapable of expressing it, the giant with a yell ran into the tunnel and stayed there for some time.
The experiment was pronounced a great success and, now that Tom had discovered the right kind of explosive to rend the very hard rock, he proceeded to have it made in sufficiently large quantities to be used in the tunnel.
"We'll have to hustle," said Job Titus. "We haven't much of our contract time left, and I have reason to believe the Peruvian government will not give any extension. It is to their interest to have us fail, for they will profit by all the work we have done, even if they have to pay our rivals a higher price than we contracted for. It is our firm that will pocket the loss."
"Well, we'll try not to have that happen," said Tom, with a smile.
"If you're going to use bigger charges of this new explosive, Tom, won't more rock be brought down?" asked Walter Titus.
"That's what I hope."
"Then we'll need more laborers to bring it out of the tunnel."
"Yes, we could use more I guess. The faster the blasted rock is removed, the quicker I can put in new charges."