"I'm not very much astonished," Mr. Oliver answered with a soft laugh. "Still, I don't mind admitting that you stood up to your work to-day." CHAPTER XXII THE ULTIMATUM The frost soon broke up, and it was raining heavily one afternoon, when the boys were at work in an excavation they had driven under a big fir stump shortly after their shooting trip. Frank, very wet and dirty, lay propped up on one elbow with his head and shoulders inside the hole, chopping awkwardly at a root. His legs and feet were in a pool of water outside and there was very little room to swing the ax, while at every blow the saturated soil fell down on him. Grubbing out a stump in wet weather is a singularly disagreeable task. Harry crouched close beside him where he was partly sheltered from the rain by the network of roots which rose above his head. The boys had spent most of the day cutting through those which ran along the surface of the ground and digging to get at the rest, until they had been forced to drive a tunnel to reach one or two which went vertically down, for it was an unusually large stump. At last when his ax shoved through the obstacle Frank paused for breath, and, as it was getting dark in the excavation, Harry lighted a piece of candle. The light fell upon a massive shaft of wet wood which sank into the ground. "Nobody fixed as we are could chop through that," he grumbled. "It's the big taproot, and it would take most of another day's shoveling to make room to get at it with the crosscut. It looks as if we'd have to put some giant powder in. Where's that auger?" Frank reached out for the boring tool, which resembled a huge corkscrew, only that instead of a handle it had a hole at its upper end for the insertion of a short lever. "I'll bore while you get things ready, if you like," he suggested. "Do you often use dynamite?" "We never fire a shot when we can help it, though there are ranchers who get through a lot of the stuff. Giant powder's expensive, and, though labor's expensive, too, you have to figure whether a shot's going to pay. It's worth while if it will save you grubbing most of the day. Slant the hole you bore a little upward while I go along for the magazine." Harry crawled out of the excavation, and Frank slipped a crossbar through the hole in the auger, driving the point of the latter into the wood. It went in easily, but the work grew harder as he twisted it round and round, kneeling with his shoulders against the roots, while the candle flickered and big drops of water trickled down on him. The position was a cramping one, and his wet hands slipped upon the crossbar, but he had become accustomed to doing unpleasant things, and it was evident that one could not clear a ranch without grubbing stumps. By and by Harry came back, and telling him to hold the light carefully, produced what looked rather like a yellow candle, and a piece of black cord with a copper cap nipped down on the end of it.