hed some large pieces of it.
These, with some discomfort, I carried out into the dell where Susan
might come with her basket and get them.

For several days Susan and I took out ice from the pit, and then I
thought that perhaps Tom Burton might feel some interest in this frozen
deposit in my terminal moraine, and so I wrote to him about it. He did
not answer my letter, but instead arrived himself the next afternoon.

"Ice at the bottom of a gravel-pit," said he, "is a thing I never heard
of. Will you lend me a spade and a pickaxe?"

When Tom came out of that pit--it was too cold a place for me to go with
him and watch his proceedings--I saw him come running toward the house.

"Walter," he shouted, "we must hire all the men we can find and dig,
dig, dig. If I am not mistaken something has happened on your place that
is wonderful almost beyond belief. But we must not stop to talk. We must
dig, dig, dig; dig all day and dig all night. Don't think of the cost.
I'll attend to that. I'll get the money. What we must do is to find men
and set them to work."

"What's the matter?" said I. "What has happened?"

"I haven't time to talk about it now; besides I don't want to, for fear
that I should find that I am mistaken. But get on your hat, my dear
fellow, and let's go over to the town for men."

The next day there were eight men working under the direction of my
friend Burton, and although they did not work at night as he wished
them to do, they labored steadfastly for ten days or more before Tom was
ready to announce what it was he had hoped to discover, and whether or
not he had found it. For a day or two I watched the workmen from time to
time, but after that I kept away, preferring to await the result of
my friend's operations. He evidently expected to find something worth
having, and whether he was successful or not, it suited me better to
know the truth all at once and not by degrees.

On the morning of the eleventh day Tom came into the room where I was
reading and sat down near me. His face was pale, his eyes glittering.
"Old friend," said he, and as he spoke I noticed that his voice was
a little husky, although it was plain enough that his emotion was not
occasioned by bad fortune--"my good old friend, I have found out what
made the bottom of your gravel-pit so uncomfortably cold. You need not
doubt what I am going to tell you, for my excavations have been complete
and thorough enough to make me sure of what I sa