two o'clock
In this order we worked all day , making , before quitting time , such encouraging progress that we felt very hopeful of getting the task completed before my father 's return . Tom having fairly started us , went back to his camp on Lincoln , leaving Joe and me to continue the work by ourselves ; and sorely did we miss our expert miner when , on the Monday morning , we returned to the crater . Though we kept steadily at it all day , our progress was noticeably slower than it had been the first day , for , besides the fact that there were only two of us , and those the least skilful , as we ascended towards the stream each hole was a little deeper than the last , each charge a little stronger , and each shot blew out a greater amount of rock to be broken up and cast aside . Nevertheless , we made very satisfactory headway , and continuing our work the next two days with unabated energy and some increase of skill with every hole we put down , we made such progress that by two o'clock on the Wednesday afternoon there remained but three feet of rock to be shot out to make connection with the channel . I was for blasting this out forthwith , but Joe on the other hand suggested that we trim up our trench a little before turning in the water ; for , hitherto , we had merely thrown out the loose pieces , and there were in consequence many projections and jagged corners both in the sides and bottom of our proposed water-course . These we attacked with sledge and crowbar , and in two hours or so had them pretty well cleared out of the way , when we went to work putting down our last hole . As we wanted to make a sure thing of it , we sank this hole rather deeper than any of the others , charging it with an extra allowance of powder .