Work on the canal section near the river advanced without incident until, one morning early in November, the plows unexpectedly uncovered a forty-foot-wide body of granite just beneath the surface.

This particular difficulty was not serious, and was the contractor's; but Pat Carrigan was no more pleased than any other contractor would have been at finding rock, even a small amount, when he had figured his excavation costs on a dirt basis.
"That wipes out a piece of my profits," he remarked to Bryant, after a first profane explosion.

"I'll send out for some dynamite and shoot it.

If it wasn't for damned troubles like this, I'd been a retired man and fat and rich long ago.

Don't grin, you heartless blackguard! You'll have miseries of your own before we're done." Pat Carrigan was a true prophet.