"Why, we can make powder here as long as we care to do so." "You are sure of it, master ?" asked Ross anxiously.
"Sure of it!" replied Mr.Pennypacker.

"Why, I know it.

If we stayed here long enough we could make a thousand barrels of gunpowder, good enough to kill any elk or buffalo or Indian that ever lived." Ross breathed a deep sigh of relief.

He had had his doubts to the last, and none knew better than he how much depended on the correctness of the schoolmaster's assertion.
"There seems to be acres of the dust about here," said Ross, "an' I guess we'd better begin the makin' of our powder at once." They went no farther for the present, but carried the dust in, sack after sack, to the mouth of the cave.

Then they leached it, pouring water on it in improvised tubs, and dissolving the niter.