He’d enjoyed inspecting the canal yesterday, too. The Big Ditch, people called it, for a joke. But there was nothing to joke about really, because the canal was truly amazing. Frank knew every fact about it. The canal plowed its mighty furrow westward for a hundred and sixty miles up the Mohawk River Valley, and then another two hundred miles across to the channel near the town of Buffalo. In the course of its long journey, the level of the canal had to rise six hundred feet, by means of fifty locks, each with a twelve-foot drop. Irish laborers had dug the trench; imported German masons had built its walls.

Yesterday, he had been allowed to operate the sluices and help move the massive gates of one of the locks, and the engineer had told him how many gallons of water were displaced, and at what rate, and he’d measured the time it took with a stopwatch. And this had made him very happy.

Tomorrow at the official opening, Governor DeWitt Clinton was going to welcome them aboard a barge that would take them through all fifty locks and down the Hudson to New York. The governor was the nephew of the old Patriot Governor Clinton from the time of the War of Independence. He was taking two big buckets of water from Lake Erie, so he could pour them into New York harbor at the end of the journey.

Frank and his father were at the end of the path now. As they came out of the trees, Frank blinked in the bright light, and the roar of the waters hit him. People were scattered in groups on the broad ledge; some of them had climbed up onto some rocks for an even more dizzying view of the falls. He noticed a group of Indians, sitting twenty yards away on the right.

“Well, Frank, there it is,” said his father. “Niagara Falls.”

They gazed at the falls in silence. The stupendous curve of the great curtain of water was the biggest thing Frank had ever seen. The spray boomed up in billowing clouds from the river far below.

“Sublime,” said his father quietly. “The hand of the divine, Frank. The voice of God.”

Frank wanted to say something, but he did not know what. He waited a little. Then he thought he had an inspiration.

“How many gallons of water go over it in a minute?”

His father didn’t answer at first. “I don’t know, son,” he said finally. His voice sounded disappointed. Frank lowered his head. Then he felt his father’s hand on his shoulder. “Just listen to it, Frank,” he said.

Frank listened. He’d been listening for a little while when he noticed the Indian girl. She was about his own age, he reckoned, and she was staring toward them. Perhaps she was looking at him. He wasn’t sure.