"I got to thinking we'd better make only one set for now. If it works out all OK, then we can make the other."
By the time Jak had the pieces cut, Jon was ready to heat one end of each in the furnace, then bend it into a small eye. The other end he sharpened on the emery wheel.
"Now measure out pieces of that plastic rope," he ordered, pointing to a reel of small-diametered but very strong line. "Figure about six inches extra on each...."
"Look, Chum, you tend to your job and give me credit for brains enough to know that much." Jak's tone was almost cross, for sometimes this younger brother got on his nerves, since Jon did occasionally get quite "bossy."
But the elder quickly subdued that feeling—helped by the surprised and somewhat hurt look in Jon's eyes. He knew so well that Jon was merely trying—as he himself was learning to do—to see that neither made any mistakes in this important work they were attempting to do in their father's absence. Father was always cautioning them to take pains with whatever they were doing, and they usually accepted his warning and advice—as they did their mother's—without any more grumbling than boys ordinarily make about such "fussing."
But now each of them—and both of them together—had to be, and did try to be, extra painstaking in all the things their father would have cautioned them about, and they checked and rechecked each other constantly. So Jak said nothing more, and quietly helped Jon complete the stakes-and-line sets. After all, he admitted honestly, there were undoubtedly times when he got just as "bossy" as Jon did.
Soon the two sets of pins and line were done. Each of the boys measured each once—twice—to make doubly sure their work was right. Then they cut up and sharpened a number of wooden stakes from some inch-by-inch strips they found in the storeroom.
The next morning they started out early. Each carried a bundle of the marking stakes, and Jon had a small sledge in one hand. In addition, they had their rifles slung across their backs.
"Working together to begin with," Jon said at breakfast, "we can start the eastward leg from the southwest corner, and run it a ways, then come back and start the northward one from this same corner."
"Yes, if we get that first corner square and right, there's less chance of the other three being wrong—they'll more or less check themselves."