"No, but it gives you a wrong starting-point for the next day, and two or three mistakes would throw you clear out."
"Yes, but I make corrections constantly. You see, I have changed the place of last night's camp a little on the map."
"How do you make corrections?"
"By the creeks and rivers. Here, for instance, is a creek that we ought to cross about ten miles ahead. If we come to it short of that, or if it proves to be further off, I shall know that I have got to-night's camp placed wrong on the map. I shall then correct my estimate. When we come to the next creek I shall be able to make my guess still more certain, and by the time we get to Pensacola I shall have the whole march marked pretty nearly right on the map."
"I'd give a purty price for that there head o' your'n, Sam," said Sid Russell.
"It isn't for sale, Sid, and besides it will be a good deal cheaper to use the one you have, taking care to make it as good as anybody's. Now let me explain to all of you why we are going to Pensacola," and with that Sam entered into the plans which we know all about already, and which need not be repeated here. When he had finished the boys plied him with questions, which he answered as well as he could. Jake Elliott said nothing for a time, but after a while he ventured to ask:—
"Don't they hang fellows they ketch in that sort o' business?"
"They hang spies," replied Sam, "but they can scarcely hold us to be spies, especially as we shall be in the territory of a friendly neutral nation, where there cannot properly be a British camp at all."
"Well, but mayn't they do it anyhow, just as they are a campin' there, anyhow?"
"Of course they may, but I do not think it likely. In the first place we mustn't let them suspect us, and in the second, we must make use of what law there is if we should be arrested."