"That is easy. Go round to the other side of the slew, get yourself in range with our line from the tree, by sighting across the stakes, and walk down toward the slew,—that is, on this dotted line. Having got my angle of sixty degrees at E, I will sight across and stop you when I see you at C. There stick your last stake."
"Banged if that ain't cute! Young man, what mout be your name?"
"I was only boy a few minutes ago," said the young surveyor, slyly. "Now, if you are ready, we'll set to work and carry out this plan."
The line from D to E was measured off. Then the youth set his compass to obtain the proper angle at E; while the old man, with his axe and a fresh stake, tramped around to the eastern side of the slough. Having got the range of the stakes, he was moving slowly back toward them, holding his stake before him, when the youth signalled him to stop just in the edge of the quagmire.
The new stake stuck, the young surveyor, taking up his tripod and compass, went round to him.
"That stake," said he, "is not far from your corner. Are there any signs?"
"I've been thinkin'," said the old man, "the 'arth yer looks like it had been disturbed some time; though it's all overgrowed so with these clumps of slew-grass, ye can't tell what's a nat'ral hummock and what ain't. Don't that look like a kind of a trench?"
"Yes; and here's another at right angles with it. Surveyors cut such places on the prairies, pile up the sods inside the angle, and drive their corner stakes through them. But there must have been water here when this job was done, which accounts for its not being done better. We'll improve it. Go for the shovel. I'll get the bearings of those trees in the mean while, and see how far wrong they make us out to be."
When the old man returned with the shovel, he found his boy surveyor standing by the compass, with folded arms, looking over at the woodland with a smile of satisfaction.
Sighting the trees, the tall, straight stems of which were both visible over the knoll, he had found that their bearings corresponded with those copied in his notebook. This proved his work to his own mind; but the old man would not yet confess himself convinced.