On the other side of the timber lay the high prairie region, covered with coarse wild grass, and spotted with flowers, without tree or shrub visible until another line of timber, miles away, marked the vicinity of another stream.
The young surveyor and the old man, in the jolting buggy, followed by the dog, left the log-house and the valley behind them; traversed the woods, through flickering sun and shade; and drove southward along the edge of the rolling prairie, until the old man said they had better stop and hitch.
"I don't hitch my horse," said the young surveyor. "The dog looks out for him. Here, old fellow, watch!"
"The section corner, I ca'c'late," said the old man, shouldering his axe, "is off on the perairie thar, some'er's. Come, and I'll show ye the trees."
"Is that big oak with the broken limb one of them?"
"Wal, now, how did ye come to guess that?—one tree out of a hundred ye might 'a' picked."
"It is a prominent tree," replied the youth, "and, if I had been the surveyor, I think I should have chosen it for one, to put my bearings on."
"Boy, you're right! But it took me tew days to decide even that. The underbrush has growed up around it, and the old scar has nigh about healed over."
The old man led the way through the thickets, and, reaching a small clear space at the foot of the great oak, pointed out the scar, where the trunk had been blazed by the axemen of the government survey. On a surface about six inches broad, hewed for the purpose, the distance and direction of the tree from the corner stake had, no doubt, been duly marked. But only a curiously shaped wound was left. The growth of the wood was rapid in that rich region, and, although the cut had been made but a few years before, a broad lip of smooth new bark had rolled up about it from the sides, and so nearly closed over it that only a narrow, perpendicular, dark slit remained.
"What do you make of that?" said Mr. Wiggett, putting his fingers at the opening, and looking down at his companion.