It is a small, twinkling star. It will appear and then disappear. Did your father ever show you the big dipper, or great bear?
Oh, I know the big dipper, but I never saw the great bear.
They are both one, boy. The two lower stars are called pointers. Look to where they point to, and tell me what you see?
I see the small, twinkling star you spoke of. I will never forget that. I suppose that the pointers on the dipper always point the same way, and that I can find the star by looking at the pointers?
You are partly right. You can always find the star by following up the pointers, but the dipper changes. It is now south-west of the star. In two months it will be directly under it. Thus it continues to revolve around the star, but the pointers always point towards the star.
To adjust the compass and take the sights are simple and easy, and I think you will learn to do it in a few days as well as I can. But you have got to study the books and learn how to calculate the area and angles. Now we will return to camp, and in the morning you can set the compass on a line North, forty-five degrees West.
Walter retired, but slept but little that night. He was highly elated at the prospect of learning to survey, had many misgivings as to whether he would succeed. But if study and perseverance had any virtue, he was bound to succeed.
As soon as it was light in the morning he was up and out with his compass. It was some time before he could adjust the compass to his satisfaction, but at last he accomplished it. He next liberated the needle, by means of the thumb screw.
The moment the needle began to move, he became excited. The idea of a dead piece of iron moving itself was something above his comprehension. He thought it must be moved by some supernatural power. Why, he thought to himself, did not Mr. Webb tell me where the force comes from? He talked as if neither himself or anybody else knew the cause! He next set the compass as he thought North, 45° West, but the sights pointed East of North, and he was pondering over this, when Webb arrived.