While the chainmen are measuring the distance to that front flag, and the axemen are driving stakes and throwing up mounds, the transit-man, mounted on a steady-going mule, with the transit on his shoulder, is galloping ahead to where the front flag awaits him. Only the back flagman is left standing at the place from which the first sight was taken.
The front flagman thrust a small stake in the ground, drove a tack in its centre, and held his flag on it before he waved the transit-man up. Now the transit is set over this stake so that the centre of the instrument is directly over the tack; and while it is being made ready the front flag is again galloping away over the rolling prairie, far in advance of the rest of the party.
The transit-man first looks through his telescope at the back flag, now far behind him, and waves to him to come on. Then the telescope is reversed, and he is ready to wave the front flag into line as soon as he stops.
The leveller, with two rodmen, all well mounted, follow behind the transit-party, noting, by means of their instruments, the elevation above sea-level of every stake that is driven.
So the work goes on with marvellous rapidity—every man and horse and mule on a run until two miles have been chained and it is time for the breathless first division to have a rest.
Mr. Hobart has watched their work carefully. He has also made some changes in his force, and is going to see what sort of a front flagman Glen Eddy will make. This is because Nettle has proved herself the fleetest pony in the whole outfit.
"Two miles in fifty-two minutes!" shouts Mr. Hobart to his men, as the stake that marks the end of ten thousand five hundred and sixty feet is driven. "Boys, we must do better than that."
"Ay, ay, sir! We will!" shout the "bald heads," as they spring to the places the first-division men are just leaving.
Mr. Hobart, Glen, and a mounted axeman are already galloping to the front. They dash across a shallow valley, lying between two great swells of the prairie, and mount the gentle slope on its farther side, a mile away. It is a long transit sight; but "Billy" Brackett can take it.
The boy who rides beside the division engineer is very proud of his new position, and sits his spirited mare like a young lancer. The slender, steel-shod, red-and-white staff of his flag-pole, bearing its gay pennon, that Glen has cut a little longer than the others, and nicked with a swallow-tail, looks not unlike a lance. As the cool morning air whistles past him, the boy's blood tingles, his eyes sparkle, and he wonders if there can be any more fascinating business in the world than surveying and learning to become an engineer. He thinks of the mill and the store with scorn. It beats them away out of sight, anyhow.