ng surveyor, as
he hurried forward through balsams that edged the woods and concealed
the open space from those among the trees.

"No, seh; only a beaver meddy."

"Clean?"

"Clean! Yesseh! Clean 's your face. Hain't no tree for two mile if de
line is go right."

"Good! We shall make seven miles to-day," said Tom, as he came forward
with immense strides, carrying a compass and Jacob's-staff. Behind him
the axemen slashed along, striking white slivers from the pink and
scaly columns of red pines that shot up a hundred and twenty feet
without a branch. If any underbrush grew there, it was beneath the
eight-feet-deep February snow, so that one could see far away down a
multitude of vaulted, converging aisles.

Our young surveyor took no thought of the beauty and majesty of the
forest he was leaving. His thoughts and those of his men were set
solely on getting ahead; for all hands had been promised double pay
for their whole winter, in case they should succeed in running a line
round the disputed Moose Lake timber berth before the tenth of April.

Their success would secure the claim of their employer, Old Dan
McEachran, whereas their failure would submit him perhaps to the loss
of the limit, and certainly to a costly lawsuit with "Old Rory"
Carmichael, another potentate of the Upper Ottawa.

At least six weeks more of fair snow-shoeing would be needed to
"blaze" out the limit, even if the unknown country before them should
turn out to be less broken by cedar swamps and high precipices than
they feared. A few days' thaw with rain would make slush of the eight
feet of snow, and compel the party either to keep in camp, or risk
_mal de raquette_,--strain of legs by heavy snow-shoeing. So they were
in great haste to make the best of fine weather.

Tom thrust his Jacob's-staff into the snow, set the compass sights to
the right bearing, looked through them, and stood by to let Big
Baptiste get a course along the line ahead. Baptiste's duty was to
walk straight for some selected object far away on the line. In
woodland the axemen "blazed" trees on both sides of his snow-shoe
track.

Baptiste was as expert at his job as any Indian, and indeed he looked
as if he had a streak of Iroquois in his veins. So did "Frawce,"
"Jawnny," and all their comrades of the party.

"The three pines will do," said Tom, as Baptiste crouched.

"Good luck to-day for sure!" cried Baptiste, rising with his eyes
fixed on three pines in the for