ans that this tree is eighteen rods and ten links from your corner
stake, in a direction forty-eight degrees and fifteen minutes west of
north."

"I can understand your rods and links," said the old man; "for I know
your surveyor's chain is four rods long, and has a hundred links. But
banged if I know anything about your degrees and minutes."

"All that is just as simple," replied the young surveyor. "A circle is
supposed to be divided into three hundred and sixty degrees. Each degree
is divided into sixty minutes; and so forth. Now, if you stand looking
directly north, then turn a quarter of the way round, and look straight
west, you have turned a quarter of a circle, or ninety degrees; and the
angle where you stand--where the north line and the west line meet--is
called an angle of ninety degrees. Half as far is forty-five degrees.
Seen from the corner stake, wherever it is, this tree bears a little
more than forty-five degrees west of north; it is forty-eight degrees
and a quarter. Where's the other tree?"

That was ten or eleven rods away, still in the edge of the timber; and
it bore on its blazed trunk, facing the open prairie, the
inscription--laid bare by the old man's ready axe--

N. 82 deg. 27' w.
16 R. 29 L.

"Eighty-two degrees twenty-seven minutes west of north, and sixteen rods
twenty-nine links, from your corner," the young surveyor read aloud, as
he copied the marks into his notebook. "The other tree is so surrounded
by undergrowth, it would take you and your axe an hour to cut a passage
through so that I could run a line; and I am going to try running a line
from this tree alone. Be cutting a few good stakes, while I go and bring
up my horse and set him to eating grass."

CHAPTER II.

OLD WIGGETT'S SECTION CORNER.

The horse was driven to a good shady place on the edge of the woods,
relieved of his bridle, and left in charge of the dog. In the mean while
the old man cut a few oak saplings and hewed them into stakes.

"Now, I want ye to give me a notion of how you're gwine to work," he
said, as the youth brought his compass and set it up on its tripod at
the foot of the tree. "For, otherwise, how am I to be sure of my corner,
when you say you've found it?"

"O, I think we shall find something to convince you! However, look here,
and I'll explain."

While waiting for the wavering needle to settle in its place, the youth
made a hasty diagram in a page of his notebook.

"Here