counts for its not being done better.
We'll improve it. Go for the shovel. I'll get the bearings of those
trees in the mean while, and see how far wrong they make us out to be."

When the old man returned with the shovel, he found his boy surveyor
standing by the compass, with folded arms, looking over at the woodland
with a smile of satisfaction.

Sighting the trees, the tall, straight stems of which were both visible
over the knoll, he had found that their bearings corresponded with those
copied in his notebook. This proved his work to his own mind; but the
old man would not yet confess himself convinced.

"We may be somewhur _nigh_ the spot, but I want to be sure of the
_exact_ spot," he insisted.

"That you can't be sure of; not even if the best surveyor in the world
should come and get it from these bearings," replied the youth.
"Probably the bearings themselves are not exact. The government
surveyors do their work in a hurry. The common compass they use doesn't
make as fine angles as the theodolite or transit instrument does; and
then the chain varies a trifle in length with every variation of
temperature; the metal contracts and expands, you know. Surveying, where
the land is worth a dollar and a quarter a foot, instead of a dollar and
a quarter an acre, is done more carefully. Yet I am positive, from the
indications here, that we are within a few inches of your corner."

"A few inches, or a few feet, or a few rods!" muttered the old man,
crossly. "Seems like thar's a good deal of guess-work, arter all."

"I am sorry you think so," replied the young surveyor, quietly removing
his tripod. "If, however, you are dissatisfied with my work, you can
employ another surveyor; if he tells you I am far out of the way, why,
then, you needn't pay me."

The old man made no reply, but, seizing the shovel, began to level the
hummock a little, in order to prepare it for a pile of fresh sods. He
was slashing away at it, with the air of a petulant man working off his
discontent, when he struck something hard.

"What's that ar?" he growled. "Can't be a stone. Ain't a rock as big as
a hazel-nut this side the timber."

Digging round the obstacle, he soon exposed the splintered end of an
upright piece of wood. He laid hold of it and tried to pull it up. The
youth, with lively interest, took the shovel, and dug and pried.
Suddenly up came the stick, and the old man went over backwards with it
into the bog.

He scrambled to