nts you for his rodman,"
continued Mr. Hobart. "The pay will be double what you are now
receiving, and you can soon fit yourself for the position by a little
hard study; for Mr. Brackett is a capital instructor. I have told him
that he may take you on trial, and see what he can do with you. I also
told him of your aversion to study, and gave him to understand what a
difficult job he had undertaken."

Glen flushed at this, and gazed at the ground for a moment. Finally he
said, "Studying seems very different when you can look right ahead and
see what good it is going to do."

"Yes," replied Mr. Hobart, "I know it does. Still, in most cases we have
to trust the word of those who can look ahead when we can't. I've no
doubt but what you were told at school that a knowledge of Latin would
aid you in learning many other languages; but you were not willing to
believe it until you saw for yourself how it helped Binney Gibbs pick up
Spanish."

Glen did not make any promises aloud in regard to fitting himself for
his new position, for he believed in actions rather than words; but he
made one to himself, and determined to keep it.

They remained in camp at Isletta one day longer, to prepare for their
arduous undertaking, and to engage several new axemen to fill the places
of those who had been promoted; but on the second morning the transit
was set up over the last stake they had driven, and its telescope was
pointed due west.

At first Glen missed the excitement of riding in advance of the party
with the front flag. On a preliminary survey, the level can hardly keep
up with the transit; and it was not so pleasant to be always behind,
striving to catch up, as it had been to be in the lead.

To "Billy" Brackett the change of positions came even harder than to
Glen, because in taking the level he had gone back a step rather than
forward; but he never showed it. Indeed, by his steady cheerfulness and
unceasing flow of good spirits the new leveller soon banished even a
shadow of regret from the mind of his young rodman, and taught him to
feel a real interest in his new work.

So they slowly climbed the western slope of the Rio Grande Valley,
crossed the barren plateau of the divide between it and the Rio Puerco,
followed that stream and its tributary, the San Jose, on the banks of
which they saw the ancient pueblos of Laguna and Acoma, into another
region of rugged mountains, and, in about two weeks, found themselves at
the fo