The Young Surveyor;

beside him, enjoying the ride, drove up, one summer afternoon, to the d

trailing its rags about her bare feet, came

ett live here?

woman, "'f he ain't dead o

e at

I re

I see

ap. Tell him a stranger. You've druv a good piece," the woman added, glancing

ng fellow, regarding her pleasantly, with bright, ho

nd come into the house. Old

eaped down from the buggy. Thereupon the dog rose from his sea

you young uns! Put back into the house, and hide under the be

little barbarians) seeming to offer the dog unusual facilities, had he chosen to regard them as soap-grease and to regale himself on that sort of diet. But he was too well-bred and good-natured an animal to thin

stood patting and stroking his horse's

e youth, seeing a tall, sp

ranger. What can I

r you, Mr. Wiggett. I believe you

t I 'lowed 't would take

" said the young fello

l old man, bending a little, and knitting his gray eyebrows,

gh and a blush. "But I think I can find yo

man, leaning over the buggy. "Them all? W

might get a shot at a rabbit or a prairie h

light double-barrelled fowling-piece,-sighting across it with an experienced eye, and laying it down again. "Sa

ommon thing," replie

ht of Seth Parkins's widder arter Seth died, and bang

oke it off, to kill a rattlesnake w

and if ever a chap hankered arter a stick or a stun, they say he did. But it was all jest perairie grass; nary rock nor a piece of timber within three mile. Snake seemed to 'preciate his advantage, and flattened his head and whirred his rattle sassier 'n ever. Surveyor chap couldn't stan' that. So what does he dew, like a blamed fool, but jest off with his boot and hurl it, 'lowin' he could kill a rattler that way? He missed shot. Then, to git his boot, he had to pull off t' other, and

a rusty shovel lying by the house, and, getting into the buggy with his tools,

ern side of a wide, fertile river-bottom, and giving

arse wild grass, and spotted with flowers, without tree or shrub visible unt

and the valley behind them; traversed the woods, through flickering sun and shade; and drove south

young surveyor. "The dog looks ou

an, shouldering his axe, "is off on the perairie

with the broken l

guess that?-one tree out of

nd, if I had been the surveyor, I think I shoul

ide even that. The underbrush has growed up around

six inches broad, hewed for the purpose, the distance and direction of the tree from the corner stake had, no doubt, been duly marked. But only a curiously shaped wound was left. The growth of the wood was rapid in that ric

iggett, putting his fingers at the ope

t as it looks now," the

er tree is in a wus shape than this yer. Now I reckon you'll be satisf

ur axe," wa

kere what y

ng the axe, the young surveyor began to cut away th

ain't tall enough to work handy." And with a few strokes, being a skilful chopper, he cleared the old

urface, were the well-preserved

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R.

old man, as the youth made a co

links from your corner stake, in a direction forty

now your surveyor's chain is four rods long, and has a hundred lin

orth, 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 nin

timber; and it bore on its blazed trunk, facing the open pr

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R.

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