see;
anything."

"Here, Gracie, you take a stake there an' go out yan an' stick it up.
Keep a-goin' till I holler."

Both girls carried out these directions, the fat one falling down a
couple of times, tripped by the long grass and getting up shaking with
laughter. The boys were to learn that she was a chum of Grace Hooper,
that her name was Sophronia Doyle, though commonly nicknamed "Skeets."

The stake was placed. Bill drove another at his feet, set the transit
over it, peeped through it both ways and at his direction, after
stretching the steel tape, Gus drove a third stake exactly sixty feet
from the transit at an angle of ninety degrees from a line to the field
stake.

"Now, folks," explained Bill, "the stake out yonder is A, this one is B
and the one at the other end of the sixty-foot base line is C. Please
remember that."

The transit was then placed exactly over the stake C and, peeping again,
Bill found the angle from the base line to the stake B and the line to
stake A to be 78 degrees. Thereupon Gus produced a long board, held up
one end and rested the other on a stake, while Bill went to work with a
six-foot rule, a straight edge and a draughtsman's degree scale. Bill
elucidated:

"Now, then, to get out of figuring, which is always hard to understand,
we'll just lay the triangulation out by scale, which is easily
understood. One-eighth of an inch equals one foot. This point is stake B
and the base line to C is this line at right angles, or square across
the board. C stake is 7-1/2 inches from B which is equal to sixty feet
on the scale, that is sixty one-eighth inches. Now, this line, parallel
to the edge of the board, is the exact direction of your stake A. Do you
all follow that?

"The direction to your stake was 78 degrees from the base line at C.
This degree scale will give us that." Bill carefully centered the latter
instrument, sharpened his pencil and marked the angle; then placing the
straight edge on the point C and the degree mark he extended the line
until it crossed the other outward line. At this crossing he marked a
letter A and turned to his auditors.

"This is your stake out yonder. The rule shows it to be a little over
34-5/8 inches from the base line at B. That is, by the scale, a few
inches over 277 feet and that is the distance from here to where Grace
stuck it into the ground. Our hundred-foot steel tape line is at your
service, Mr. Hooper."

Mr. Hooper merely glanced at Bil