The chain rustled sibilantly among the dead leaves, and
was ever and anon drawn out to its extremest length. Then the dull clank
of the links was silent.

"Stick!" called out the young mountaineer in the rear.

"Stuck!" responded his comrade ahead.

And once more the writhing and jingling among the withered leaves. The
surveyor strode on, turning his face neither to the right nor to the
left, with his Jacob's-staff held upright before him. The other men
trooped along scatteringly, dodging under the low boughs of the stunted
trees. They pressed hastily together when the great square rocks--Moses'
tables of the Law--came into view, lying where it was said the man of
God flung them upon the sere slope below, both splintered and fissured,
and one broken in twain. The surveyor was bearing straight down upon
them. The men running on either side could not determine whether the
line would fall within the spot or just beyond. They broke into wild
exclamations.

"Ye may hammer me out ez flat ez a skene," cried the blacksmith, "ef I
don't b'lieve ez Purdee hev got 'em."

"Naw, sir, naw!" cried another fervent amateur; "thar's the north. I
jes now viewed Grinnell's dad's deed; the line undertakes ter run with
Pur-dee's line; he hev got seven hunderd poles ter the north; ef they
air a-goin' ter the north, them tables o' the Law air Grinnell's."

A wild chorus ensued.

"Naw!" "Yes!" "Thar they go!" "A-bear-in' off that-a-way!" "Beats my
time!" as they stumbled and scuttled alongside the acolytes of the
Compass, who bowed down and rose up at every length of the chain.
Suddenly a cry from the chain-bearers.

"Out!"

Stillness ensued.

The surveyor stopped to register the "out." It was a moment of thrilling
suspense; the rocks lay only a few chains further; Grinnell, into
whose confidence doubt had begun to be instilled, said to himself, all
a-tremble, that he would hardly have staked his veracity, his standing
with the brethren, if he had realized that it was so close a matter as
this. He had long known that his father owned the greater part of the
unproductive wilderness lying between the two ravines; the land was
almost worthless by reason of the steep slants which rendered it utterly
untillable. He was sure that by the terms of his deed, which his father
had from its vendor, Squire Bates, his line included the Moses' tables
on which Purdee had built so fallacious a repute of holiness. He looked
once more at the paper--