e.

"It's the wust slew in the hull country. I've lost tew cows in 't. I
wouldn't go through it for the price of my farm. Couldn't git through; a
man would sink intew it up tew his neck."

"Then we may have to get a boat to find your section corner," laughed
the young surveyor.

"But it's noth'n' but a bog this time o' year; ye can't navigate a boat
thar. And it'll take till middle o' next week to build a brush road
acrost. Guess we're up a stump now, hey?"

"O, no; stumps are not so plenty, where I undertake jobs! Let's have a
stake down there, pretty near the _slew_; then we will measure our line,
and see how much farther we have to go."

The old man helped bear the chain; and a careful measurement showed that
the stake at the edge of the slough was still four rods and thirty links
from the corner they sought.

"Banged if it don't come jest over on t' other side of the slew!" the
old man exclaimed, computing the distance with his eye. "But we can't
measure a rod furder; and yer we be stuck."

"Not yet, old friend!" cried the young surveyor. "Since we can't cross,
we'll measure the rest of our distance along on this shore."

The old man looked down upon him with indignation and amazement.

"Think I'm a dog-goned fool?" he cried. "The idee of turnin' from our
course, and measurin' along by the slew! What's the good of that?"

Finding that the old man would not aid or abet what seemed to him such
complete folly, the young surveyor made another little diagram in his
notebook, and explained:--

[Illustration]

"Here is the end of our line running from the direction
_B_,--theoretically a straight, horizontal line, though it curves over
the knoll. You noticed how, coming down the slope ahead of you, I held
my end of the chain up from the ground, to make it horizontal, and then
with my plumb-line found the corresponding point in the ground, to start
fresh from. That was to get the measurement of a horizontal line; for if
you measure all the ups and downs of hills and hollows, you'll find your
surveying will come out in queer shape."

The old man scratched his bushy gray head, and said he hadn't thought of
that.

"Well," the young surveyor continued, "we are running our line off
towards _C_, when we come to the slew. Our last stake is at _D_,--say
this little thing with a flag on it. Now, what is to be done? for we
must measure four rods and thirty links farther. I measure that distance
from _D_ to _E_, along