on as he supposed.

Time passed and still the little, old fellow with now and again his
oft-repeated, "'Tis not far," trudged onward. He _seemed_ to know the
way perfectly. Dave followed or kept near his side. However, when for
possibly the tenth time the man said, "'Tis not far," the lad's impatience
got the better of him.

"Your ideas of distance must have been picked up in an automobile," he
said. "Twenty miles isn't far in a car, maybe. One or two--not to mention
five or six--may be a lot better than a fair stretch for walking. And I've
been gone a long time from camp."

The stranger made no reply.

"What are you doing in the woods--fishing, or just traveling for your
health?" Dave was getting more than a little cross and his tone showed it.

"Sure, thin', I was goin' to tell ye," muttered Mr. Smith, still going
forward but more slowly now,--"I was goin' to tell ye that me business is
that of a sivy-ear--you know?"

"A what? I'm afraid I don't know exactly."

"You don't know a sivy-ear? Sure! Peekin' through a little popgun on three
poles? That's a sivy-ear."

"Oh, a surveyor!" exclaimed Dave. "What in the world have you been
surveying here in the woods?"

"Down't be axin' questions. Sivy-ears go peekin' an' peekin' an' they
don't tell whatever they may see. For why should there be sivy-ears at
all, if they towld what they do be seein'?"

MacLester was both irritated and amused; but he was getting too uneasy now
to let the all-too-apparent humbuggery of his companion go unchallenged.

"Well, I'll say this much, Mr. Smith, that if you know where your
instruments are, and can go there right off, I'll stand by my bargain to
help you; but if you don't, you better say so. We're five miles from
the lake now, if we're a foot."

"Yes, it's right ye air," was the still unsatisfactory answer. And though
Dave replied more sharply than he had yet spoken, his companion each time
responded in soft tones and mild language, but always evasively.

"Well! if you know where we are, tell me that!" spoke MacLester very
firmly at last. "I'm going not a step further until I know what sort of a
wild goose business you are taking me on!"

"Oh,--oh! Sorra day--sorra day!" The man sat himself down heavily upon a
fallen tree over whose prostrate trunk he had just escaped falling. "Ye
must do as ye will, but it's lost I fear I am."

"Lost?" echoed Dave loudly. "You don't mean that we've been jamming ahead
in the dark, and all