But now he must find a swamper.

He remembered Thorpe.
So the young man received his first promotion toward the ranks of skilled labor.

He gained at last a field of application for the accuracy he had so intelligently acquired while road-making, for now a false stroke marred a saw-log; and besides, what was more to his taste, he found himself near the actual scene of operation, at the front, as it were.

He had under his very eyes the process as far as it had been carried.
In his experience here he made use of the same searching analytical observation that had so quickly taught him the secret of the ax-swing.
He knew that each of the things he saw, no matter how trivial, was either premeditated or the product of chance.

If premeditated, he tried to find out its reason for being.