From what point of the rock was the northerly line to begin?
Where should he begin to pace?
Finally he selected a middle point as the most probable.
"'Twill be from here," he decided.

"They'd never be startin' the line from anywheres but the middle." Holding the compass in his hand that he might make no mistake, and trembling with the excitement of one about to make a great discovery, he paced to the northward, stretching his short legs to the longest possible stride, until he counted twenty paces.

It brought him not to a hackmatack tree, but to the middle of several spruce trees.

He returned to the rock and tried again.

This time he was led to a tangle of brush to the left of the spruce trees into which his former effort had taken him.