It could not, therefore, have been stained with soil in the place where Jamie now found it.
"They was put there as a pilot mark! They shows the true mark of the place to pace from," he soliloquized, replacing them in the position in which he had found them.

"I'll take un as a pilot, whatever, and see how she comes out on the next track." He returned to the little hackmatack tree and again consulted the paper.
"Forty paces west to a round rock," he read, observing, "that won't be so hard now as findin' the hackmatack tree.

'Twill be easier to see, whatever." Methodically he gathered some stones and erected a small pedestal upon which to rest his compass while he ran his westerly line.

Loose stones of proper size were hard to find.

The smaller ones were frozen fast to the ground, and the larger ones were too heavy for him to move.