"Better than playing soldier?" said George inquiringly, and in a tone of pleasantry. He had already organized the boys in Mr. William's school into two armies, and more than one mimic battle had been fought. "Yes, better than any sham thing," answered Mr. Williams. "It will be study and diversion together--work and play--improving mind and body at the same time." "I see, I see," responded George. "I can abandon soldiering for that." But he never did. There was too great fascination about military tactics to allow of that. He devoted himself to surveying with commendable application and rapid progress; but he continued, to some extent, the chief sport of his school-days--mimic war. George was not more than thirteen or fourteen years of age when he surveyed the land about the school-house. He was the first pupil in Mr. Williams' school who had performed such a practical piece of work, and his school-mates were deeply interested in his exploit. He ranked high as a scholar, and his manly bearing made him appear several years older than he was. He led Mr. Williams' school, as he did that of Mr. Hobby, in scholarship, behavior and physical prowess. He seemed born to lead, and his associates were content to have it so. One of his biographers speaks as follows of his first efforts at surveying: "When he had advanced so far in his study as to give him some idea of the proper use and handling of the chain and compass, the two principal instruments employed in this art, he began to put his knowledge into practice by taking surveys of the farms lying in the immediate neighborhood of his school-house. "Assisted by his school-mates, he would follow up and measure off, with the help of his long steel chain, the boundary lines between the farms, such as fences, roads, and water-courses; then those dividing the different parts of the same farm; determining at the same time, with the help of his compass, their various courses, their crooks and windings, and the angles formed at their points of meeting or intersection. This would enable him to get at the shape and size not only of each farm, but of every meadow, field and wood composing it. This done, he would make a map or drawing on paper of the land surveyed, whereon would be clearly traced the lines dividing the different parts with the name and number of acres of each attached, while on the opposite page he would write down the long and difficult tables of figures by which these results had been reached. All this he would execute with as much neatness and accuracy as if it had been left with him to decide thereby some gravely disputed land-claim."