Skirting the edge of the ditch until he had passed the machine the lad regained the old road and rode slowly along, examining closely the route the machine would have to take. This was indicated by the surveyors' stakes, pieces of lath stuck into the ground every hundred feet. For the most part the stakes followed the line of the old road, departing from it only where the road turned and twisted, and Charley was able to follow them easily. The surveyor had done his work well. Every hundred feet had its stake, and on each stake was marked in blue pencil the number of the stake and the number of feet the new road should be graded to make it level. A full sense of the magnitude of the task they had undertaken came upon the lad, as he followed up the never-ending line of stakes. Here they led through a little hummock of dense growth, where it would be a fearful job to clear away the timber and dynamite the stumps. Beyond the hummock they crossed stretches of prairie or pine barrens, or skirted the treacherously soft edges of saw grass ponds, only to enter another hummock beyond. Charley gave a sigh of relief when the stakes joined the old road again. "There's sure some bad digging in those hummocks and around the edges of those ponds," he said to himself, "and how easy it will be for our enemies to tie up the machine for weeks, break us financially, and drive us off this job, if they just do one simple little thing that a child ought to think of. I guess it is because the thing is so simple that they have not thought of it." The reason for the stakes following the old road so steadily soon became apparent, for a little farther on it entered the thickest jungle the lad had ever seen. On both sides rose gigantic trees, matted together by great entwining creepers, and on each side of the road lay stagnant pools of water, covered with nauseous-smelling green slime. Not a sound of life came from the jungle's gloomy depths. The only living things seemed to be the huge, sluggish moccasins that slipped noiselessly from the road into the pools as the mule approached. Evidently the surveyor had decided that the old road was the only feasible route through the jungle. Suddenly Charley ducked his head, as a whining, singing sound, passed over him. He had heard that whining message before, and knew it for what it was. "A rifle bullet," he ejaculated, bewildered, as he reined in the mule and looked around. But no powder smoke met his searching gaze, and no report followed the bullet's whine. Again it came, that menacing, whining sound, and from a tree close beside where he sat on the mule an inch-thick branch rattled to the ground, cut clean from the tree by the bullet.