"By the way, Roberts," asked Field, seeking to change the subject from a topic which was stale to all the members of the party except Roger, "how did you like the work in the lower Sacramento Valley?" "Parts of it weren't so bad, Mr. Field," was the reply. "Indeed, I think I've struck worse going right up here and in the Mud Lake district, but the project down there is on so large a scale that one is bound to become enthusiastic in the work. The bush is very dense, of course, semi-tropical in character, but where the growth is heavy the swamp is not so bad, so that it becomes a mere question of bushwhacking. Then, too, that southern stuff is all soft to cut and much easier to get through. The tule grass, however, is different." "I've never been down in that tule grass," said one of the party, "is it as bad as has been described?" "It's never been adequately described on paper," was the ready answer. "Uncle Sam wouldn't let the report go through the mails." Roger grinned. "But what is it like, Mr. Roberts?" he said. The newcomer thought for a moment. "It's like what a field of wheat would seem to a very small dog," he answered. "It's too thick to walk through, too high to see over, and as stuffy as a tenement house with all the windows nailed down." "How do you manage it then," asked the boy. "Do you go on stilts?" "Stilts!" ejaculated the surveyor. "You'd have to be an opera dancer with legs about twelve feet long to manage stilts down there. And even after you cut it down, walking on the stubble is like tramping over bayonet blades stuck in the ground point up. No, what we do is to cut a sort of trail for a horse, who is hitched to a light buckboard. The horse goes through because he's got to, and the buckboard follows unless the harness breaks." "But how do you get your tripods above the rushes," said the chief, "for you surely can't cut lines everywhere." "We don't. The legs of the tripod are spliced to sticks long enough to raise them above the grass: and the topographer, standing sometimes on the body of the buckboard, sometimes on the seat, works with his nose just peering above the giant rushes, from a rod of extra length, deducting from his calculations the height of the tripod and the buckboard from the ground." "And is it dry?" "Mostly, except when the tide comes in at the lower part. At least, it's not soggy wet, like it is here. It's dead easy to get lost though, and you can't see any landmarks. You could chase your own back hair for a week and never know that you were going in a circle."