Those only, who have been through the experience, can fully realize how anxious the land looker is to secure the descriptions of valuable lands that he has found when out on one of his cruises, for he knows full well that it is probable that he is not the only man who is in the woods at that time, for the same objects as his own. Sometimes, but rarely, two such men may meet in the forest while at their work. When this occurs, it is a courteous meeting, but attended with much concealed embarrassment, for each knows that the other has found him out, and, if either is in possession of a valuable lot of minutes which he hopes to secure when he reaches the land office, he assumes that the other is probably in possession of the same descriptions, or, at least, a part of them. It then becomes a question which one shall outwit or outtravel the other, from that moment, in a race to the land office where his minutes must be entered, and to the victor belong the spoils, which means in this instance, to the one who is first there to apply for the entry of his land descriptions. While on one of these cruises on a tributary of the Wisconsin River, with one man only for help and companion, I had left my man, Charlie, on the section line with the two pack sacks, while I had gone into the interior of the section, to survey some of its forties, and to make an estimate of the feet of pine timber standing on each forty. It was in midsummer and in a beautiful piece of forest. Thrifty pine trees were growing amongst the hard woods of maple, birch, and rock elm. Having completed my work in the interior of the section, and having returned, as I believed, to a point within a hundred yards of where Charlie was, I gave the woodsman's call, then listened for Charlie's answer, in order that I might go directly to the point whence it should come. On reaching Charlie, I picked up my pack and started following the section line. We had traveled less than a quarter of a mile on the line, when I saw on the ground, a pigeon stripped of its feathers. I picked up the bird and found that its body was warm. Immediately I knew that other land lookers were in the same field and had undoubtedly been resting on that section line at the time I had called for Charlie, and they, hearing our voices, had hastily picked up their packs and started on their way out.