This work Bob and Elliott found most congenial. They would start early in the morning, carrying with them their compass on its Jacob's-staff, their chain, their field notes, their maps and their axes. Arrived at the scene of operations, they unsaddled and picketed their horses. Then commenced a search for the "corner," established nearly fifty years before by the dead and gone surveyor, a copy of those field notes now guided them. This was no easy matter. The field notes described accurately the location, but in fifty years the character of a country may change. Great trees fall, new trees grow up, brush clothes an erstwhile bare hillside, fire denudes a slope, even the rocks and boulders shift their places under the coercion of frost or avalanche. The young men separated, shoulder deep in the high brakes and alders of a creek bottom, climbing tiny among great trees on the open slope of a distant hill, clambering busily among austere domes and pinnacles, fading in the cool green depths of the forest. Finally one would shout loudly. The other scrambled across. "Here we are," Bob said, pointing to the trunk of a huge yellow pine. On it showed a wrinkle in the bark, only just appreciable. "There's our line blaze," said Bob. "Let's see if we can find it in the notes." He opened his book. "'Small creek three links wide, course SW,'" he murmured. "'Sugar pine, 48 in. dia., on line, 48 links.' That's not it. 'Top of ridge 34 ch. 6 1. course NE.' Now we come to the down slope. Here we are! 'Yellow pine 20 in. dia., on line, 50 chains.' Twenty inches! Well, old fellow, you've grown some since! Let's see your compass, Elliott." Having thus cut the line, they established their course and went due north, spying sharply for the landmarks and old blazes as mentioned in the surveyor's field notes. When they had gone about the required distance, they began to look for the corner. After some search, Elliott called Bob's attention to a grown-over blaze. "I guess this is our witness tree," said he. Without a word Bob began to chop above and below the wrinkle in the bark. After ten minutes careful work, he laid aside a thick slab of wood. The inner surface of this was shiny with pitch. The space from which it had peeled was also coated with the smooth substance. This pitch had filmed over the old blaze, protecting it against the new wood and bark which had gradually grown over it. Thus, although the original blaze had been buried six inches in the living white pine wood, nevertheless the lettering was as clear and sharp as when it had been carved fifty years before. Furthermore, the same lettering, only reversed and in relief, showed on the thick slab that Bob had peeled away. So the tree had preserved the record in its heart. "Now let's see," said Bob. "This witness bears S 80 W. Let's find another."