With his compass Jamie sighted from the tree to the rock, and to his satisfaction the rock, lying due south, fell within his line of sight, but at the extreme easterly end of its northerly face instead of at the centre, the point from which he had run his original line.  He now paced the distance, which proved to be a little farther than twenty of Jamie’s longest strides, which he accounted for again by reasoning that a man could take longer steps than he could stretch with his short legs.

Then for the first time Jamie observed two stones, one on top of the other, at the foot of the rock and at the very place to which his compass had directed him.  He lifted the stones and an examination proved that they had not long since been placed in the position in which he found them.  Both had marks of earth upon them on the lower side, but the stone which was below rested upon the carpet of caribou moss which covered the ground and prevented it from coming in contact with the earth.  It could not, therefore, have been stained with soil in the place where Jamie now found it.

“They was put there as a pilot mark!  They shows the true mark of the place to pace from,” he soliloquized, replacing them in the position in which he had found them.  “I’ll take un as a pilot, whatever, and see how she comes out on the next track.”

He returned to the little hackmatack tree and again consulted the paper.

“Forty paces west to a round rock,” he read, observing, “that won’t be so hard now as findin’ the hackmatack tree.  ’Twill be easier to see, whatever.”

Methodically he gathered some stones and erected a small pedestal upon which to rest his compass while he ran his westerly line.  Loose stones of proper size were hard to find.  The smaller ones were frozen fast to the ground, and the larger ones were too heavy for him to move.  But presently he collected a sufficient number of small stones to form a pedestal a foot and a half high.

Upon the top of this he levelled his compass, and turned it until the needle, swinging freely, rested upon the north point on the dial.  Then, as before, he placed a match upon the face of the compass to form a line from the “E” to the “W” on the dial.  Crouching down upon the ground Jamie sighted, as before, to a distant tree, but as he did so be became suddenly aware that the light was fading.  He had been much longer than he had realized, consuming a great deal of time in examining the signs around the big rock and in taking his distances from the rock.

“This line is sure right the first time,” he said. “’Twill not take me much longer, and I finds the round rock now.  If I finds un I’ll be sure I’m goin’ the right way, and I’ll be right handy to the cache.”

Thirty-nine of Jamie’s paces brought him to the tree upon which he had taken sight, and looking a little way beyond he saw, to his great joy, a round rock.

Jamie was trembling with excitement as he ran eagerly to the rock.  This was the second direction laid down upon the paper!  There could be no doubt that he was right!  Everything answered the description!  He would surely find the cache now!  What a surprise it would be to Doctor Joe and the boys if he came walking into camp triumphantly bearing Lem Horn’s silver fox skin.