Part 25 (1/2)
”How do youthat way”
”I don't ht have that running, a constant stream, in your kitchen or back-roo Jack to a piece of prairie chicken ”Youit in pipes”
”Thank you Precisely”
”But I apprehend a difficulty; it is not easy to make water run up hill”
Jack smiled, and blushed a little, at Betterson's polite condescension indown hill may force itself up another hill, if confined in pipes, I think you will concede”
”Most assuredly But it will not rise again higher than its source And the spring is lower than we are,--lower than our kitchen sink”
”I don't quite see that,” replied Jack, with the air of a candid inquirer ”I have been over the ground, and it didn't strike _me_ so”
”It certainly looks to be several feet lower,” said Betterson; and the boys agreed with hi,” said Rufe ”We go down the road, then down the bank of the ravine, and then a little way up the other bank I don't knoe can tell just howfrom the house”
”If I had my instruments here, I could tell you which is lower, and howfor Snowfoot, (I can't go home, you knoithout Snowfoot!) I , as it is”
CHAPTER XXIII
JACK'S ”BIT OF ENGINEERING”
The boys got around Jack after dinner, and asked hi
”In the first place,” said Jack, standing outside the door, and looking over toward the spring, hidden by intervening bushes on a ridge, ”we must have a water-level, and I think I can le, or any thin strip of wood And I shall want a pail of water”
A shi+ngle brought, Jack cut it so that it would float freely in the pail; and, having taken two thin strips of equal length from the sides, he set them up near each end, like the masts of a boy's boat
”Now, this is our level,” he said; ”and these hts To see that they are exact, ill look across them at some object, then turn the level end for end, and look across thehts are right, are they not? But I see we must lay a couple of sticks across the pail, to hold our level still while we are using it”
The boys were much interested; and Link said he didn't see what anybody wanted of a better level than that
[Illustration: TESTING THE LEVEL]
”It will do for the use we are going to ht not be quite convenient for field service; you couldn't carry a pail of water, and a floating shi+ngle with twoof that grindstone Go and stick your knife where I tell you, Link”
Jack soon got his level so that it would stand the test, and called the boys to look
”Here! you stand back, Chokie!” cried Link; while Rufe and Wad, one after the other, got down on the ground and sighted across the level at the knife-blade
”Now,” Jack explained, ”I a to set this pail of water in your kitchen , by the sink That will be our starting-point Then I want one of you boys to go, with a long-handled pitchfork, in the direction of the spring, as far as you can and keep the pail in sight; then set up your fork, and pin a piece of white paper on it just where I tell you As I raise my hand, you will slide the paper up; and, as I lower my hand, you will slip it down”