38 THE LOG OF A TIMBER CRUISER 
up. The going was hard and our wind as yet none 
of the best, but we took things easy. 
I found pacing the hardest problem to solve. All 
reconnaissance work is done on the basis of dis- 
tance as measured by the cruiser’s steps, and in 
mountainous country this is no easy job. Every 
one, in beginning, has to discover how many of his 
paces will carry him sixty-six feet, or a chain—the 
unit of measurement—and how much to allow when 
travelling up or down grades of various degrees of 
steepness, since of course only the horizontal or air 
line distance is considered. At first I conldn’t get 
it at all. And my map, despite Frazer’s hints, was 
hardly a thing of beauty. But before the day was 
done I had learned what to do, if not how to do 
it, and as the hours passed I found my timber esti- 
mate and contours were approaching Frazer’s some- 
what more closely than in the beginning. 
By noon we had paced out a mile and a half 
through a tier of six forties. We found ourselves 
in a wooded canyon through which ran a small 
stream, so we improved the opportunity by halting 
for lunch and a smoke. 
This respite in the day’s work is one of the 
cruiser’s most cherished privileges. Whether or 
not the surroundings are as propitious as were ours 
on this first day’s run does not materially alter that 
fact. Sometimes one stops on a brushy mountain 
side or on the summit of a lofty pinnacle to stay the 
faintness of hunger with his jam or jelly sandwich 
