"I guess I could do better with a saddle," agreed the lad dryly. "Go and get it, if you please."
Even with the saddle on, it was all he could do to retain his seat as the mule bucked up and down. But the teamster at last gave it a whack with a stick over the hind quarters and started it off on a run. For one fleeting second Charley glanced back at the grinning faces behind, then he settled down in the saddle and strove to master the vicious brute.
FORTUNATELY for Charley the newly-leveled road was still so unpacked and soft that the mule quickly tired, with its feet at every stride sinking to the fetlocks, and, before it reached the end of the grade, the lad had it under control. At the end of the grade lay the heaps of soft sand and mud the machine had lately thrown out. He must cross the ditch in order to get around the machine and do it before he reached the ant-like hills of dirt. He rose in his stirrups and surveyed the ditch ahead. It was about eight feet wide and several feet in depth, and in many places the bottom was nothing more than liquid mud. Picking out a place where the bottom showed white sand, the lad headed the mule for the ditch, and, as it hesitated for a moment on the edge, he brought his whip down smartly on its flank. With a snort of rage the mule leaped forward, clearing the ditch by a full two feet. It was a wonderful jump, and Charley settled back in the saddle with a sigh of relief. "You're sure some jumper, Violet," he said.
Skirting the edge of the ditch until he had passed the machine the lad regained the old road and rode slowly along, examining closely the route the machine would have to take. This was indicated by the surveyors' stakes, pieces of lath stuck into the ground every hundred feet. For the most part the stakes followed the line of the old road, departing from it only where the road turned and twisted, and Charley was able to follow them easily. The surveyor had done his work well. Every hundred feet had its stake, and on each stake was marked in blue pencil the number of the stake and the number of feet the new road should be graded to make it level. A full sense of the magnitude of the task they had undertaken came upon the lad, as he followed up the never-ending line of stakes. Here they led through a little hummock of dense growth, where it would be a fearful job to clear away the timber and dynamite the stumps. Beyond the hummock they crossed stretches of prairie or pine barrens, or skirted the treacherously soft edges of saw grass ponds, only to enter another hummock beyond. Charley gave a sigh of relief when the stakes joined the old road again. "There's sure some bad digging in those hummocks and around the edges of those ponds," he said to himself, "and how easy it will be for our enemies to tie up the machine for weeks, break us financially, and drive us off this job, if they just do one simple little thing that a child ought to think of. I guess it is because the thing is so simple that they have not thought of it."