The Alaskan explorer and geologist looked up from his desk and took in with a quick glance the boy, standing hat in hand beside the door, noting with quiet approval the steady gray eye and firm chin of his visitor. "Yes?" he replied. "I'm Roger Doughty," explained the lad sturdily, "and Mr. Herold told me that I should find you here." "And what can I do for you?" The boy seemed somewhat taken aback by the direct question, as though he had expected the purpose of his visit to be known, but he answered without hesitation. "I understood from Mr. Herold that he had spoken to you about me. I want to go to Alaska." "You mean on the Survey?" "Yes, sir." "Your father wrote to me some time ago that you would be coming. He said, if I remember, that you had been nominated one of the new field men under that college scholarship plan." "I think I am the first, Mr. Rivers," answered Roger with a smile. "Sit down," said the elder man; then, as the boy hesitated, "just put those books on the table." The table in question was covered with an immense map showing the vast unexplored and unsurveyed regions of Alaska, that far northern portion of the United States which is equal in size to all the States west of the Mississippi and north of Mason and Dixon's line. "Mr. Herold spoke of the plan to me," continued the explorer, "but he gave me few of the details. Tell me, if you can, just how the project is to be worked." "I don't know for certain, Mr. Rivers," replied the boy, "but so far as I can make out, it is this way. You see, Mr. Carneller gave a large fund to get some special boys into the government bureaus to give a chance for the upbuilding of the personnel while still young, and this plan was indorsed in Washington. The scholarship paid everything for two years and gave the usual two months' vacation beside, giving also a liberal allowance for personal expenses." "And you say this plan is now proceeding?" "I heard that it was to be tried this first year only in two or three schools. I guess I was lucky, because they started out with us." "But how does your father like the idea of your roughing it? In the days when I knew him, he believed in keeping his boys near home." "He wants me to stay, but, you see, Mr. Rivers, I always wanted to get out and do something, and city life isn't what it's cracked up to be. I want to be doing things worth while, things that will tell in the long run, and this poking over columns of figures in a stuffy office doesn't suit me worth a cent when I'm just aching to get out of doors." The explorer's grave expression relaxed into a half-smile at the boyish but earnest way of describing the feeling he himself knew so well; but he felt it his duty to put bounds to that enthusiasm. Before he could speak in protest, however, Roger continued: