"Hardly," said his chief, smiling. "The Survey does not waste men that way. Mr. Mitchon has written me that Mr. Herold desires you should have an insight into the varied work of the department, and I have arranged for another topographic aid to meet me on the other side, so that, except for this heliograph signal, which I must remind you is excessively important, you will have finished with the work here." "Then what?" "Death Valley and the Mohave Desert," replied his chief. "It is perhaps a little hard to send you into a hot section of the country at this time of year, but, you see, you cannot go too far away because of your engagement with the sun on a morning two months hence--by the way, if it is cloudy, which is so rare a contingency as scarcely to be reckoned on, signal the next morning at the same hour--so you must stay near by, and the most interesting work at hand is that being done in the waterless country." [Illustration: TWENTY-SEVEN MILES FROM WATER. Shelter camp in Great Dry Desert, life being sustained by constant relays from distant wells. _Photograph by U.S.G.S._] "Death Valley," the boy repeated, his eyes sparkling with excitement, "I have always wondered what Death Valley was really like." "That will give you a chance to see it, and to find out for yourself." "But how?" asked the boy surprisedly. "Isn't the air poisonous, or something? I had an idea that nothing could live in Death Valley." Masseth smiled. "You're mixing up some fairy story of the Upas Tree, or something of that sort," he said. "There's nothing very dangerous in Death Valley, except the lack of water. And even that is nothing like it used to be, because, while they have not found any more water, the places where pools do exist are carefully mapped out and made easy of access. But it is a grim and fearful place unless every step of the journey is carefully planned with relation to those few scanty wells." "Then," said the boy, "if it is just lack of water, why was it called Death Valley?" "A party of emigrants gave it that name," said the chief quietly, "and to them its sinister title bore a grim meaning. They had passed through the desert, suffering incredible hardships and were greatly weakened when they arrived at the valley. Still they pluckily journeyed on till they reached those salt and borax flats, where the surface is rougher to travel on than can be imagined, the salt having formed in sharp spikes and jagged scales with their edges at every angle, and shallow pans filled with dreadfully salt water. But it was water, and many of the party sought thus to quench their thirst." "Although it was salt!" cried Roger. "I should think it would have made them crazy."