"And shall I see those bears if I go up with you this summer?" asked Roger. "Likely enough you will see them if you go up to Alaska, but that will not be this summer." "Why not, Mr. Rivers?" "That work needs trained men, as I told you, and you know nothing of the Survey yet. Besides, you will be sent where Mr. Herold thinks best, not where you prefer to go." "And I had hoped to see Alaska this summer!" cried the boy dejectedly. "That could not be in any case; all the parties have started already," replied the older man. "You see, in order to make use of every day of the short Alaskan summer, the men start early in the spring when a long trip is planned, so that they will be at the point of start when the break-up comes." "Then I am too late after all!" said Roger, with the most acute disappointment. The experienced Alaskan explorer smiled. "Doughty," he said, "you should realize that you could not possibly have gone up with us this year. Minutes are too precious on the northern trails to spend any of them teaching the routine of camp life or the duties of the Survey. We take absolutely no men who are not experienced. But, besides that, this year would not be the one in which you would wish to go, since the parties now up there are surveying small sections of territory to fill up gaps in the more populated areas." "Then there is no chance for me?" "Not this summer. But Mr. Herold did tell me that he had seen you, and perhaps there may be an opportunity later for you to get into the Alaskan work." Roger bent forward eagerly to find out what was coming. "If, therefore, you make good in the Survey during the coming year, I might take you with me next summer, in what is going to be one of the most interesting Alaskan trips ever undertaken, wherein I am going to make a reconnoissance of Alaska from south to north, beginning at Cook Inlet and working through to the Arctic Ocean. It will be my personal party, and because the distance is so great it will have to be a forced march every day without a break. That needs toughness, and of course I know nothing of your powers of endurance. One weak man in the party, you see, might delay us so that we would not reach the Arctic until after the freeze-up and then there would be no getting out." "I may not be very big, Mr. Rivers," said the boy with a conscious gesture, "but I strip well." The echo from the athletic field sounded strange in that office so full of the actualities of life, and even Roger himself laughed at the way his words sounded. "I mean," he added, "that I was always able to do good track work and had lots of wind."