"This plan to secure trained workers by picking desirable material from the colleges and schools, on which a well-known philanthropist was so keen, has aroused no little interest in the Survey. As you were the first to go out, I have been anxious to see how the scheme would develop, and I was glad, a couple of months ago, to be able to tell the President that Mr. Carneller's project was proving most successful." He paused a moment. "It is but right to you to say," he continued, "that you have fulfilled the hopes I had, and that your first year's work on the Survey is a beginning of which I think you may be proud." Roger flushed hotly at this praise, and seeing that the Director awaited a reply, said simply: "It is very good of you to say so, sir. I just tried to do my best." "Of course," went on the Director, "you have a great deal to learn and are very new in the work, so I don't want you to think for a moment that you know it all--or for that matter, that you ever will. But those with whom you have been speak approvingly of your obedience to the call of duty and of your ability to continue hard work uncomplainingly. I am not sure," there was a twinkle in the speaker's eye, "that making believe to be lost when you are ensconced in the branches of a tree is particularly conducive to discipline?" He waited for a reply. Roger looked at him, and taking courage from the lurking smile, answered: "No, sir. But," he added, "perhaps as much so as a snipe-shoot." "A fair answer," was the kind reply. "Well," continued the Director, a little more authoritatively, "I am not at all sure that you will achieve your desire to go to Alaska next season, though I should not wish to go so far as to decide against it. In any case, Mr. Rivers, as head of the Alaskan work, chooses his own men. It is not that I am afraid of your not doing your best," he added, seeing the look of disappointment on the boy's face, "but that I feel it might be a little too much for you. The Alaskan work is a great strain for young bones." "Not more so, sir, than crossing the Grand Canyon, is it?" Roger felt emboldened to ask. "Don't boast!" came the sharp rebuke, "I don't like it. But," he continued, seeing the boy wilt under the criticism, "I merely desired to see you to say that I am well pleased with your work, and that I hope the college assistants, hereafter to follow, will prove equally successful." Roger left the office of the Director as though he were treading on air, a feeling enhanced by the cordial reception accorded him by Herold, the chief geographer. There he learned, to his intense delight, that he had been appointed by Rivers on the Alaskan party, which was to spend the entire spring and summer in a south to north reconnoissance of that great Arctic territory. "I was afraid," Roger said to the geographer, "from what the Director said, that I would not get the appointment."