"Then," Roger said, "it just means that you've probably saved the girl's life?"

"Well," replied the other, "that's putting it a little strongly. And, anyhow, if you're on the Survey, you know mighty well that when government men do that sort of thing they don't talk about it."

CHAPTER XI
WHERE PRIMITIVE JUSTICE REIGNS

But the boy, arrived at the point where he must strike off for the party, realized that the time for delay was over, and turning to the station agent, who had been eyeing him curiously, he asked for information about the government surveyors. There was no difficulty in finding out roughly the direction in which the party had traveled, but the description of the route over the apparently interminable cactus plains somewhat perturbed Roger, accustomed though he now felt himself to be to find his way over the faintest trails. But he was a boy, just the same, and the cacti looked forbidding and menacing, and the lad wished profoundly that the old frontiersman, who had been his companion on the first ride to Death Valley, were with him now. But there was no help for it, he had to join his party no matter what the trail was like or whither it led.

His next question, implying the desire to buy a good mule and the ability to pay for it, aroused considerably more interest, and the station agent so bestirred himself in the matter that Roger felt sure he had a commission in view. It was but a short time before three mules were brought for his inspection, all sound beasts so far as the boy could judge, and he counted himself fortunate to strike an agreement with the owner of the mule, whereby, for a little extra payment, one of the herders should accompany him on the trail to the Survey camp.

The ride was long and dry, and the boy was amazed to learn from his companion that a few years before these arid plains had been a grazing country.

"Where has all the grass gone?" he queried.

"Señor," replied the Mexican, "it was thisa way. Alla the grass has been eaten. There wasa too moocha the cattle on the land, they eata the grass moocha too short, and the grass cannot maka the seed."

"But," objected Roger, "aren't the roots still there?"

The herder shook his head.

"No, Señor," he answered, with a sweeping gesture; "if the grass get moocha short, the rain not soaka in but runa right away, the ground all same as dust, and wind blowa the earth away from the roots and alla dry up."

"I see," said Roger thoughtfully. "Then putting too much cattle on land is like cutting the forests on the mountains too heavily. Deforest the mountains and the water floods the streams and is wasted, crop the plains and they become a desert. I see."

The distance to the Survey camp was not great, being but little over twenty miles, but the country was not conducive to rapid traveling, and as the boy allowed his companion to set the pace it was almost evening when they arrived. The party had just come in from the day's work, and Roger immediately presented his letter to Mr. Barrs, by whom he was warmly welcomed.

Roger's new chief was a quiet man, as indeed most of his leaders had been, but Mr. Barrs bubbled over continually with a certain sedate humor. He promptly put the lad through a catechism with reference to his work and experience since he joined the Survey, and little by little, drew out from Roger almost the entire story of his adventures up to and including the incident of the rattlesnake-bitten girl on the train the previous day.

"That, my son," said Barrs, "is a fitting prelude to your stay here. This is the first and only original headquarters of the snake, spider, and insect tribe, and anything with the usual number of legs is out of place."

"And are they all poisonous, Mr. Barrs?" asked the boy.

"Not especially," was the cheerful reply. "At least I've managed to keep alive a whole lot. No, half these stories you hear about venomous reptiles are imaginary and superstitious."

"But if you geta the trantler bite," put in the Mexican herder, who had been listening, "you willa the dance until you drop down dead."

"Nonsense, José," answered the chief of the party, "that's just an old story. The tarantula's bite may be bad, as far as that goes, but I've never heard of any one having been bitten. Have you?"

"No, Señor, not myself have I seen it. But I have hearda of moocha the plenty, and they all die in the dance. There was Juarez Alvinero on the festa Sant' Antonio two years ago, Señor; he dance and dance in the Plaza until he droppa down dead, and when they runa to picka him up, a trantler let go his hand and run away, and there was two moocha large bites. Si, Señor."

"Probably frightened himself to death. Lots of these low vitality races do that."

"Yet you have seen plenty of tarantulas, Mr. Barrs?" queried Roger, "although you know of no one suffering from their bites."

"Yes, lots of them. Why, the boys often use them for entertainment, sort of a prize-fight business. It is a good betting proposition, for they are inveterate fighters."

"You mean, fight each other?"

"Yes, of course. If you get hold of two tarantulas and put them down on a large sheet of paper, they will try to run away until they catch sight of each other, and then you couldn't make them run. Neither will attempt to escape, but they will crawl close till just about six inches from each other, and will then circle slowly, looking for an opening."

"Sort of sparring for wind," commented the boy.

"That's it. Then, suddenly, one or the other will spring, and either will sink his mandibles in the body of the other, or will meet with a like fate himself. Whichever gets the hold, it is fatal, but I couldn't tell you whether it is due to poison, or just to the strength of the bite."

"It's just like a regular duel," exclaimed Roger in surprise. "I never heard of anything like that."

"And what's more," continued the chief, "I have heard of a man who had a pet tarantula, with which he used to visit places and organize fights, just as people do at a cocking main, but I can't say that I ever saw it done. It may be true, just as the dancing story may be true, but if it were I should have heard of some cases of it."

"But how did the creatures get the reputation?" asked Roger. "Surely there must have been some cause for it."

"There is, I believe," answered the chief. "So far as I can learn a convulsive twitching follows a tarantula bite, and as the best thing to do in all poison cases is to walk the sufferer up and down until he is ready to drop, the twitching at such a time might resemble St. Vitus's dance. This was exaggerated, as most travelers' tales were in the early days, but I don't think at worst, that it is much more dangerous than the sting of a black hornet."

"Then you have scorpions down here too, haven't you? Are they as bad as they are supposed to be?"

"The main trouble with a scorpion is his vicious make-up," was the reply. "He's about the wickedest-looking proposition that ever came down the pike, but his bite is not fatal. One of the fellows with me one year had a little experience with a scorpion that made me think they are not as bad as they look.

"You know the way they love to creep into the folds of cloth? Well, my assistant had just taken up his flannel shirt from the ground where he had been drying it in the sun, and after shaking it well and examining it thoroughly to see that nothing had crept into it, he laid it on the table a minute before putting it on. Then he slipped it over his shoulders and suddenly gave a yell, ripping the shirt off as he did so, and there across his chest ran a full-grown scorpion, which, as it passed above the region of the heart brought his devilish sting over his head and struck three times.

"Of course, I felt sure that the poor fellow was gone, because I knew nothing of scorpions then, except by reputation, and the place of the stings was so near the heart that I didn't care to try to cut them out or cauterize or anything of that sort. Well, the three places puffed up the size of pigeon eggs, and for a few hours the pain was very considerable, but they went down by night, and there were no after-effects."

"Why, Mr. Barrs," said Roger, "you are making out all these dangerous and venomous creatures to be comparatively harmless. I thought you said there were such a lot of them down here."

"Well," replied the older man, "there are enough. Leaving the snakes out of the question, there are several varieties of ants that it is wise to give a wide berth, and the centipede is a creature to leave strictly alone."

"Is their bite fatal?" asked the boy.

"They don't bite."

"Their sting, then."

"They haven't any sting," responded Barrs, smiling at the boy's bewilderment.

"Then what have they got?"

"They've got feet!"

"I know that," said the boy, a little scornfully. "That's what the name centipede means, isn't it, a hundred feet?"

"Yes, and some of them can beat out their name."

"But they can't sting with their feet."

"They do, just the same," replied the older man. "You see the feet of a centipede are like the paws of a cat, all furnished with claws, which are drawn in while the creature is walking about, but which can be extended and fixed firmly if disturbed. For example, if a centipede is walking over your hand and you go to brush him off, no matter how fast you strike, the moment your other hand has touched the little hairs all over his body that very instant all those little claws in each of his hundred feet sink deep into your skin, and Mr. Centipede can't be pried off with anything short of a crowbar.

"As a matter of fact, if you try to tear him off, the chances are that you will pull until you break the claws off, leaving them in the skin—for he will never let go—and then you will have an awful time. I don't know for sure if there are little poison sacs at the base of the claws or whether it is just blood poisoning that sets in, due to the fact that the centipede lives on decaying flesh, and his claws are covered with germs, but I do know that if the claws are broken in, it means trouble. If you leave the thing alone, however, and can keep from trying to annoy him, if there is no need for him to stick his claws into you, it is no worse than having a caterpillar crawl over your hand."

"But is it fatal if he gets his claws in?" asked the boy.

"I wouldn't say that it was. It often means the amputation of a limb though, and I suppose if it was on the body it might end in a case of blood poisoning that might prove fatal. But at best it makes a deep sloughing sore, which gets bigger and bigger all the time, the skin seeming to die about the edges. Of course, injury from a centipede is comparatively rare, as he is generally found about carrion, and in this kind of climate no one keeps carrion any nearer to the camp than he has to."

"Then there's the Gila monster," suggested the boy, "they were telling stories about them on the train coming down."

"He looks ugly, and I have been told some very bad things about him," said the chief gravely, "but so far as I am concerned, I have seen no warrant for them. I can hardly see how so lazy and sluggish a creature as a Gila monster can be called dangerous. I have tried to provoke them by shoving sticks down their throats in order to find out how they behaved when angry, but I have never been able to make them show fight."

"Only just the some times," put in the Mexican, who had followed the conversation with intense interest, "there is justa the five, six days in eacha year, the Gila is moocha bad, other times, nothing at all."

"That's possible," said Barrs, "but I guess I never struck those days. But I mustn't keep blatherskiting here all night, come along to the rest of the fellows. You want to get acquainted, I reckon, and you'll find them a mighty lively set of boys."

Most of the men had put in their time in the Southwest, and Roger heard more stories of the old days before wire fences were instituted and when the whole prairie was open to their herds than he had ever dreamed could be found out of books. It seemed good to the boy to be back in the harness again, after the lapse of a couple of months since he saw Masseth and the party ride away along the edge of the Canyon, and he was glad to find that he could take his place as a man and do a man's work, even in a new environment.

The agent's warning about the dangers of the Pecos country and the stories told in the evening of times past, however, never seemed real to Roger, any more real than the tales of history, until suddenly they were made grimly lifelike. One evening, sitting in Barrs' tent, talking with him, Roger suddenly heard a sharp report and a bullet came tearing through the cloth of the tent not eighteen inches above his head. Almost simultaneously, it seemed to the boy, Barrs had thrown down the lamp and put it out, grasped his revolver and leaped from the tent. The other man who had been sitting near by was lying prone, working his way along the ground to the other tent.

Roger had not seen him drop to cover, the whole had happened so quickly, but as soon as he realized, he lost no time in following suit. As he did so, and his ear came close to the ground, the boy could hear the sound of hoofs galloping at topmost speed and receding into the distance. Suddenly, from far off, came the sound of voices, like to a challenge and response, and then a fusillade of shots broken by a shriek.

"Jones!" called Barrs.

The man called stepped forward promptly.

"Follow the trail in the direction that man went, and see if you can find out who fired those shots we heard. I'll overtake you in a moment. Wilkins, take Doughty with you and follow the trail to the north, to see if you can find out from any one who passed there a few minutes before. The rest can look after the camp."

Within three minutes all were scattered, and Roger found himself riding beside Wilkins with his gun ready in the event of further trouble. They had not far to ride. The very first house they came to was lighted up for a festivity, and there were sounds of merry-making within.

"Doughty," said Wilkins, "I'm going in here. You take the horses and turn them so that my beast is close to the door, with his nigh side handy. I may need to mount in a hurry. If I do, you wheel sharp as I touch stirrup and I'll cover the retreat."

He leaped from his horse, and seeing that his gun was handy, Wilkins gave a cheery shout and walked in. Roger waited excitedly, his heart beating like a trip-hammer. But there was no trouble, and a few moments later Wilkins came out, chatting with the host.

"It was Crooked Antonio who left here," he said to Doughty, as they cantered back on the homeward trail, "it appears he had been nearing trouble there and got a hint that his room was a whole lot more desirable than his company. We had trouble with him before. I'm sorry for Antonio, for he's gone so far now that Barrs will see he gets all that's coming to him."

Taking the road quietly, Wilkins and the boy reached camp just at the same time as Barrs and his assistant, save that the assistant was walking beside his horse, holding on the saddle a stranger who evidently had been wounded.

"They seem to think at Volaccio's that it must have been Crooked Antonio," said Wilkins as soon as he caught sight of the chief.

"Yes," answered Barrs, "that's who it was. Well, he's put this fellow into pretty bad shape, and it's lucky he didn't pot some of us."

"But what was it all about?" asked Roger of his companion.

"I don't know, son," was the ready reply. "Guess he was feeling a little good, any way, and then he thinks he has a grudge against the Survey over some cattle mix-up with a party that was here a couple of years ago."

"And what did this fellow have to do with it, Mr. Barrs," the boy continued, seeing that the chief was listening to Wilkins.

"Nothing at all, Doughty, so far as I can find out, except that he would make an awkward witness. You see, when Antonio shot at us, he probably thought that he had potted some one sure. Then, as he galloped away, this chap happened to be beside the trail and hearing the shot reined up, and seeing who was coming, said to him, 'What's up, Antonio?' Then the hunchback, seeing that he was recognized, gave his broncho a cut with the whip and fired. This fellow replied, but in the end Antonio got him in the knee, making a mighty painful wound."

"But will they catch him?"

"They will, unless he takes to the mountains and becomes outlawed. There are lots of those fellows around the border."

"But don't they get after them?"

"Not often. They don't do much, you know, and then if they get in trouble on the American side they skip across the line and vice versa, so that, as it would be pretty difficult to get both countries to take action at the same time, they are kept down by the simple method of shooting any of them at sight. You see, every one is known about here, and one of those chaps has no chance of getting away unobserved."

The wounded man having been sent to the nearest town, and the incident being closed, Roger settled down quietly to the routine work of the camp. He found Barrs very willing to help him, and as the country they were surveying presented no great difficulties for the rodman, the boy was not too tired to take up with interest the theoretical and mathematical side of the work, and in a few weeks his help was a factor.

The daily round of the camp life was comparatively simple, but it made a long day. The men were called at half-past five and usually work was begun by seven o'clock. Sometimes the party took lunch along, sometimes the men returned to the camp, but little time was wasted until the evening, when a number of miles had been traversed and a host of calculations made and recorded on the plane-table by the topographer.

It was near the close of the boy's stay with the party when the camp was startled during the noon spell by a stranger, who rode in excitedly, crying:

"Is there a justice of the peace here?"

All the men looked at Barrs, who replied quietly:

"I am in charge of this government party, not a justice of the peace. What is the trouble?"

"There was a gang came down from the mountains and shot up a ranch about three miles north. But the boys fought 'em off, and though one of the ranch hands is dead and another dying, they caught one of the gang. They'll probably shoot him anyhow, but the old boss of the ranch wants it done legally. It don't matter much if you ain't a justice of the peace, it's just as good."

Barrs thought for a moment.

"You haven't any right to shoot that man without a trial," he said. "Of course if he was downed during the fight, that's all right and couldn't be helped. But now that it's all over, why you can't just go to work and shoot him. I'm no justice of the peace. You'll have to send him to El Paso, or somewhere."

"And who's goin' to tote him eighty miles to a railroad? I'd like to know. Not on your life. Either you come and give him a fair trial, or he'll take a short cut to the next world."

The chief of the party shrugged his shoulders.

"Well," he said, "if you put it that way, I suppose I'll have to go, that is, if it's to prevent murder being done."

So picking out three members of the party to accompany him, of whom Roger was one, Barrs rode over to the ranch. They found the man who had been caught tied to a fence-post in the blazing sun, while every one else was in the house. Barrs had the man brought in, and after the story had been told over three or four times, each in a different way, it was seen that a possible defense could have been put up. The man admitted that he was aware that the gang came to shoot up the ranch, but no one could swear that he had seen the captured man fire until shots had been exchanged, by which time, any gun-play could have been called in self-defense. The captive admitted, however, that he had shot the man who was fatally wounded, but denied the slaying of the rancher who lay dead.

A long and somewhat heated discussion followed, Barrs standing out against the application of lynch law, mainly because he felt as a representative of the government he could take no other attitude, but he refused positively to take up the question of moving the prisoner to the railroad or of getting entangled in the matter in any official way. The matter was debated pro and con for a long time, and then the brother of the man who had been fatally wounded, finding that it would be difficult for him to get legal vengeance, suggested that they go back to the old rule of the plainsmen, and cut off the first and second fingers of each of the man's hands, so that he would not be able to handle trigger again. This, after considerable wrangling, was done, and the man, with blood dripping from both his mutilated hands, was set on a horse and started along the trail to pursue his fate, wherever that might lead him.

In the meantime, though events of that fairly rough and ready character were happening about them constantly down in that wild Pecos country, the party itself was singularly free from mishaps. Roger, however, had a narrow escape from what might have been a serious accident, the peril occurring in a very simple manner. He was galloping along at a fair speed when he saw immediately in front of him a couple of bad patches of low bisnaga cactus. The boy turned his mule sharply, when the animal put his foot in a hole and Roger went flying over his head, shooting not more than a couple of feet above those barbed spines, and striking the ground just beyond them. Barrs was seriously alarmed, and showed great relief on finding that the boy was unhurt.

"One of my men," he said, "once fell from his horse in just some such way as you did, and put out one hand—on which he chanced to have no glove—as though to save himself, and he went down with his whole weight on one hand into a bisnaga cactus. I took one hundred and thirty spines out of his hand."

"And was he permanently injured?" said Roger, realizing that he himself might have been very seriously hurt.

"Not a bit of it," was the reply. "He was back at work in about four days, and within two weeks after his hand had bothered him very little. But he certainly had scars enough afterward."

About a week after this narrow escape, Barrs told Roger that in a day or two the work on the quadrangle they were engaged on would be completed and that they would upstake two days later and strike for the next section to the westward, where the first mapping of the contour had yet to be made. Then Barrs turned to Roger.

"I don't quite know," he said, "whether that letter you brought me means that you are to stay as long as you like, or as long as I want you, or what. You have not received a recall, of course, but as for the next few weeks, we will simply be getting a general view of the country, I shall not need an extra man, and I think you ought to report in Washington. If you are really going to Alaska next year, I don't know what time they intend to start, and you ought to have a rest first. Don't think I'm driving you away, but it is better so, that is, if Rivers is really going to take you as you seem to think."

"As I hope," the boy corrected.

"Well, as you hope, then. You ought to be in pretty good trim for it, Doughty; you've had a fairly wide experience, and you don't seem to have grown thin under it. What's more, I've taught you a few of the things you will need to know in the theoretical side of the work, so that you can be some help to a topographic assistant, and Masseth has given you a start in geology. So, I think the best thing I can do is to give you a letter to Mr. Herold, and wish you good luck on your journey."

This farewell message, the boy thought, would be his last word in the Pecos country, but riding in to Marfa, the town on the railroad nearest to the point where the camp had broken up, he found great excitement. So far as he could gather, it was the winding up of a feud which had begun some two or three months before.

The prisoner, it seemed, some months ago had been shot in the knee by a man who was almost a stranger to him, and as a result of the shot had become paralyzed from the waist down. The man who had shot him had got away. Whereupon the wounded man, certain that the would-be murderer must return to his home some time, had rigged up a little tent in a cactus grove near the man's house, and although semi-paralyzed, had lain there for seven weeks, waiting for the time when his foe should pass along the trail. At last, late one evening, he heard horse's hoofs, and looking out, saw his enemy approaching. As he passed, the half-paralyzed man emptied his revolver almost at point-blank distance, and the other dropped from his horse, dead.

The story was so like scores of others that Roger had heard that he paid no special attention until the words "Crooked Antonio" struck his ears, and on inquiry, learned that this was the man who had been killed. Immediately the boy forced himself into the little adobe building, and found that the case was going hard against the prisoner because he could not give any reason why "Crooked Antonio" had become his enemy and shot at him in the first place. It made a sensation when Roger spoke from the spectators.

"Please your honor," he said, "I know something about this case," and the crowd gave way for him. Then, showing his credentials, he told the story of the manner in which Crooked Antonio had fired into the Survey tent, and later had shot at the prisoner to remove a possible witness. It was the only point needed, and as it was obvious that Crooked Antonio had been killed, the prisoner could not be acquitted. He was found guilty and fined one cent, that justice might be done, and five minutes later Roger was receiving the effusive thanks of the erstwhile prisoner.

"Well," said Roger to himself, as they parted, "helping a chap to his liberty isn't such a bad record to leave as your last act in the Pecos country."

CHAPTER XII
THE ALASKAN TRIP BEGUN

"The Director would like to see you for a moment." The boy looked up with surprise, and the secretary continued reassuringly, "There's nothing to be scared about, I don't think you'll consider it bad news."

Roger rose promptly and went to the Director's office, and the latter shook hands heartily and motioned him to a seat.

"I think I ought to tell you, Mr. Doughty," he said, and Roger straightened up at least one inch at the manly form of address, "that I have received some reports from Mr. Herold, relating to the various parties on which you have served, which touch on your progress in the work. You will remember, of course, your meeting with the President?"

"Yes indeed, sir," answered the boy.

"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."

"Well," Herold replied, "Mr. Rivers seemed to feel that you were keen for it, and figured that if it were given you, you would strain every nerve to make good. But, you see, you will have to do your utmost to justify the stand that Mr. Rivers and myself have taken."

"It won't be for want of trying, Mr. Herold," answered Roger, his eyes shining.

"I am sure of that, my boy," said the older man kindly, "and that's what we are depending on. Now, let me see, this is the second of December, isn't it? Rivers sails from Seattle on February 15th, so that you had better reckon on being there about the 12th. Suppose then, you go home now for the holidays, take just a month, and report in Washington here on January 2nd, a month from to-day. Then we'll give you a few weeks' work here to learn something about headquarters, and then you can go right on to the Pacific Coast, perhaps spending a day or two at home before starting on the expedition."

Roger thanked him heartily, as much for his thoughtfulness about the vacation as for the appointment he had desired so long. Indeed his month at home, amid an air in which he was a sort of hero, passed rapidly, and as the idol of all the boys in the neighborhood, he had to spin yarns by the score, these tales being given reality by the dozens of photographs he had taken on the various parties of which he had been a member. Some of the photos were his own, but others were prints of negatives taken by the assistant topographers usually, for nearly every party in the field has some member whose skill makes him almost an official photographer. Indeed, nearly every one on the Survey is a master of photography, and few outfits do not contain at least one excellent camera.

On his return to Washington in January, however, Roger found it somewhat tedious to settle to indoor office work, but his interest grew in finding that the department had in operation scores of other lines of work that had not occurred to him. His surprise in the field at constantly encountering new avenues of work became amazement in Washington, when he first really gained an idea of the extent of the department's scope.

On the question of maps alone, he learned how important the Survey is to the country. Maps which should show a mining company in which direction ore-bearing veins should run, maps which should inform a railroad as to the comparative elevations along a proposed right of way, maps which should teach a farmer where to sink an artesian well for watering his stock, maps which form the basis of vast irrigation projects, maps which point the builder where to go to quarry stone, maps to form the basis of the special timber charts of the Forestry Service, maps dealing with coal-producing areas, and for a score of other purposes, for all these the Survey is called on.

And there, in Washington, the year through, Roger found expert and skilled men making these maps, compiling them from the sketches made in the field, correcting minor errors, comparing them with former data, and producing works of exactitude and immense value. Some idea of the exactness of the work was gained by the boy when it was pointed out to him that in the Bureau of Engraving the printing of all this exact drawing must be done in a room where the temperature and humidity are the same the year round, since paper will shrink in a dry spell and expand when moist, and the printing of such a map extending over a period of months, might thus be made fractionally incorrect.

Then it dawned upon the lad that the libraries of scientific records of which Survey workers are the authors must needs require time and labor, and the compilation of statistics needed in other parts of the government service also takes up time. So that Roger began to see that the proofreading of all geologic and topographic maps, all illustrations and all text of Survey papers have to be done and revised by competent men, in order that the scientific accuracy of these can never be impeached. He saw the scope of the annual reports, the monographs, the professional papers and the bulletins, and was not surprised to learn that these were in great demand, not only in the United States, but by foreign governments as well.

"But all this," said Roger to his friend the secretary, as they were talking together one day, "must cost the country a heap of money."

The other smiled.

"It has saved the country a great deal of money," he said. "In the first place the Survey is very economically run, and then besides, millions of dollars have been put into the hands of manufacturing interests by pointing out to them the value of by-products which formerly were wasted."

"For example, Mr. Mitchon?"

"Well, for example, the waste of the by-products of coke-ovens, such as coal-tar, ammonia, etc.," replied the secretary. "Here, come with me to the laboratories, and I'll show you."

In the large chemical and physical laboratories at Washington the boy found samples of metals and minerals of all sorts being tested and analyzed. He found that all the great works of the government are undertaken only with the advice of the Geological Survey, and he learned, moreover, that in certain branches the Chemical Laboratories stand higher than those of any government in the world.

As each day passed the lad heard of some new activity of the Survey. He learned that every ton of coal consumed and every ounce of gold mined, was duly recorded by the Survey, and to his amazement discovered that the due safeguarding of life in mines and quarries was not outside its province. The refining of oil was regarded as appertaining to minerals, and many difficulties of fuel in steam engineering the boy found to have been minimized by the Survey in the power and lighting plants of the government. And, if this were not enough, it was borne in upon him that even such structural materials as brick, terra cotta and the concrete bodies, had in some cases found their beginnings and in others their best development under a further division of the Survey.

Then, to cap all, it was shown to Roger, that this multifarious work required careful and prudent administration, supervising all the details of personnel, expense, purchase, and distribution of supplies and so forth, to say nothing of adjunct matters, like library and fossil work. Thus it was, that when the boy left Washington a month later, he had decided that an entire lifetime on the Survey would be all too little to grasp the vast and dominating usefulness that it bore to the country at large.

Thus the fated day arrived for Roger's start. He had made himself well-liked all through the building, and there were many to wish him luck on the expedition. A most hearty and cordial good-fellowship Roger found to run through all departments, and the good wishes of his superiors and companions were happy auguries for the start. The Director, too, called him into his office and gave him a most encouraging send-off, sounding no note of doubtfulness or regret, and Roger felt, as he left Washington, that no boy could ask pleasanter friends or more helpful comrades than those he had met on the Survey.

The chief geographer had accorded him an extra two days' leave in which to go home before he need start for Seattle, and Roger was full of pride, as his former schoolmates gathered around him to be able to speak loftily of traversing "territory on which no white man had ever set his foot." It was a little boastfully put, but as after events proved, it was true none the less.

The journey across the continent gave time for reflection, and now that there was no chance of drawing back, the warnings and advice that had been given to Roger rushed over him like a flood, and he had for a while a haunting fear lest anything should happen on the trail to shake the confidence his superiors had in him. But these fears vanished like a morning mist, when, arrived at Seattle, he went on board the gunboat, lying a short distance from the shore, and realized that he, Roger, had a right to board a vessel of the United States Navy.

Rivers was on deck, and he came forward promptly to meet the boy, saying, as he shook hands:

"So you made good, didn't you, eh? Well, I thought you would."

Roger laughed quietly.

"You said I had to!" he replied.

The boy's new chief gave a half-smile.

"Well," he said, "if you always do everything I say you have to do, I'll be quite satisfied. But it's not a summer picnic, by any means, and you may be sorry before you're through."

"That may be, Mr. Rivers," answered the boy cheerily, "but I'm not sorry yet. I'm mighty glad to be here."

"I've been sorry often enough that I took up field work, but——" he paused.

"But what?" asked Roger.

"But I couldn't get back to it quick enough the next year," answered the geologist.

"If the past summer is any test," went on Roger, "I guess I'll be the same way, for I never enjoyed anything so much in all my life. Why, I felt quite stifled back in Washington."

"If you've been caught with the exploring fever," rejoined the older man, "there's nothing more to be said, for that's a disease for which there is no cure, except——" He paused abruptly again.

"Yes?" queried Roger.

"Except old age, and that the explorer never reaches," was the steady reply. "And now you must meet the rest of the boys."

He turned to the topographer, who was standing near.

"Mr. Gersup," he said, "this is the boy."

"I see it's a boy," answered the other, smiling, "but I didn't know it was 'the' boy. I guess, Doughty, from the way Mr. Rivers talks, that you're only just a trifle less important in the Survey than the Director." He laughed out loud.

Roger broke in protestingly, but Rivers interrupted.

"Don't mind him, Doughty, he's always that way."

"Don't mind him either, Doughty," replied the topographer, "he's always that way." And Roger thought it promised well for the cheerfulness of the party to find the chief and the topographer on joking terms.

Later the boy found Gersup's cheerfulness and optimism to be invaluable on the trip. He had a short, thick-set, stocky frame and possessed to an extreme degree the power of seeing the best possible side of every situation. His persuasive powers were so great that, as one of the party said afterward, "he could talk a mule's heels down in the middle of a kick!" He had an unerring eye for the topography of a country, as was afterwards shown, and before they had been many days in Alaska, Roger would have unhesitatingly declared both the geologist and topographer of the party to be absolutely infallible in their own lines, though they would both promptly have disclaimed any such statement.

The assistant topographer of the party, to whom the boy was next introduced, was a great surprise. He looked like anything except what he was. Not particularly prepossessing, he had a large head, already nearly bald, he was slightly bow-legged and short and scant of speech. It was not until weeks later that the boy found out why he had been selected for the trip. His strength was herculean, and in spite of the fact that he was not slightly built he could put a mountain goat to shame at scaling an apparently inaccessible crag. As Magee, the Irishman of the party, described him, "Tie his hands behind his back, and he'll climb up the side of a house with his toenails and his eyebrows."

Of the two camp hands, one was an Indian called Harry, a fine specimen of one of the famous tribes which successfully resisted Russian rule in the early years, and who was regarded as one of the most expert canoeists who had ever been in the Survey.

The other was Magee. And Magee was sufficiently described by his full name, which was Patrick Aloysius Magee. He was a devil-may-care Irishman from Galway, who had spent fifteen years in the gold camps, and had tossed over the poker table and the faro layout the little bags of gold dust that had represented years of weary work. It was not that hope had died out in him, which made him leave prospecting and take to the Survey, but in his own way of putting it, "There were too many men of the female sex around the gold camps now." He had been a sailor for some years, too, in the old sailing-ship days, and had left the sea because of his contempt for steam.

As for the cook, his chief recommendation was that "he could cook an eight-course dinner out of a pair of old boots, and make a man believe he had had something to eat when he was still as hungry as when he sat down." Altogether, Roger thought, as the little gunboat got under way and steamed for Seldovia, near the southern bend of the Kenai peninsula, a more aggressive body of men he had never met, and he determined to hold up his end, no matter what should come.

The gunboat arrived at Seldovia on February 21st, and as the cable rattled through the hawse-hole Rivers took command of the party. His easy manner dropped like a mask, and orders sharp and incisive fell like hail. All the supplies and equipment for the first part of the journey had been sent there the summer before, and were being kept by the storekeeper. No sooner were they ashore than Roger was told off with Harry to "get the dogs," and the boy accordingly found himself before a yard where twenty-two "huskies" were "yapping" and howling to their hearts' content. Of these, six were "outside" dogs, imported from the United States, usually mongrel mastiffs, and the other sixteen "huskies" or native dogs, in this case nearly all Malemut, with a strain of Siwash. The reason for the two kinds of dogs, Harry explained to Roger in answer to a question, was that the outside dog is better as a leader, as he is more intelligent and less mutinous, but that the bulk of the work is to be done by native dogs as they require less food and care, and having a dense pelt, like the wolf, endure hardship far better, while on a rough trail they are less liable to fall lame.

The dogs being duly gathered together, the harness and sleds inspected, Roger assisted his chief in checking over the supplies and seeing that they were carried to the gunboat for transport to the other side of Cook Inlet. Everything was found intact and as had been ordered, so that little delay was sustained. The overseeing of these things, however, took the entire day, but by evening the dogs were on board and everything disposed for easy transhipment in the morning.

Bright and early the next day the gunboat got her anchor up and started across the Inlet, seeking a landing-place as high up as possible. In less than two hours from Seldovia the ice was reached, and arrangements were made for a landing on the western side of the Inlet. A small bay, which appeared on the charts as Snug Harbor, was chosen as the place for debarkation, which by noon was under way.

The landing was not easy, owing to the ice along the banks, and Roger got a foretaste of what was coming by having to jump overboard and wade through the water, breaking the ice, to carry the supplies ashore. In a short while everything was landed, to the satisfaction of Rivers, who had not hoped to be able to run as far up the Inlet. There, standing on the snow, with the dogs howling behind him, Roger stood beside the chief, unheeding that he was cased in ice above the knees, and watched the gunboat dip the Stars and Stripes once in token of farewell. The Alaskan trip was begun.

CHAPTER XIII
WRESTLING WITH A MOUNTAIN GOAT

Roger had always had the idea that "mushing" or driving a dog team, consisted of sitting in state on the sled and cracking a conspicuously long whip at the dogs, but he speedily found out his mistake. Instead of sitting on the sled he had to walk behind it, and in a great many instances to help the dogs by shoving it along. Instead of being able to take things easy and let the teams do the work, the boy learned that the "musher" had to labor far harder and more continuously than the dogs themselves.