"Wonderful news?" repeated Randy. "What does he say?"
"He says he is going back to Alaska,—to some new gold field that has just been discovered there,—and he wants to know if we will go with him."
CHAPTER II.
THE BOYS REACH A DECISION.
"Uncle Foster is going back to Alaska?" said Randy, slowly.
"Yes; he is going to start almost immediately, too," added his elder brother. "He says the new gold diggings are something immense, and he wants to stake a claim at the earliest possible date."
Randy drew a long breath. To Alaska! What a tremendous trip that would be—five thousand miles at least! And going to such an almost unknown region would be very much like starting for the north pole.
He remembered well that his Uncle Foster had paid a visit to Alaska three years previous, sailing from San Francisco to St. Michael's Island and then taking a Yukon River steamboat to a trading camp known as Fort Cudahy. They had received several letters from him while he was up there, working for the Alaskan Transportation Company part of the time and hunting for gold whenever the opportunity offered. The letters had told of the intense cold and the suffering, and of numerous unsuccessful attempts to strike a paying claim around Fort Cudahy and at another camp, known as Circle City. His uncle had taken up several claims, but they had not panned out very well, and Mr. Portney had finally returned to the United States, to interest himself in a Colorado silver mine.