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.