"But how does your father like the idea of your roughing it? In the days when I knew him, he believed in keeping his boys near home."
"He wants me to stay, but, you see, Mr. Rivers, I always wanted to get out and do something, and city life isn't what it's cracked up to be. I want to be doing things worth while, things that will tell in the long run, and this poking over columns of figures in a stuffy office doesn't suit me worth a cent when I'm just aching to get out of doors."
The explorer's grave expression relaxed into a half-smile at the boyish but earnest way of describing the feeling he himself knew so well; but he felt it his duty to put bounds to that enthusiasm. Before he could speak in protest, however, Roger continued:
"I know what you're going to say, all right, Mr. Rivers. I know there's just as good work done nearer home as there is far away in Alaska or the Bad Lands or any of those places, but why can't that work be done by the fellows who like to hang around towns? I don't, that's all, and the whole reason I went in for that scholarship and won it"—these last words with an air of conscious pride—"was just so that I could get into real and exciting work."
"If it's work you're after, you've come to the right place, Doughty," was the prompt reply, "but it's more laborious than exciting."
"Why, I thought it was full of excitement!" exclaimed Roger.
"Not especially. The work follows a regular routine on the trail, just as it does anywhere else. It isn't so much the ability to face danger that counts in the Survey, as it is the willingness to do conscientiously the drudgery and hard work which bring in the real results."
"No getting lost and wandering over frozen tundra until nearly at the point of death, and then being rescued just in time?" asked the boy breathlessly, his mind running on an exciting book which had occupied his thoughts a few hours before.
"No!" The negative was emphatic. "The Alaskan parties are composed of picked men, all of whom have had considerable experience and who don't get lost. And if, by any chance, they are late in getting into camp, they know how to shift for themselves. Besides, the chief of the party is ever on the alert for the welfare of his men."
"But aren't there really any snowslides, or rapids, or forest fires, or bears, or anything of that sort?" cried the boy in a disappointed tone. "Surely it isn't as tame as all that?"