"It was tough," reluctantly admitted the narrator, "an' I'll tell you what I did. I'm not much of a hand with the pen, but right in the middle of the work I found a man who was goin' down the river, an' I sat down and wrote a long letter to the supervisor. It was about as plaintive a thing as I ever read. I had no reason to expect an answer, but by chance another party was comin' up that way, an' some weeks later I received a reply. What do you suppose he said!"
"I haven't the least idea," answered the boy.
"His answer read just this way:
"'I chose you because you were experienced in the treeless coast. Go to it. We are expecting you to make good.'"
"And," Hamilton said, his eyes shining, "I'll bet you did!"
CHAPTER IX
CONFRONTED WITH THE BLACK HAND
The sidelights that Hamilton had received on the Alaskan enumeration had given him a greater zest for census work than ever, and he devoted not a little of his spare time to the study of conditions in the far North. Indeed, the lad became so enthusiastic about it that every evening, when he reached home, he worked out the route of the enumerator whose schedules he had edited during that day's work. He had secured the big geological reconnaissance map of Alaska for the purpose. Consequently, it was with a sense of regret that he faced the day when the last of the Alaskan schedules had been edited.