“Do you think so, too?” asked the inspector of Serge.
“No, sir. I should think it might be somewhere west of the Rocky Mountains.”
Phil laughed at this, but the inspector said: “Don’t laugh too soon, my lad, I expect he is more nearly right than you. How is it, Ramey?”
“They are both pretty far out in their guesses,” replied the young officer, delighted at this opportunity of exposing the ignorance of “these youngsters,” as he mentally termed them. “Omaha is away off the mark, and the ‘somewhere west of the Rocky Mountains’ is very indefinite. The truth is that Attu, the westernmost Aleutian island, being very nearly three thousand miles to the westward of San Francisco, makes that city practically the midway point. In reality, though, the point is still some sixty miles to the westward of the Golden Gate, while the exact geographical centre of the United States is at a point in the Pacific forty miles off the mouth of the Columbia River.”
“Well!” cried Phil, laughing. “So that is the case—”
“I can assure you that it is,” interrupted Mr. Ramey, stiffly, “for I made the calculations myself.”
“I had no intention of doubting the correctness of your figures,” responded Phil, in a tone that was painfully polite. “I was only about to say, if that is the case, when the seals leave here they seek winter-quarters in the very centre of the country.”
This Mr. Ramey considered a very flippant manner of treating a problem upon the solution of which he had exhausted his entire stock of mathematics, and it confirmed him in his opinion that this young Ryder was decidedly “fresh.”
Soon after this Captain Matthews and his third lieutenant returned to the cutter, while our lads visited the library, the hospital, the quaint Greek church, and the interiors of several native houses, which they found to be surprisingly neat and comfortable. Having thus seen all there was of interest in the immediate vicinity, they turned in to get a good night’s rest, preparatory to their long trip of the morrow.