ide, hunting, before long," said Jesse,
stoutly. "My father doesn't care if I go with him."

"How would you like to go over to Kadiak with me?" asked Uncle Dick,
directly, looking at them keenly from his gray eyes.

"You don't mean it!" exclaimed Rob. The three gathered round him.

"Are you going over there right away?" asked Jesse, staring up at him.

Uncle Dick nodded. "Same boat," he answered. "I'm going on with the
_Yucatan_ to Seward, and will take the _Nora_ from there to Kadiak.
Chance of your life to spend the summer, if your mothers will say the
word. And not to hurry you any, you've got just about an hour and a
quarter to get ready--that is to say, to get consent and get ready
both."

The three boys hardly stopped to hear the last of his words. They were
off, running at top speed across the long sidewalk toward the town.
Uncle Dick followed them at his leisure, talking and telling the news
to his acquaintances, of whom he had many in the town. He explained to
these that the government work in soundings would be done by the revenue
cutter _Bennington_, along the shores of Kadiak Island, for the next
four months. Now, although to those unfamiliar with Alaska, Valdez may
seem as far away as Kadiak, the latter really is some hundreds of miles
farther to the northwest, and near the base of that long peninsula which
tapers to a point in the Aleutian Islands. A dweller in a coast town in
Alaska knows what goes on immediately about him. There were few in
Valdez who knew more of Kadiak than they did of Kamchatka.

"G'long there, ye young rascals!" called out a hearty voice at the
fleeing boys. Captain John Ryan waved a cap toward them as he came down
the gang-plank. But the boys, usually ready enough to visit with him on
his stops at Valdez, were now too much excited to more than wave their
hands as they disappeared.

"So ye're plannin' to take the rascals along with us, west, are ye?"
asked Captain John Ryan of Uncle Dick. "A summer out there would be the
makin' of the youngsters."

Uncle Dick's eyes wrinkled in a smile as he and the sturdy sea-captain
started on down and walked to the town. At the farther end they were
met by the three boys and by three nice-looking ladies, each
prosperous-looking and well dressed, and each bearing a very anxious
expression of countenance.

"I tell you it's absolutely absurd, Richard," began one of these, as
they approached--"your putting such notions into the heads of thes