Kansas and Colorado, New Mexico,
Arizona, and Southern California in my company, I shall be most happy to
have you do so. I am also authorized to offer you a position, a humble
one, to be sure, but one that will pay the same salary that you would
have received as a member of the locating-party, in the division I am to
command. I don't suppose there will be many chances for you to run
locomotives out there; but I have no doubt there will be plenty of
swimming to be done, as well as other things in the line of your
peculiar abilities. But you have not answered my question yet. Will you
accept my offer, or do you wish a few days in which to consider it?"

"Oh, Mr. Hobart!" cried the boy, who was standing up in his excitement.
"It seems almost too good to be true! I can't realize that this splendid
chance, that I've been trying so hard not to think about, has really
come to me. Why, I'd rather go on that trip than do anything else in the
whole world, and if you'll only take me along, in any position, I don't
care what, I'll be grateful to you all my life."

"But what do you think your father will say? Do you suppose he will let
you go?" inquired the engineer, soberly.

Glen's face became grave again in an instant. "Oh, yes, he's sure to,"
he replied, "but I'll write this very minute, and ask him.

"There won't be time to receive an answer," said Mr. Hobart, "for we
must start from here to-morrow; but perhaps this letter will make things
all right. You see," he added, "I thought it was just possible that you
might care to accept my offer, and so I took the liberty of writing and
asking your father if he were willing to have you do so. I also asked
him not to say anything about it in Brimfield until after we had
started, for fear I should be flooded with applications from other boys,
who might imagine I had the power to give them positions. Your father's
answer reached me here an hour ago, and with it came this letter for
you."

No own father could have written a kinder or more satisfactory letter to
a boy than the one Mr. Matherson sent to his adopted son. It readily
granted the required permission, and congratulated Glen upon the
splendid opportunity thus opened to him. At the same time it told him
how they already missed him, and how they hated the thought of not
seeing him for a whole year. It closed with the information that Binney
Gibbs was making extensive preparations for his departure to the far
West, and that t