A little group of three stood near him, and he recognized them as the young engineers, fresh from college, going up to work on the government railroad running from Seward to Tanana.

One of them was talking, filled with the enthusiasm of his first adventure.
"I tell you," he said, "people don't know what they ought to know about Alaska.

In school they teach us that it's an eternal icebox full of gold, and is headquarters for Santa Claus, because that's where reindeer come from.

And grown-ups think about the same thing.

Why"-- he drew in a deep breath--"it's nine times as large as the state of Washington, twelve times as big as the state of New York, and we bought it from Russia for less than two cents an acre.