"Hazy, you're going to become an engineer just because you shiver at the thought of trying to do anything in life without having old Tommy Long-legs to advise you when to wash your face or come in out of the rain." "Harry is a pretty bright surveyor already," Tom declared.

"He has been keeping mum about it, but Harry can go out into the country with a transit and run up the field notes for a map about as handily as the next kid in his teens." "I should think you'd like the Army or the Navy, Tom," mused Dalzell aloud.
"Nothing doing," Reade retorted.

"I want to be one of the big and active men of the world, who do big things.

I want to map out the wilderness.

I want to dam the raging flood and drive the new railroad across the desert.