The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries Part 43

"Way-o!" suddenly came the cry from the masthead.

"Where away?" called the captain, jumping up and looking around.

"Three points on the starboard bow, sir," answered the sailor, pointing his finger.

"That's right enough. You're in luck, Dr. Jimson," he added, turning to his pa.s.sengers, "you won't have had long to wait if we catch this one for you."

The captain walked aft, saw that everything was clear on deck, then stepped forward and walked out on the bowsprit to the 'pulpit,' the characteristic feature of a swordfish schooner. This was a small circular platform about three feet across, built at the end of the bowsprit, with a rail waist high around it and a small swinging seat.

Triced up to the jib stay was the long harpoon with its head, known as the 'lily-iron.'

The schooner, having the wind abeam, danced smartly over the waves toward the long lithe fin, gliding swiftly through the water. The captain, standing like a statue, waited until the craft was within ten feet of the unconscious swordfish, then thrust downward with all his might. It was a thrust--not a throw--and the muscular strength behind the blow caused the steel to pierce the thick skin of the swordfish. At the same instant the keg around which the line had been wound was thrown overboard, and the water flew up like a fine jet from the rapid revolutions of the barrel as the swordfish sped away with the line.

"How in the world are you going to haul him in now?" asked Colin, when he saw the keg thrown overboard.

"Did you think we pulled him in, same as you would a cod?" asked the captain.

"Why not?"

"Too much chance of sinking the schooner!" was the reply. "That isn't the way to get a swordfish."

As soon as the line on the barrel became unwound, it tightened with a jerk and the barrel disappeared under the surface. But the resistance that the barrel full of air at the end of the long line gave was great and even the powerful swordfish could not tow it for long. In a few minutes he slackened his speed and the barrel bobbed to the surface. But the swordfish was still traveling like a railroad train, in short rushes, however, here and there.

"See him charge it!" cried Colin.

There was a swirl of water and with a speed which seemed incredible the huge body launched itself at the barrel. But there was no resistance, the keg revolved as the sword struck it, and the swordfish shot into the air. Again and again he charged, and Colin realized what danger lay behind that ton and a half of muscle backed by a power that could drive such a weight at sixty miles an hour through the water.

Again the Monarch of the Sea shot away, towing the barrel, but it was a disheartening drag, even upon the magnificent strength of the great swordfish. Little by little the rushes became shorter, the spurts less frequent, as exhaustion and loss of blood began to tell. The captain ordered out the boat and, at his earnest appeal, Colin was allowed to go.

"You're light," the captain of the schooner said, as he picked up a lance not unlike a whale lance, "and we don't want much weight in the boat because it might pull the barb out of the fish if he starts to run."

"This reminds me," said the boy, "of the time I was spearing whales in the Behring Sea," and he recounted the adventure briefly as they pulled toward the swordfish. The Monarch of the Sea, who had never had a chance to show his powers, being handicapped by the barrel dragging back his every movement, caught sight of the boat. He did not wait to be attacked, but rushed with renewed fury at this new foe. The captain, apparently unmoved, waited until the fish rose at the boat and then he thrust in the lance with all his strength. The force acting against both fish and boat drove the latter sideways a foot or more, so that the giant rose in the air not two feet from the gunwale of the boat, the spray stinging like fine rain as the wind of his leap whistled by.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CATCHING SWORDFISH WITH ROD AND REEL.

Dangerous method of capturing the monarch of the sea, used only by expert anglers.

_By permission of Mr. Chas. Fredk. Holder._]

"He'll charge again in a minute," the captain said quietly, "look out always for the second rush."

The words were scarcely out of his lips when the fin appeared. Once again, as before, that great ma.s.s of dynamic energy hurled itself at the boat, but twenty yards away there came a sudden check and the swordfish dived. A second pa.s.sed--so long that it seemed like a minute, while Colin waited shiveringly to hear the crashing of the timbers and to see that fearful weapon flash up between them, but as silently as a shadow the lithe gray fighting machine shot up from the deep a yard or two astern of the boat and, falling limply, turned on his side, dead.

The captain smiled.

"If he had lived about a half a second longer," he said, "I reckon this boat would be on its way to the bottom now."

CHAPTER X

RUN DOWN DURING A SQUALL

On the way back to New Bedford, Colin begged for the 'sword' of the swordfish as a trophy, and, permission being given, one of the boatmen volunteered to prepare it for him, offering to clean and polish it so that the weapon would show to best advantage. Dr. Jimson had been excessively courteous to Colin throughout the trip, and his fellow-feeling was greatly increased when he learned that the boy also was a holder of the blue tuna b.u.t.ton, for he himself was an enthusiastic angler.

"I'm a trout-fisher by preference," said Dr. Jimson, settling himself down for a chat as the schooner sailed quietly on its way to New Bedford, with a dropping wind, "and I believe that the steelhead trout, in the streams that flow through the redwood forests, are the finest fish alive."

"I thought the rainbow trout was supposed to have the call," said Colin; "at least, Father always declares so, and he goes up to the Klamath region nearly every year."

"The rainbow is a very gamy trout," agreed the angler, "and it runs large, up to twenty pounds sometimes, but pound for pound, there's more fight in a steelhead."

"What's the Dolly Varden?" Colin queried. "I never can get the various kinds of trout clear in my mind."

"If you can keep them clear when you have them hooked," said the other, with a jolly laugh, "that's much more important. But a Dolly Varden isn't a trout at all, it's really a char. It's a beautiful fish, too, and you find it in cold, clear streams, such as the upper waters of the Sacramento and Alaskan rivers. In Alaska it swarms in millions. But the most beautiful trout in the country, indeed the most beautiful fish in the world, perhaps, are found in three little streams on the very top of the Sierra Nevada. Did they tell you the story, in Washington, about the three forms of golden trout?"

"No, Dr. Jimson," the boy replied; "Dr. Crafts mentioned it, but something came up to turn the conversation."

"I went up on that expedition a few years ago," the trout-lover said, "because I've done a good deal of work for the Bureau on the whole salmon family. Trout and salmon are very near relatives, and the trout will go up streams and leap small falls just as the salmon do. But, as you can easily see, in the headwaters of streams rising high in the Sierras, there are sure to be falls that trout cannot leap."

"Yes, sir, of course."

"Now, my boy," the other said impressively, "a few years ago, it was found out that there were trout in these streams above falls which would be absolutely impa.s.sable to any fish. How could they get there? It was a riddle. The only possible answer was that the fish must be older than the falls, that the stream had worn away its bed, bit by bit, until an impa.s.sable barrier from below had been created, but that the trout had gone on in the upper creeks, developing in their own way, for hundreds of centuries.

"The rocks over which these streams flow are a granite formation, very brightly colored, princ.i.p.ally gray and red. The swiftly-flowing stream removes the debris, so that the clear water flows limpidly over this gorgeous coloring. In such a stream, where the natural enemies of the trout are the fish-hawk and the eagle, it is essential as a matter of protection that the fish should resemble the hue of the bottom, and accordingly, the most superb coloring in the world is theirs. But each of the three small streams that are cut off from the rivers below are also separate from each other, and in the ages during which this has been so, each of these streams has seen a different coloration develop in the trout. All are bright golden, all have orange fins and an orange stripe along the side, all are spotted with black, but they vary in many small particulars. Nowhere else in the world but in these three creeks--Volcano Creek, Soda Creek, and Aqua Bonita or Gracious Water Creek--can these fish be found; nowhere else would they retain their gorgeous coloring.

"Accordingly, the United States Government sent a party up to the very summit of the Sierra Nevada to study these fish, and of this party I was one. It was there that I saw the most marvelous storm that has perhaps ever been recorded. An electrical disturbance of great magnitude was pa.s.sing over the country at the time, and it reached its vivid climax on the Sierras. Our camp was struck, several animals killed, and a couple of the teamsters severely injured, but for nearly two hours the whole world seemed set in a coronal of lightning flashes.

"We stayed up there with the trout for several weeks, and when we reached Washington, there was not a man in the party but was determined to fight, heart and soul, to save these rare fish from extinction. One or two summers during which 'fish-hogs' were permitted on the upper reaches of the Kern River, would have destroyed the trout forever, and, indeed, in one month a party of those reckless near-sportsmen destroyed almost one thousand of them. But the President's interest was enlisted, the Bureau of Fisheries made a firm stand, and to-day the region containing these most exquisite and most wonderful of all fresh-water fish is a part of the Mount Whitney National Park, and the golden trout are saved from extinction."

"Bully for the Bureau!" cried Colin. "Every time I learn more of its work, it seems to be doing something finer."

Following out the lad's interest in the whole trout question, Dr. Jimson taught him nearly all there was to know about the various members of the salmon and trout family, one of the most important food-fish groups of the world. Both being ardent fishermen, they were startled, however, by the sudden announcement:

"Big halibut off starboard quarter!"

"Yes," said Dr. Jimson, "there it is! Don't you see it," he continued, pointing with his finger, "flapping its tail on the water?"

"I see," said Colin; "but what is it doing that for?"

"Probably attacking a fish," was the reply. "Are you going after it, Captain?"

"No," the fisherman answered; "I've heard that people sometimes catch them without a net, but I never did."

"One of the biggest halibut that was ever brought ash.o.r.e was caught in just such a way," the trout expert said, turning to Colin. "It was out near Sable Island, and the halibut was attacking a big cod by repeated blows with its tail. A boat was sent out with a couple of men carrying gaff-hooks, and the fight between the two fish was so fierce that neither of them paid any attention to the boat. The fishermen gaffed the halibut and pulled him into the dory, though it nearly swamped them, for the fish weighed over three hundred and fifty pounds. It's rather a queer story, I think, but it is reported as official."

Colin whistled.

"My word!" he said. "It must have been a big one, because a halibut is flat, like a flounder, isn't it?"