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 mass of dynamic energy hurled itself at the
boat, but twenty yards away there came a sudden check and the swordfish
dived. A second passed--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 button, 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 beautifu