Part 21 (1/2)

”I certainly should, Father,” the boy said gratefully, ”if it wouldn't be spoiling your fun”

”Not a bit,forward to teaching you so Beside which, I have an idea that you and I will have enough to talk about to keep us going for a good while I'd like to take you up to the club-house now, but you'll probably want to get back hoet the boatman to look after notification at the club, and all that sort of thing”

”I'll wait, if you like”

”No; Vincente knows all the ropes as well as I do I judge fro around the way you have?”

”I wish you'd been along, Father,” the boy replied ”I've had a bully tiot aboard the _Gull_”

”I didn't either,” said Major Dare dryly; ”if I had thought of the possibility of the shi+p being rammed by a whale, you'd never have put a foot on her deck But Captain Murchison said that whales were entirely haro”

”But, Father, you should have seen the way the old whale charged”--and the lad plunged into the thick of the story He was fairly out of breath when they reached the little cottage Major Dare had rented for a couple of months, but the boy was by noshort of an absolute coh to eat his lunch In the afternoon he unpacked his trunk, revealing little quaint articles he had picked up on his travels as gifts for the varioushad tired the boy, and quite early in the evening he found hi after his little sister had been snugly tucked up, Colin announced his readiness to go to bed, on the ground that he was to get up early the next day, as he was going tuna-fishi+ng

The e on the ht, and the sea took on a lea hues of the roseate sunrise Over San Antonio and San Jacinto the sun rose gloriously, and in the freshness of the lea breath and expanded his lungs to the full, as though he could breathe in the glow of color and the wonder of it all

”It always feels good to be alive at this hour of the !” he said

His father senerally asleep,” he said ”But it's a good thing we did get up in tiin Say, Vincente, doesn't that look like them over there?”

”Yes, sair, I t'ink dat's a school I overheard a ht yesterday,” said the boatman

”That was Mr Retaner,” was the answer, ”one of thein Aht the school would arrive soon, and what Retaner doesn't know about fishi+ng isn't worth knowing He practically created deep-sea angling in America, so that as an industry it is worth millions of dollars annually to the country, and as a sport it has been put in the first rank”

Across the sea of glass with its rose reflections of the sunrise and the deep underglow of richly-colored life beneath the transparent water, there came a quick shi+ver of ripples Then half a e turht, a stretch of sea, acres in extent, was churned into white foa like soht of about ten feet, glittered a palpitating silver canopy, al in its sparkle and its sheen

”What is that?” asked Colin, wondering

”The tuna feeding and co down the coast,” was the reply

As it drew nearer, Colin saw that the glea silver canopy was for through the air, dropping to the water every fifty yards or so, then, with a single twist of the screw-like tail, rising in the air for another soaring flight

Below, from the surface of the water broken to foam by the tumult, would leap those treh the living cloud of flying-fish, and dropping to feed upon those which fell stunned under their ies Occasionally, but very rarely, a tuna would seize its fish in e as alike a bolt from a cross-bow out of the sea, often until it was ten feet above the water, then turn and plunge back into the ocean

”We'd better get out of here, I think,” Major Dare said to the boat”

But, as he said the word, the school of flying-fish swerved right in the direction of the boat, and in a ht of the long-finned flying-fish, the boiling of the sea, lashed to fury by the pursuing tuna, and these living projectiles, hurled as a silvered bolt into the air, frightened Colin not a little, although he was enjoying the experience thoroughly

”Look out you don't get struck by a flying-fish,” his father called to hiht of this possibility, followed suit rapidly, because the California flying-fish, unlike his Atlantic cousin, is a fish so, and he saw that if he were struck by one in the full speed of its skiht easily be knocked overboard

”Can't they see where they are going?” asked the boy

”They can see well enough,” his father answered, ”but they have little or no control over their flight They can't change the direction in which they are going until they touch water again That's how the tuna catches therabs the fish as it coht”

”But I thought flying-fish went ever so her than that!” said the boy ”I' on the decks of vessels!”