Part 24 (2/2)

”I know I wouldn't,” he said confidently. ”I've heard you say, Father, that everything was interesting if you only went into it deeply enough.

Now, there's more chance for real original work with fish than in any other line I've ever heard of. The professor gave me an idea of all the different problems the Bureau was trying to solve, and each of them was more interesting than the last. You've got to be a doctor to study fish diseases, an engineer to devise ways and means for stream conditions, a chemist to work on poisons in the water that comes from factories, and all sorts of other things beside. It looks to me as though it had the best of all the professions boiled down into one!”

”That's an exaggerated statement, of course,” was the reply; ”but you seem in earnest. No,” he continued, as Colin prepared to burst forth again, ”you've said enough.”

The boy waited anxiously, for he felt that the answer would decide his career.

”If your heart is set on the Fisheries,” his father rejoined thoughtfully, after a few minutes' reflection, ”I presume it would be unwise to stop you. But remember what I have told you before--I'm perfectly willing to fit you for any profession in life you want to take up, but only for one. If you begin on anything you have got to go through with it. I'll have no quitting. As you know, I would rather you had taken up lumbering, but I don't want to force you into anything, and perhaps your brother Roderick may like the woods. You're sure, however, as to what you want?”

”I want fishes!” said Colin firmly.

”I've been looking up the question a little since you wrote to me from Valdez,” Major Dare continued, ”because I saw that your old desires had increased instead of dying out. You know, Colin, I want to help you as much as I can. You realize that there's no school of fisheries, like the forestry schools, don't you?”

”Yes, Father.”

”And that if you go into the Bureau the only way you can learn is by the actual work, hard work and dirty work, too, it will be often.”

”Yes, sir,” the boy answered, ”I was told that, too.”

”I wrote to the Commissioner,” said Major Dare, ”and explained the whole position to him. He answered my letter in a most friendly way, and showed me just what I've been telling you this morning. He pointed out frankly that the Bureau had so much to do and so little money appropriated to do it on, that such a thing as a 'soft job' wasn't known in the service.”

”I'm not looking for that,” said Colin, a trifle indignantly.

”I don't think you are, my boy, but you want to be sure before you take the plunge,” was the warning answer. ”You oughtn't to wait until you are in college before you make up your mind.”

Colin looked across the table at his father and met his glance squarely.

”There's nothing else that I want to do,” he said firmly, ”and I do want that. Of course, I'll do whatever you say, but I feel that the Bureau of Fisheries is where I'm bound to land in the end.”

”No going back?”

”No going back, Father!”

Major Dare reached out his hand, and the boy grasped it warmly.

”Very well, my boy, that's a compact. I'm not sure just what will need to be done to enter you in the Bureau, but whatever is necessary, we'll do. I think you have decided on a life that will be hard and sometimes thankless, but at least it is a man's job, and will have its own compensations. You couldn't possibly do anything more useful. We'll go home by way of Was.h.i.+ngton, visit the Fisheries Bureau together, and see what arrangements we can make.”

”That's bully, Father,” said Colin earnestly; ”thank you ever so much.”

”Make good, my boy,” his father answered, ”that's all you have to do.

You'll only have yourself to thank, for it will be all your own fight.”

It was fortunate for Colin that this was not decided until the day before they left Santa Catalina, for he became so impatient that the intervening hours before they started for the East seemed like weeks to the boy. His enthusiasm was so genuine that, although his mother was already very tired of the interminable 'angling' conversation in Santa Catalina, she succeeded n.o.bly in evincing an intense interest in the whole fish tribe.

When they arrived in Was.h.i.+ngton, which chanced to be in the afternoon, Colin wanted to start off for the Bureau of Fisheries immediately, even before he went to the hotel, and he seemed to feel quite aggrieved when the visit was put off. Major Dare had some important business to look after and he purposed to leave the question of the boy's arrangements open for a couple of days, but he saw there would be no peace for any one until Colin's fate was settled, and at the boy's importunity he 'phoned to the Bureau and made an appointment with the Commissioner for the following day.

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