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 al
ways 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."