"All ready."
"Hard up, Dave! Steady a little. A little! Don't you know what a little is? Ready in the boat, there! Steady with that wheel! Now you've got her. You in the boat, there. Got that new-fangled net ready?"
"Ready," cried the statistician shortly. Then Colin understood. The trip was for the purpose of testing out a new net devised by the Bureau and the Fisheries man was a net expert. No wonder he knew a boat!
"Stand by the boat. Ready, the dory! When I give the word! Hold on a bit with the painter! Now let her go! You in the dory there, show your lantern! All your own way now!"
Colin tugged at his oar. Never, in all his experience in rowing, had he tackled anything like an oar of that size, but he pulled for all he was worth, and a glow ran through him to feel that he was holding up his end. The light dory with two men aboard, came racing after them. It was
nearly a half-mile pull before the seine-master cried:
"Over with the buoy!"
And the buoy was tossed overboard for the dory to pick up and hold to windward.
Then the silent Fisheries officer got busy. Without a word, he reached for the net. It was made of a lighter twine than customary, and not thickly tarred, having also different corks to the usual type, and sinkers all over the net. It looked like a fearfully complicated thing to handle and Roote was a small man, but that net went flying out as though tossed by a giant.
"You're a jim-dandy with the twine, all right," said the seine-master admiringly. He turned to the rowers, "Put your backs into it, boys," he said; "drive her for all you know how. We've got to give this new contraption a fair chance."