"Colin," he said, "didn't you tell me the other day that you were going down to Santa Catalina?"
"Yes, sir," the boy answered. "Father's down there now, and I want to ask him if he won't let me go and join the Bureau of Fisheries."
"Well," the officer replied, "before you do that, I think you ought to get some idea about the sort of work there is to do. It happens that one of my brother's friends is on the Columbia River just now, making some kind of experiment on salmon. He has a cottage not far from one of the state hatcheries, and if you like, I'll give you a letter to him. If you are really determined to enter the Bureau, you might stop on your way to Santa Catalina and see the work from another point of view."
"I'd like to ever so much," said Colin, "but I couldn't very well go uninvited."
"He'll be only too pleased to see you," was the reply; "he's a Westerner like myself, and will enjoy putting you up for a day or two."
"It's right in my way, too," remarked Colin, yielding to his desire to go.
"Quite a few of the steamers for 'Frisco stop at Astoria, at the mouth of the Columbia River," the lieutenant suggested, "and the professor's cottage is not more than half an hour from there, near the state fish-hatching station at Chinook, Wash."
"Just across the river, then?"
"Exactly. The way I look at it, you're not at all likely to have anything to do with fur seal if you go into the Bureau, certainly not for a good many years. So you can't judge the Fisheries' scope from that, and you ought to see the work that will probably fall to your lot."