Alaska Part 43

"'What's their name?' says she, as we walked along.

"'Davis,' says I; an' mercy to heaven! I didn't know I was tellin' a lie.

"All of a sudden she laughed out loud--the awfullest laugh. It sounded as harrable mo'rnful as a sea-gull just before a storm.

"'_Husband!_' she flings out, jeerin'; '_I_ had a husband once. I wors.h.i.+pped the ground he trod on. _I_ thought the sun raised an' set in _him_. He carried me on two chips for a while, but I didn't have any children, an' I took to worryin' over it, an' lost my looks an' my disposition. It goes deep with some women, an' it went deep with me. Men don't seem to understand some things. Instid of sympathizin' with me, he took to complainin' an' findin' fault an' finally stayin' away from home.

"'There's no use talkin' about what I suffered for a year; I never told anybody this much before--an' it wa'n't anything to what I've suffered ever since. But one day I stumbled on a letter he had wrote to a woman he called Ruth. He talked about her red wavy hair an' blue eyes an' baby mouth an' the way she smiled like an angel. They were goin' to run away together. He told her he'd heard of a place at the end of the earth where a man could make a lot of money, an' he'd go there an' get settled an' then send for her, if she was willin' to live away from everybody, just for him. He said they'd never see a human soul that knew them.'

"She stopped talkin' all at once, an' we walked along. I was scared plumb to death. I didn't know the woman's name, for he always called her 'dearie,' but the baby's name was Ruth.

"'You've got to feelin' bad now,' says I, 'an' maybe we'd best not go on.'

"'I'm goin' on,' says she.

"After a while she says, in a different voice, kind of hard, 'I put that letter back an' never said a word. I wouldn't turn my hand over to keep a man. I never saw the woman; but I know how she looks. I've gone over it every night of my life since. I know the shape of every feature. I never let on, to him or anybody else. It's the only thing I've thanked G.o.d for, since I read that letter--helpin' me to keep up an' never let on. It's the only thing I've prayed for since that day. It wa'n't very long--about a month. He just up an' disappeared. People talked about me awful because I didn't cry, an' take on, an' hunt him.

"'I took what little money he left me an' went away. I got the notion that he'd gone to South America, so I set out to get as far in the other direction as possible. I got to San Francisco, an' then the chance fell to me to come up here. It sounded like the North Pole to me, so I come.

I'm awful glad I come. Them sea-gulls is the only pleasure I've had--since; an' it's been four year. That's all.'

"Well, sir, when we got up close to the cabin, I got to s.h.i.+verin' so's I couldn't brace up an' go in with her. It didn't seem possible it _could_ be the same man, but then, such darn queer things do happen in Alaska!

Anyhow, I'd got cold feet. I remembered that the cannery the man worked in was shut down, so's he'd likely be at home.

"'I'll go back now,' I mumbles, 'an' leave you womenfolks to get acquainted.'

"I fooled along slow, an' when I'd got nearly to the settlement I heard her comin'. I turned an' waited--an' I G.o.d! she won't be any ash-whiter when she's in her coffin. She was steppin' in all directions, like a blind woman; her arms hung down stiff at her sides; her fingers were locked around her thumbs as if they'd never loose; an' some nights, even now, I can't sleep for thinkin' how her eyes looked. I guess if you'd gag a dog, so's he couldn't cry, an' then cut him up _slow_, inch by inch, his eyes 'u'd look like her'n did then. At sight of me her face worked, an' I thought she was goin' to cry; but all at once she burst out into the awfullest laughin' you ever heard outside of a lunatic asylum.

"'Lord G.o.d Almighty!' she cries out--'where's his mercy at, the Bible talks about? You'd think he might have a little mercy on an ugly woman who never had any children, wouldn't you--especially when there's women in the world with wavy red hair an' blue eyes--women that smile like angels an' have little baby girls! Oh, Lord, what a joke on me!'

"Well, she went on laughin' till my blood turned cold, but she never told me one word of what happened to her. She went back to California on the first boat that went, but it was two weeks. I saw her several times; an' at sight of me she'd burst out into that same laughin' an' cry out, 'My Lord, what a joke! Did you ever see its beat for a joke?' but she wouldn't answer a thing I ast her. The last time I ever see her, she was leanin' over the s.h.i.+p's side. She looked like a dead woman, but when she see me she waved her hand and burst out laughin'.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright by E. A. Hegg, Juneau Courtesy of Webster & Stevens, Seattle

A FAMOUS TEAM OF HUSKIES]

"'Do you hear them sea-gulls?' she cries out. 'All they can scream is _Kar_-luk! _Kar_-luk! _Kar_-luk! You can hear'm say it just as plain.

_Kar_-luk! I'll hear 'em when I lay in my grave! Oh, my Lord, what a joke!'"

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

Our progress up Karluk River in the barge was so leisurely that we seemed to be "drifting upward with the flood" between the low green sh.o.r.es that sloped, covered with flowers, to the water. The clouds were a soft gray, edged with violet, and the air was very sweet.

The hatchery is picturesquely situated.

A tiny rivulet, called Shasta Creek, comes tumbling noisily down from the hills, and its waters are utilized in the various "ponds."

The first and highest pond they enter is called the "settling" pond, which receives, also, in one corner, the clear, bubbling waters of a spring, whose upflow, never ceasing, prevents this corner of the pond from freezing. This pond is deeper than the others, and receives the waters of the creek so lightly that the sediment is not disturbed in the bottom, its function being to permit the sediment carried down from the creek to settle before the waters pa.s.s on into the wooden flume, which carries part of the overflow into the hatching-house, or on into the lower ponds, which are used for "ripening" the salmon.

There are about a dozen of these ponds, and they are terraced down the hill with a fall of from four to six feet between them.

They are rectangular in shape and walled with large stones and cement.

The walls are overgrown with gra.s.ses and mosses; and the waters pouring musically down over them from large wooden troughs suspended horizontally above them, and whose bottoms are pierced by numerous augur-holes, produce the effect of a series of gentle and lovely waterfalls.

It is essential that the fall of the water should be as light and as soft as possible, that the fish may not be disturbed and excited--ripening more quickly and perfectly when kept quiet.

These ponds were filled with salmon. Many of them moved slowly and placidly through the clear waters; others struggled and fought to leap their barriers in a seemingly pa.s.sionate and supreme desire to reach the highest sp.a.w.ning-ground. There is to me something divine in the desperate struggle of a salmon to reach the natural place for the propagation of its kind--the shallow, running upper waters of the stream it chooses to ascend. It cannot be will-power--it can be only a G.o.d-given instinct--that enables it to leap cascades eight feet in height to accomplish its uncontrollable desire. Notwithstanding all commercial reasoning and all human needs, it seems to me to be inhumanly cruel to corral so many millions of salmon every year, to confine them during the ripening period, and to sp.a.w.n them by hand.

In the natural method of sp.a.w.ning, the female salmon seeks the upper waters of the stream, and works out a trough in the gravelly bed by vigorous movements of her body as she lies on one side. In this trough her eggs are deposited and are then fertilized by the male.

The eggs are then covered with gravel to a depth of several feet, such gravel heaps being known as "redds."

To one who has studied the marvellously beautiful instincts of this most human of fishes, their desperate struggles in the ripening ponds are pathetic in the extreme; and I was glad to observe that even the gentlemen of our party frequently turned away with faces full of the pity of it.

A salmon will struggle until it is but a purple, shapeless ma.s.s; it will fling itself upon the rocks; the over-pouring waters will bear it back for many yards; then it will gradually recover itself and come plunging and fighting back to fling itself once more upon the same rocks. Each time that it is washed away it is weaker, more bruised and discolored.

Battered, bleeding, with fins broken off and eyes beaten out, it still returns again and again, leaping and flinging itself frenziedly upon the stone walls.

Its very rush through the water is pathetic, as one remembers it; it is accompanied by a loud swish and the waters fly out in foam; but its movements are so swift that only a line of silver--or, alas! frequently one of purple--is visible through the beaded foam.

Some discoloration takes place naturally when the fish has been in fresh water for some time; but much of it is due to bruising. A salmon newly arrived from the sea is called a "clean" salmon, because of its bright and sparkling appearance and excellent condition.

There is a tramway two or three hundred yards in length, along which one may walk and view the various ponds. It is used chiefly to convey stock-fish from the corrals to the upper ripening-ponds.

When ripe fish are to be taken from a pond, the water is lowered to a depth of about a foot and a half; a kind of slatting is then put into the water at one end and slidden gently under the fish, which are examined--the "ripe" ones being placed in a floating car and the "green"

ones freed in the pond. A stripping platform attends every pond, and upon this the sp.a.w.ning takes place.

The young fish, from one to two years old, before it has gone to sea, is called by a dozen different names, chief of which are parr and salmon-fry. At the end of ten weeks after hatching, the fry are fed tinned salmon flesh,--"do-overs" furnished by the canneries,--which is thoroughly desiccated and put through a sausage-machine.

When the fry are three or four months old, they are "planted." After being freed they work their way gradually down to salt-water, which pushes up into the lagoon, and finally out into the bay. They return frequently to fresh water and for at least a year work in and out with the tides.

The majority of fry cling to the fresh-water vicinity for two years after hatching, at which time they are about eight inches long. The second spring after hatching they sprout out suddenly in bright and glistening scales, which conceal the dark markings along their sides which are known as parr-marks. They are then called "smolt," and are as adult salmon in all respects save size.

In all rivers smolts pa.s.s down to the sea between March and June, weighing only a few ounces. The same fall they return as "grilse,"

weighing from three to five pounds.

After their first sp.a.w.ning, they return during the winter to the sea; and in the following year reascend the river as adult salmon. Males mature s.e.xually earlier than females.

The time of year when salmon ascend from the sea varies greatly in different rivers, and salmon rivers are denominated as "early" or "late."

The hatchery at Karluk is a model one, and is highly commended by government experts. It was established in the spring of 1896, and stripping was done in August of the same year. The cost of the present plant has been about forty thousand dollars, and its annual expenditure for maintenance, labor, and improvements, from ten to twenty thousand.

There is a superintendent and a permanent force of six or eight men, including a cook, with additional help from the canneries when it is required.

There are many buildings connected with the hatchery, and all are kept in perfect order. The first season, it is estimated that two millions of salmon-fry were liberated, with a gradual increase until the present time, when forty millions are turned out in a single season.

The superintendent was taken completely by surprise by our visit, but received us very hospitably and conducted us through all departments with courteous explanations. The s.h.i.+ning, white cleanliness and order everywhere manifest would make a German housewife green of envy.