The Boy Ranchers of Puget Sound Part 12

CHAPTER VIII

SALMON SPEARING

When the boys came in for breakfast next morning Jake was standing in the kitchen, and Miss Oliver sat opposite him looking unusually thoughtful.

"What's the matter?" Harry asked.

Jake turned toward him slowly.

"I don't know that there's anything very wrong," he said. "Leader's come back."

Leader was the name of one of the missing horses, and Frank started as he remembered what the storekeeper had said, but feeling Miss Oliver's eyes upon him, turned his head and looked out into the clearing.

"Where's Tillic.u.m?" inquired Harry.

"That," replied Jake, "is more than I can tell. Leader was standing outside the stable when I went along and I can't make out why the other horse wasn't with him. He'd have come with Leader if anybody had turned them into the trail together."

Harry called to Frank and went out of the door. Jake followed them to the stable, where they found the horse looking rather jaded, but except for that very little the worse. Jake nodded rea.s.suringly when Harry had felt him over.

"No sign of anything wrong," he said. "There was a good deal of dried mud on him before I fixed him up, and he seemed mighty keen on his corn.

They hadn't given him very much."

"What do you make of it?" Harry asked.

"About as much as you do," answered Jake. "They turned him loose on the trail when they'd done with him, and that's all there is to it. I guess the question is what they've done with Tillic.u.m. One thing's certain. If he doesn't turn up, your father's going to be mighty mad."

Harry agreed that this would be very probable, though he did not think his father would show it. As there was nothing more to be said they went back to the house, where, somewhat to their relief, Miss Oliver made no allusion to the affair, and they proceeded quietly to eat breakfast.

"Are there any spring salmon in the river?" she asked presently, looking across at Harry.

"Yes," he responded, "there are a few coming up."

"Then you might take Frank with you this morning and try to get me one.

I dare say Jake will smoke it." Miss Oliver smiled at Frank. "You don't get salmon prepared that way back East."

"We have it canned," said Frank. "I've an idea I've seen some smoked, but I can't remember. Is it very nice? I thought you didn't care for salmon here."

"Fresh salmon," Jake said curtly, "is only good for hogs, and if you keep it long enough, for growing potatoes with. Still," he added thoughtfully, "I don't know that you call it fresh then."

Miss Oliver laughed. "Wait until you try it smoked--as Jake does it. He can prepare it as some of the Siwash do. I believe they taught him in British Columbia."

Jake shook his head solemnly. "No," he said, "I can't cure salmon as some of the Indians do. You'd get nothing like it in a New York hotel, but I guess I can dress it 'most as well as any white man. You go along and get me a fish, Harry. I'd try the pool by the big fall."

They set out a few minutes later, taking with them a pole which had a big iron hook lashed to it and a long Indian salmon spear. There was a small fork at one end of the latter on which were placed two nicely made bone barbs attached to the haft by strips of sinew. Harry removed them to show Frank that they would slip off their sockets easily.

Leaving the clearing, they struck into a narrow trail through the bush, and after half an hour's scramble over fallen logs and through thick fern they reached the river.

It poured frothing out of shadowy forest and leaped over a rock ledge in a thundering fall, beneath which it swirled around a deep basin, and then after sweeping down a white rapid, spread out over a wide belt of stones. There were rocks on either side of it, and, as the trees could find no hold on them, warm sunlight streamed down upon the foaming water. Harry sat down on a ledge above the pool with the spear beside him and pointed to a great bird wheeling on slanted wings above the shallow.

"A fish eagle," he said. "Here are salmon making up."

Frank watched the circling of the majestic bird, which did not seem much afraid of them. It had a white head and a cruel beak, and once when it swept over him he noticed the fixed gaze of its cold, impa.s.sive eye.

Splendid as it was, he somehow shrank from the thing. It looked so powerful and utterly merciless. When it stopped in the air, dropped, and struck, he saw a splash as a writhing, silvery creature was s.n.a.t.c.hed up in its talons.

"Got him wrong!" cried Harry. "You watch. He'll have to let go again."

So far as Frank could see, the eagle had seized the salmon by the middle of its back, the fish twisting itself crossways as it was carried up into the air. The next moment there was a splash in the water and the bird swooped down again. When it rose it held its prey differently, and Frank fancied he could see one wicked claw gripping the fish close by the back of its neck, while the other was spread out toward its tail.

In any case, the salmon did not seem able to wriggle now, and the eagle flew off with it and vanished among the tops of the black firs.

"Not a big fish, but I've a notion the eagle could lift a thing as heavy as itself," said Harry. "They're mighty powerful. It might be the one he dropped, though I think it's another."

Frank had no idea how much an eagle weighed, but he realized something of the capabilities of a bird that could carry off this fish apparently without an effort, and, what was more astonis.h.i.+ng, drag the tremendously muscular creature out of the water which was its home. Then his companion touched his shoulder.

"Watch those two fellows in the eddy," said he. "They're going to rush the fall."

Frank saw two slim shadows shoot out beneath a wreath of circling foam and flash--which seemed the best word for it--through the crystal depths of the slacker part of the pool. They were lost in the snowy turmoil near the foot of the fall, and a few minutes pa.s.sed before he saw them again. Then one shot out of the water like a bow that had suddenly straightened itself, gleamed resplendent with silver, and plunged into the foam again. Harry pointed him out the other, and though it was a moment or two before he could see it he marveled when he did. It had its dusky back toward him, for now and then the dorsal fin rose clear, and it was swimming up a thin cascade which poured down a steep slope of stone. That any creature should have strength enough to stem that rush of water seemed incredible, but there was no doubt that the fish was ascending inch by inch. Then it found a momentary harbor in a little pool just outside the main leap of the fall, and shot out of it again with its curious uncurving spring. Frank watched it eagerly when it dropped into the fall, and it was with a sense of sympathy that he saw its gallant efforts wasted as it was suddenly swept down. Before reaching the bottom, however, it had evidently rallied all its powers, for it flashed clear into the sunlight, and had recovered a fathom when he lost sight of it once more.

After that he glanced back toward the shallows and saw that other birds had appeared. He did not know what they were, and Harry could only tell him that they were fishhawks of some kind. As he watched them wheeling or stooping, dropping upon the sparkling stream, and screaming now and then, the boy began to form some idea of the desperate battle for existence that is fought daily and hourly by the lower creation.

"There don't seem to be a great many salmon," he remarked.

"It's a thin run," said Harry. "There'll probably be more of them in the next one. Once upon a time, as I expect you've heard, these rivers were so thick with fish that you could walk across their backs, though I'll allow I've never seen anything of that kind."

Frank was not astonished at the last admission. This brown-skinned, clear-eyed boy, who could sail a boat and hold the rifle straight, was not one to talk of the wonderful things he had seen and done. He left that to the whisky-faced sports of the saloons who were probably capable of butchering a crippled deer at fifty yards with the repeater.

"I suppose the salmon have plenty enemies," he suggested.

"Oh, yes," said Harry. "In the sea the seals and porpoises get their share of them. Then, as they head for the rivers, there are the fish traps, and in Canada the seine-net boats along the sh.o.r.e. After that when they're in fresh water they have to run the gauntlet of the Indians, birds, and bears."

"Bears?" Frank interrupted.

"Sure," said Harry. "They're quite smart fishers. Even the little minks get some of the salmon stranded in the shallow pools. The Indians set long baskets, narrow end downward, for them near the top of the falls.

These, of course, are fresh from salt-water--you can see they're silvery--but they lose that brightness as they go up the larger rivers, and on the Columbia and Fraser they push on hundreds of miles, up tremendous canons, up falls and rapids, toward the Rockies. Those that fetch headwaters are scarred and battered, with the bright scales and most of their fins and tails worn right off them. Once they're through with the sp.a.w.ning they die."

"Then they go straight to the place where they sp.a.w.n?"

"Yes, the salmon's really a seafish. It's born in fresh water, but it goes down to the ocean as soon as it's big enough, and it's generally believed that it stays there three or four years, though it's a fact that we know mighty little about the salmon yet. Then it comes back to the same place and sp.a.w.ns and dies. You see, there's a constant succession coming up." He broke off with a laugh. "Now we'll try to get one. There are three or four big fellows yonder. All you have to do is to slash at them with the hook."

Frank perched himself upon a jutting shelf of rock, and presently two or three swift shadows flitted by. He swung up the pole and made a sudden sweep at them, only to see the hook splash two or three feet behind the last one's tail. Incidentally, he came very near to going headforemost into the pool. Then another fish swept toward him, and this time he landed the hook some inches in front of its nose, after which he made several more attempts, succeeding only in splas.h.i.+ng himself all over. He was beginning to discover that his hands and eyes needed a good deal of training. One, it seemed, must judge speed and distance and strike simultaneously, but the trouble was that he needed a second or two to think, and, naturally, while he thought the fish got away.

By and by he turned and watched Harry, who had not struck once yet. He stood upon a ledge, alert, strung-up, and steady-eyed, but absolutely motionless, with the long spear running up above his shoulder. At last, however, he drove his right arm down and the beautiful, straight shaft sank into the pool. It stopped suddenly for a second, quivering, and then bent and twisted upward in the boy's clenched hands.

Frank ran toward him, wondering that the slender shaft did not immediately break, when he observed that one barb had slipped off its socket and that the fish, struck by it, was now held by the short length of sinew. A moment or two later Harry jerked it out upon the bank by a quick vertical movement and knocked it on the head. It lay still after this, a beautiful creature of some seven or eight pounds, with the sunlight gleaming on its silver scales. Frank glanced once more at the long spear. It occurred to him that this was also perfect in its way and could not have been better adapted to its purpose.

"It's curious that an Indian should be able to make a thing like that,"