[Illustration: DEAD SALMON ON HARRISON RIVER.]
"Dat no good goose gun. Shoot him too much away."
There were plenty of ducks, coots, grebes, and gulls on the river, and I had fine sport with them whenever I cared to shoot.
A mile above where I killed the goose we entered a long reach of shoal rapids, where all the brawn and skill of the Indians were required to stem the powerful current and the immense volume of water. The rapids are over a mile long, and it took us nearly two hours to reach their head. As soon as we were well into them we came among large numbers of live, healthy salmon. Many of them were running down the stream, some up, while others seemed not to be going anywhere in particular, but just loafing around, enjoying themselves. They were wild, but, owing to the water being so rough and rapid, we frequently got within two or three feet of them before they saw us, and the Indians killed two large ones with their canoe poles. Occasionally we would corner a whole school of them in some little pocket, where the water was so shallow that their dorsal fins would stick out, and where there was no exit but by passing close to the canoe. When alarmed they would cavort around like a herd of wild mustangs in a corral, until they would churn the water into a foam; then, emboldened by their peril, they would flash out past us with the velocity of an arrow. They were doing a great deal of jumping; frequently a large fish, two or three feet long, would start across the stream, and make four or five long, high leaps out of the water, in rapid succession, only remaining in the water long enough after each jump to gain momentum for the next. I asked Charlie why they were doing this, if they were sick, or if something was biting them.
[Illustration: WRECKED BY AN EXPRESS BULLET.]
"No," he said. "Play. All same drunk--raise hell!"
These salmon run up the rivers and creeks to deposit their spawn, and seem possessed of an insane desire to get as far up into the small brooks as they possibly can. They frequently pursue their mad course up over boiling, foaming, roaring rapids, and abrupt, perpendicular falls, where it would seem impossible for any living creature to go--regardless of their own safety or comfort. They are often found in dense schools in little creeks away up near their sources, where there is not water enough to cover their bodies, and where they become an easy prey to man, or to wild beasts. In such cases, Indians kill them with spears and sharp sticks, or even catch and throw them out with their hands.