All along the river, which they followed up for several miles, they found great numbers of salmon, and with the salmon were a great many trout, some of them of very large size. Fannin explained that these fish followed up the salmon to feed on the spawn as it was deposited. He declared that while the salmon were running the trout would pay no attention to a fly. Certain it was that all Jack's efforts to get a trout to rise to the fly were unsuccessful.
The evening after the day they had reached this camp they discussed the question as to whether they should climb the mountains and have another goat hunt. After a little discussion it was decided to do so; but the next morning when they got up they found that it was raining heavily. It rained continuously during the day until noon, when they regretfully broke camp, and paddled down the Inlet to Hastings, where they paid off and dismissed the Indians and their canoe. The unemotional savages shook hands calmly with their companions of the last month. They arranged in the canoe their blankets and provisions and the few cooking utensils which had been given them, and then paddled off down the Inlet and were soon out of sight, bound for Nanaimo.
A day or two later the travellers started for New Westminster, to return to Victoria. Jack and Hugh were loath to part with Fannin, and they persuaded him to go with them on the stage as far as the town and to see the last of them when they took the steamer back to the island.
The next morning all three boarded the stage, and, after a delightful ride through the great forest of the peninsula, they found themselves once more in New Westminster and shaking hands with Mr. James.
Mr. James gave to Jack a number of letters which had come to Victoria for him and then been forwarded to New Westminster. They were the usual home letters which he read with great delight, and, besides these, one from his uncle, Mr. Sturgis, which told him that he had been detained at the mine and would not be able to meet Jack at Tacoma for at least two weeks.
Mr. Sturgis advised his nephew to spend the time in British Columbia and to allow himself two or three days to get from Victoria to Tacoma, where they would meet. Hugh also had received a letter from Mr. Sturgis, the purport of which was the same, and the two began to discuss the question as to how the next ten days were to be spent.