78 AMERICAN GAME FISHES. 



captured. The latter, in endeavoring to escape, had torn the 

 net, and many Sahnon had escaped through the rent. When 

 the poor sea-wolf was drawn upon the scow, the foreign gen- 

 tlemen began to slash him savagely with their knives. After 

 stabbing him in many places they cut off his fins, and then 

 threw him overboard — a warning to all net-destroyers. 



A short distance from the scene of this tragedy the engineer 

 hooked a Salmon and landed him without difficulty. This 

 Salmon was a Nerka, and was a tame fish indeed. Like 

 Crockett's 'coon, he just come in. This spiritless disgrace to 

 the Salmon tribe was bestowed upon a hapless Chinaman 

 who was greatly out of luck and had not caught a fish all 

 morning. Here the engineer was joined by the Boston dude 

 and his fair companions, who had been unsuccessful, not even 

 having had a nibble all morning. There is certainly no gal- 

 lantry among Salmon. Even death by such fair hands must 

 be sweet. 



While the engineer was paddling slowly along, talking to 

 the occupants of the skiff, he was aware of a strike — of a 

 swift, sudden, determined strike. The rod was jerked until it 

 bent in the arc of a circle, and the reel made a whir like that 

 made by the wings of a frightened grouse. His line went zig- 

 zagging through the water with great velocity. 



It may be easy enough to manage a fish in the dude style 

 where the angler has plenty of sea-room, but it is no picnic to 

 do so when one is in the center of two hundred or more boats. 

 Still the engineer kept on playing his Salmon in true scientific 

 style. When the line slackened he would speedily reel it in, 

 and when the fish pulled strongly on the line he would 

 allow the reel to run. He became the center of all curiosity. 

 Every other boat suspended operations — the occupants vied 

 one with the other in making uncharitable remarks. The 

 low, guttural voices of the Indians could be heard as they 

 muttered curses on the iconoclast who would upset old cus- 

 toms. At last the Tyee was brought, gasping, to the side of 



