[9] OPEEATIONS AT THE m'cLOUD EIVER SALMON STATION. 1071 



ning of the packing for shipment was devoted to the taking care of the 

 eggs, to making crates and boxes to ship the eggs in, to picking over 

 the moss to pack with, and to cleaning up generally for the season. 



Everything went on smoothly till packing time, and without accident,, 

 with one exception. This exception, however, was one of the gravest 

 character, and consisted of an accident to the wheel, which filled us all 

 with consternation and alarm. It happened the 18th of September, on 

 a remarkably quiet and pleasant Sunday morning. The white men em- 

 ployed at the fishery were scattered over the grounds, and there were 

 three or four Indians about. No one had the slightest expectation of 

 any disaster. Everything connected with the hatching of the eggs^ 

 seemed to be going on with the utmost success and safety, when sud- 

 denly, in the direction of the current-wheel, which lifts the water for 

 the hatching house, an ominous sound of a blow was heard, followed by 

 a crash, like the breaking of a board — then another and another — and 

 those who happened to be in sight of the wheel saw that it had begun 

 to breaJi up and was rapidly going to pieces. A moment before, hardly 

 half a dozen men could be seen. A moment after, more than twenty 

 men, white and red, were gathered on the bar opposite to where the 

 wheel was stationed. It seemed at first as if the wheel would be torn 

 to i)ieces in a moment. It was revolving at the rate of five revolutions 

 a minute in a very rapid and powerful current. But the injury itself 

 was the cause of its own cessation. 



Though no one knows positively the cause of the accident, it is sup- 

 posed that it was occasioned by driftw^ood comiug down the river and 

 catching somewhere about the wheel so as to obstruct it. The mo- 

 mentum of the current here being so great that it forced the wheel 

 around, notwithstanding the obstruction, there could be but one result 

 — the breaking up of the wheel. But, of course, after five or six 

 paddles were broken off on one side of the wheel, there was a large 

 space on the circumference of the wheel, where it did not reach the 

 water at all ; when this part of the wheel came around again to the 

 surface of the water, there being no paddles to reach the current, the 

 wheel stopped of its own accord. 



As soon as the accident was discovered not a moment was lost in es- 

 tablishing a line of buckets from the river to the hatching house to 

 supply water to the eggs. Every white man and Indian that could be 

 pressed into the service was employed, and in less than ten minutes we 

 had three lines, of eight or ten men each, bringing water from the 

 river in buckets, tubs, watering-pots, and anything that could be found, 

 that would hold water. This being accomplished, and the eggs released 

 from immediate danger, I gave attention to the wheel. It appeared 

 that seven paddles were broken off, with a portion of each arm attached. 

 The question now was whether the men could hold out bringing water 

 till the wheel could be repaired. I do not know what we could have 

 done in this emergency without the Indians j but I do not think we 



