THE STORY OF A SALMON. 1 9 



he reached the foot of the Bitter Root Mountains 

 in the Territory of Idaho, nearly a thousand miles 

 from the ocean which he had left in April. With 

 him still was the other salmon which had come 

 with him through the Cascades, handsomer and 

 smaller than he, and, like him, growing poor and 

 ragged and tired. 



At last, one October afternoon, our finny travel- 

 lers came together to a little clear brook, with a 

 bottom of fine gravel, over which the water was 

 but a few inches deep. Our fish painfully worked 

 his way to it; for his tail was all frayed out, his 

 muscles were sore, and his skin covered with un- 

 sightly blotches. But his sunken eyes saw a ripple 

 in the stream, and under it a bed of little pebbles 

 and sand. So there in the sand he scooped out 

 with his tail a smooth round place, and his com- 

 panion came and filled it with orange-colored eggs. 

 Then our salmon came back again; and softly cov- 

 ering the eggs, the work of their lives was done, 

 and, in the old salmon fashion, they drifted tail 

 foremost down the stream. 



Next morning, a settler in the Bitter Root re- 

 gion, passing by the brook near his house, noticed 

 that a "■ dog-salmon " had run in there, and seemed 

 " mighty nigh tuckered out." So he took a hoe, 

 and wading into the brook rapped the fish on the 

 head with it, and carrying it ashore threw it to the 

 hogs. But the hogs had a surfeit of salmon-meat; 

 so they ate only the soft parts, leaving the head 

 untouched. And a wandering naturalist found it 

 there, and sent it to the United States Fish Com- 

 mission to be identified. Thus it came to me. 



