THE STORY OF A SALMON. II 



By-and-by, when all the salmon were too large 

 to be swallowed, they began to grow restless. 

 They saw that the water rushing by seemed to 

 be in a great hurry to get somewhere, and it was 

 somehow suggested that its hurry was caused by 

 something good to eat at the other end of its 

 course. Then they all started down the stream, 

 salmon-fashion, — which fashion is to get into the 

 current, head up-stream, and thus to drift backward 

 as the river sweeps along. 



Down the Cowlitz River the salmon went for a 

 day and a night, finding much to interest them 

 which we need not know. At last they began to 

 grow hungry ; and coming near the shore, they saw 

 an angle-worm of rare size and beauty floating in 

 an eddy of the stream. Quick as thought one of 

 them opened his mouth, which was well filled with 

 teeth of different sizes, and put it around the angle- 

 worm. Quicker still he felt a sharp pain in his 

 gills, followed by a smothering sensation, and in 

 an instant his comrades saw him rise straight into 

 the air. This was nothing new to them ; for they 

 often leaped out of the water in their games of 

 hide-and-seek, but only to come down again with 

 a loud splash not far from where they went out. 

 But this one never came back, and the others went 

 on their course wondering. 



At last they came to where the Cowlitz and the 

 Columbia join, and they were almost lost for a 

 time ; for they could find no shores, and the bottom 

 and the top of the water were so far apart. Here 

 they saw other and far larger salmon in the deepest 

 part of the current, turning neither to the right nor 



