50 pioneer lite; or, 



the bank than the other, thus bringing his basket 

 nearer the shore on which he lived, making it more 

 easy of access, and left the lower ends of the walls 

 about ten feet apart, enabling him to put in a large 

 basket, and fastened the timbers so strongly under 

 the wall that the basket stood there seven years. 

 When winter came he let down the end of the basket 

 and took off the sides, so that the ice could pass over 

 it without injury. The next season, when we want- 

 ed to use it, we had only to raise the end and sides 

 and fasten the corners, and it was ready for use. 

 At that time there were no boats or lumber rafts to 

 run down, and only one family lived above ns, eight 

 miles distant, so we only left an opening in our wall 

 for hunters to pass through with their canoes. The 

 second night after we had finished it was rainy, and 

 upon such nights the eels played backward and for- 

 ward over the ripples. In the morning my father 

 went down to the basket, and found seven or eight 

 large eels, and eight or ten salmon, with a quantity 

 of suckers and other small fish. We found our bas- 

 ket to be very profitable from that time until the 

 last of October. We were so abundantly supplied 

 with fish from this source that we used them to feed 

 our hogs, and found them very useful for that pur- 

 pose, as we were compelled to keep them in our 

 enclosure to protect them from the wild animals. 

 About the fifth of October, in that season, there 

 came a rise of water in Pine Creek. The succeed 

 ing night we caught about two barrels of eels and 

 three wagon loads of suckers. From this time we 



