TWO DIANAS IN ALASKA 101 



these salmon which ascend the rivers of the Bering 

 Sea and Pacific Ocean none ever live to return again 

 into the sea. Their anadromous habits appear to 

 be the cause of a cruel waste of life amongst these 

 fish. If they would only take any form of lure in 

 fresh water an angler might break all world's records 

 with a rod and line upon some of these far Northern 

 rivers. 



Although we repeatedly tried with flies and spoons, 

 we never moved a salmon of any kind when once 

 they had entered and commenced to run in any of 

 the rivers which we visited. This remark does not, 

 however, apply to certain of the salmon on these 

 shores when they are in tidal waters, and in fact we 

 took a number of the fine king salmon, and also 

 many of the silver salmon by trolling and casting 

 a spoon at the mouths of the rivers where these fish 

 were running. During summer, and in the fall, 

 salmon form the staple food of the Alaskan bears, 

 and it was easy to see from recent tracks along the 

 banks and sandy beach that this river was the haunt 

 of more than one of these four-footed fishermen. 

 But as the afternoon sun was still high in the heavens, 

 and as by now we had learned the habits of these 

 bears sufficiently to know that their feeding times are 

 late in the evenings or early mornings, we rightly 

 surmised that it was wasting time to go in quest of 

 game just then. 



Since Agnes had come out with murderous intent, 

 she needs must slay something to while away an 

 hour. And thus she set off to the boat, again return- 



