THE STORY OF A SALMON. 15 



felt something tickling like a cobweb about their 

 noses and under their chins. They changed their 

 course a little to brush it off, and it touched 

 their fins as well. Then they tried to slip down 

 with the current, and thus leave it behind. But, 

 no ! the thing, whatever it was, although its touch 

 was soft, refused to let go, and held them like a 

 fetter. The more they struggled, the tighter be- 

 came its grasp, and the whole foremost rank of the 

 salmon felt it together; for it was a great gill-net, 

 a quarter of a mile long, stretched squarely across 

 the mouth of the river. 



By-and-by men came in boats, and hauled up the 

 gill-net and the helpless salmon that had become 

 entangled in it. They threw the fishes into a pile 

 in the bottom of the boat, and the others saw them 

 no more. We that live outside the water know 

 better what befalls them, and we can tell the story 

 which the salmon could not. 



All along the banks of the Columbia River, from 

 its mouth to nearly thirty miles away, there is a 

 succession of large buildings, looking like great 

 barns or warehouses, built on piles in the river, 

 high enough to be out of the reach of floods. 

 There are thirty of these buildings, and they are 

 called canneries. Each cannery has about forty 

 boats, and with each boat are two men and a long 

 gill-net. These nets fill the whole river as with 

 a nest of cobwebs from April to July, and to 

 each cannery nearly a thousand great salmon are 

 brought every day. These salmon are thrown in a 

 pile on the floor ; and Wing Hop, the big Chinaman, 

 takes them one after another on the table, and with 



