THE STORY OF A SALMON. 19 



he reached the foot of the Bitter Root Mountains 

 in the Territory of Idaho, nearTy~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. 



They drifted on together for a night and a day, 

 hut they never came to the sea. For the salmon 

 has but one Jife to live, and it ascends the river but 

 _once. The rest lies with its children. And when 

 the April sunshine fell on the globules in the gravel, 

 these were wakened into life. With the early au- 

 tumn rains, the little fishes were large enough to 

 begin their wanderings. They dropped down the 

 current in the old salmon fashion. And thus they 

 came into the great river and drifted away to the 

 sea. 



