SALMON. 325 



animals themselves, looking for dead and dying 

 salmon along the bars. However, I never saw 

 a bear, black or brown, during my whole trip. 



The salmon which penetrate every smnmer 

 to the headwaters of all the tributaries of the 

 upper Yukon — a journey of over two thousand 

 miles from the sea — are said never to return, but 

 to die after spawning. I saw some in the 

 water of a sickly yellowish colour, and evidently 

 in the last stage of debility ; and found the 

 remains of many dead ones along the water's 

 edge. 



I think I was a little too late for bears, most 

 of which had left the river and gone to the hills 

 after berries. 



Although we had had a few showers of rain 

 on our way up the Macmillan the weather had 

 been on the whole very fine and the sun often 

 oppressively hot, but on the morning of August 

 27th the sky became^ completely overcast and 

 heavy rain set in. 



On the afternoon of that day we reached an 

 old cabin, which had been built by a trapper 

 named Riddell some vears before. This cabin 



