18 SCIENCE SKETCHES. 
other, and henceforth these two pursued their 
journey together. 
Now a gradual change took place in the*looks 
of our salmon. In the sea he was plump and 
round and silvery, with delicate teeth in a sym- 
metrical mouth. Now his silvery color disap- 
peared, his skin grew slimy, and the scales sank 
into it; his back grew black, and his sides turned 
red, — not a healthy red, but a sort of hectic flush. 
He grew poor; and his back, formerly as straight 
as need be, now developed an unpleasant hump at 
the shoulders. His eyes — like those of all enthu- 
siasts who forsake eating and sleeping for some 
loftier aim — became dark and sunken. His sym- 
metrical jaws grew longer and longer, and meeting 
each other, as the nose of an old man meets his 
chin, each had to turn aside to let the other pass. 
His beautiful teeth grew longer and longer, and 
projected from his mouth, giving him a savage 
and wolfish appearance, quite at variance with his 
real disposition. For all the desires and ambitions 
of his nature had become centred into one. We 
may not know what this one was, but we know that 
it was a strong one; for it had led him on and on, 
—past the nets and horrors of Astoria; past the 
dangerous Cascades; past the spears of Indians; 
through the terrible flume of the Dalles, where 
the mighty river is compressed between huge 
rocks into a channel narrower than a village 
street; on past the meadows of Umatilla and 
the wheat-fields of Walla Walla; on to where the 
great Snake River and the Columbia join; on up 
the Snake River and its eastern branch, till at last 
