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 ina 
pile on the floor; and Wing Hop, the big Chinaman, 
takes them one after another on the table, and with 
