up to 40 pounds, and the bears grow
fat on them before turning into winter quarters. The skeletons of this
big fish, cleaned by bear, are found along every small stream running
from the lakes.

The large canneries, like the one at Karluk, on Karluk River, near the
western end of Kadiak, put up only the red salmon. They are not nearly
as good eating as the humpback or silver salmon, but are red, and this
color distinction the market demands. The catches at Karluk run up into
the tens of thousands, and one thinks of this with many misgivings,
remembering the fate of the sea otter and bear. Good hatcheries are
constantly busy, keeping up the supply, but it appears that though one
in every ten thousand of these fish is marked before being set free, so
far as known no marked fish have ever been captured.

On our return to Kadiak Island, we found the streams still free of
salmon, and the vegetation had become so rank as to interfere a good
deal with traveling and sighting game. The whole party looked serious,
and the strain was beginning to tell, no game having been seen for seven
long weeks. This, with the swarms of gnats and mosquitoes, made time
pass heavily.

Other places proving barren, we finally brought up at Wesnoi Leide, half
an hour's row from Ozinka, and found the dog fish just beginning to run
up stream, at the head of the bay. Better still, there were fresh bear
tracks.

The wind was favorable, and we stationed ourselves the first evening on
a bluff overlooking a long meadow, on the lower part of the stream.
Hardly had we sat down, when Vacille said: "If that brown spot on the
hillside were not so large, I would take it for a bear." The brown spot
promptly walked into the woods, half a mile away. We were keen enough
again, but our watching proved fruitless, as nothing came down on the
meadow, showing that there was good fishing well up the stream.

We rowed back to Ozinka, and left the country undisturbed, determined to
get well into the woods the following night, before the bear came down
to feed.

The next evening we made an early start, and walking up the stream into
the woods found plenty of fresh tracks, and finally halted by some big
trees. The men placed themselves on some high limbs, where they could
watch, and I stood in deep grass, some six or eight feet from a
well-traveled path used by the bear in fishing the stream. The magpies
were calling all about, and seemed to be saying, _Midwit, midwit_