seeing twenty or
thirty in the air at a time while the water below the falls was boiling
with the thousands of fish threshing the water before their leap."

"How high can they jump?" asked Colin.

"About sixteen foot sheer stops even the best of them," the professor
said, "but there are not many direct falls like that. Nearly all rapids
and falls are in jumps of five or six feet, and salmon can take that
easily. Still, there is a fall nearly twenty feet high that some salmon
must have leaped, for a few have been found above it, and they must
either have leaped up or walked round--there's no other way."

"How do you suppose they did it?"

"In a very high wind, probably," the professor answered; "a gale blowing
up the canyon might just give the extra foot or two at the end of a high
leap."

As soon as they were about four miles out, the sail was taken in and,
following the professor's example, Colin dropped his line over the
stern. The shining copper and nickel spoon sank slowly, and the boy paid
out about a hundred feet of line. Taking up the oars and with the rod
ready to hand, Colin rowed slowly, parallel with the shore. Two or three
times the boy had a sensation that the boat was being followed by some
mysterious denizen of the sea, but though in the distance there seemed a
strange ripple on the water, nothing definite appeared, and he forgot it
for the moment as the professor got the first strike.

With the characteristic scream, the reel shrilled out, and the fish took
nearly a hundred feet of line, but the angler held the brake so hard
that the strain rapidly exhausted the fish, and when it turned toward
the boat, the professor's deft fingers reeled at such a speed that the
line wound in almost as rapidly as the rush of the fish. As soon as the
salmon saw the boat it tried to break away, but its captor had caught a
glimpse of the fish, and seeing that it was not too large for speedy
action, reeled in without loss of time, and gaffed him promptly.

[Illustration: THIRTY-POUND ATLANTIC SALMON LEAPING FALLS AND RAPIDS IN
A NEWFOUNDLAND RIVER.

_By permission of H. K. Burrison._]

[Illustration: EIGHTY-POUND PACIFIC SALMON LEAPING WATERFALL ON AN
ALASKA RIVER.

_Courtesy of the U. S. Bureau of Fisheries._]

"Small chinook," he said, as he tossed him into the boat.

He had hardly finished speaking before Colin made a grab for his rod,
and the catch was repeated in almost the same manner. This went on unti