ieved."

We know that it came when it meant the most. The house was saved. It was
the turn in their fortune's tide, and the crucial moment of the change
was when those three bright sulphur spots were lined with the living
lamps in the head of the Silver Fox. Yes! Josh was a poacher. Just once.

395

David Starr Jordan (1851--) was for many years
president, now president emeritus, of Leland
Stanford Junior University, and is known
internationally for his books on science and on
the prevention of war; he also is author of
several books for children. The story that
follows is taken from his _Science Sketches_,
by permission of the publishers, A. C. McClurg
& Co., Chicago. It may stand as a perfect
illustration of the modern informational story
based on recognized scientific facts. "The
Story of a Stone," from the same book, is
equally good. These stories may be taught in
the seventh or eighth grade.

THE STORY OF A SALMON

DAVID STARR JORDAN

In the realm of the Northwest Wind, on the boundary-line between the
dark fir-forests and the sunny plains, there stands a mountain,--a
great white cone two miles and a half in perpendicular height. On its
lower mile the dense fir-woods cover it with never-changing green; on
its next half-mile a lighter green of grass and bushes gives place in
winter to white; and on its uppermost mile the snows of the great ice
age still linger in unspotted purity. The people of Washington Territory
say that their mountain is the great "King-pin of the Universe," which
shows that even in its own country Mount Tacoma is not without honor.

Flowing down from the southwest slope of Mount Tacoma is a cold, clear
river, fed by the melting snows of the mountain. Madly it hastens down
over white cascades and beds of shining sands, through birch-woods and
belts of dark firs, to mingle its waters at last with those of the great
Columbia. This river is the Cowlitz; and on its bottom, not many years
ago, there lay half buried in the sand a number of little orange-colored
globules, each about as large as a pea. These were not much in
themselves, but great in their possibilities. In the waters above them
little suckers and chubs and prickly sculpins strained their mouths to
draw these globules from the sand, and vicious-looking crawfishes picked
them up with their blundering hands and e