deep, running off to shoal water on one side of the river. The pools
have been found by the Indians, who search for them by night with
torches, which show the fish as they lie near the bottom, and they do
not differ materially in appearance from other parts of the river where
no salmon are to be found.

The salmon is what is called _anadromous_--that is, though an inhabitant
of the ocean for most of the year, it ascends the fresh-water rivers in
summer to spawn. In this function it is guided by curious instincts. The
female deposits her eggs in swift shallow water at the heads of streams,
in trenches dug by herself and the male fish in the gravelly bottom; but
it must not be fresh gravel: it must have been exposed to the action of
water for at least two years, or they will have none of it; and if a
freshet should bring new gravel from the banks, they will abandon the
place and seek for new spawning-grounds. It is only when the salmon are
resting in these pools that they will take a fly.

The first pool was at a point where the river made a short turn around a
large rock: the current was swift, with a hole at the foot of the rapid
perhaps twenty feet deep, with a rock bottom. Here our leader,
Kingfisher, rigged his salmon-rod, put on two flies and began to cast. I
trolled in the swift water as we proceeded, and with my spoon took a few
small trout. A salmon rose to the fly of Kingfisher, but was not
hooked; this was the first fish that we saw. (The term "fish" is always
applied to the salmon by anglers: other inhabitants of the water are
spoken of as "trout" or "bass;" a salmon is a "fish.") Although we had
seen none before, our keen-eyed Indians had seen many as we came up the
river.

We then went on to the Lower Indian-house Pool, two miles farther, and
Kingfisher made a few casts; but raising no fish, we went up a mile
farther to our camping-ground, an island between the two pools, having
plenty of wood upon it, with a cold spring brook close by--an old and
famous camping-place for salmon-fishers--and here we intended to make
our permanent quarters. We had four tents--one to sleep in, fitted with
mosquito-bars; one for an eating-tent, with canvas top and sides of
netting: in it was a rough table and two benches, hewed out with an axe
by one of our men. There was also a tent for storing provisions and for
the cook, for we had brought with us a man for this important office. A
fourth tent for the Indians, and a cook