CHAPTER XVII

JACK MEETS A SEAL PIRATE

From the camp at Twin Falls the course was southeast, and passing between Captain and Nelson Islands the canoe entered Agamemnon Channel. Early in the afternoon they came out on Malaspina Straits. A fresh breeze carried the canoe along at a good rate of speed, and in the evening camp was made on the mainland, a little beyond Merry Island.

The following day, as they were approaching an Indian village, situated near the point where the trail from the head of Seechelt Inlet came down to the shore of the Gulf, they saw a trading schooner anchored off it. Provisions were growing low, and it was determined to visit the vessel and see whether food could be purchased. As they paddled toward it, a dog which was running up and down the deck barked loudly at them in seeming salutation, and they saw the figure of a man watching them from the stern. Presently they were near enough to hail him, and he invited them to come aboard, which they did. The Indians remained in the canoe, and kept it from rubbing against the schooner's side.

The man was a splendid, big, hearty young fellow, but a cripple, having lost his leg just below the knee. He talked with them about where they had been, what they had done and seen, and spoke of the vessel's owner, who had gone inland with a back load of trade goods, to try to secure some furs that were said to be at an Indian camp some miles inland. "I ought to have gone with him," he said, "but you see I can't get around very easily with only one leg. In this country there is so much moisture and so many rocks, that it's pretty hard for a man to get around at all. He needs two legs, and good ones at that. I can't walk far or long, and this confounded pin of mine sometimes gets stuck in the soft ground or wedged between rocks, and keeps me anchored until I can pull it out. So, really, I am no good except to keep shop and help to work the ship. It seems mighty good to see the white folks again; we have been out all summer, and I've not seen anybody except the Indians, and I don't care much for them.

"Now, you two," he said, as he pointed to Jack and Hugh, "you come from my country. This man," he said, pointing to Fannin, "belongs here. He is a Canuck."

"You are an American, sir?" asked Jack.

"Yes," said the man, "I am an American; just about as much American as anybody can be. I come from the state of Maine, and that's about as far east as the United States goes."

"That's so," said Jack. "The old Pine Tree State is a great state."

"Right you are, young fellow," said the man. "She's a great state, and she has sent out some good men; it's a pity I wasn't one of them--but I wasn't. My name is Crocker, and I was born right near the shore, and have been a fisherman and a sailor all my life. The worst luck ever happened to me was when I drifted along this coast and kept on sailoring here. This is the way that I lost my leg."

"Well," said Hugh, "that was sure a piece of bad luck. I should think on one of these boats a man would need two good legs, just as much as he does on a horse. I have seen some one-legged men who could ride all right, but they were never so sure in the saddle as if they had two legs."

"No, I expect not," said Crocker. "I would have had two good legs right now if I hadn't come round on this coast and took to sealing."

"Why," exclaimed Jack, "how did sealing make you lose your leg?"

"Well," said Crocker, "it was in this way: I made two or three voyages, as mate of a sealing schooner,--first with Indians, and then with Japs. The last voyage we made with the Indians we didn't get any skins, and the captain proposed to me that we cross over to Japan, and get a crew of Japs and then go north to the Commander Islands, and make a raid on them, and steal seals from the Russians. Of course I said it was a go, and just before the next season began we went over and got a crew of ten Japs and sailed.

"When we came in sight of the islands we found that there was a Russian gun-boat anchored near them, and so we stood out to sea for two or three days, and then, going back to the islands, we found the gun-boat had gone. Now we thought we had a sure thing on a load of seal skins. We sailed in pretty close to the shore, and then I took a boat and six Japs and we started in for the beach, the schooner standing off, just outside the rocks. As we rowed in towards the beach we could see that the rookery was a big one and that seals were plenty. It seemed as if things were going our way. We pulled in hard toward the rookery, and just as the boat was going to ground and the bowman got ready to hold her off a lot of Russian soldiers raised their heads up over the bluff and fired at us.

"It was about the first bunch of soldiers I ever saw that could hit anything; but they certainly hit us. Four of the Japs were killed at the first firing. One more was shot through the lungs and another through the thigh, breaking the bone. I got a shot through this leg, below the knee. I tried mighty hard to push off so as to get away, but the soldiers ran down to the beach and into the water, caught the boat and hauled it ashore. They threw the Japs overboard, for both of the wounded ones died pretty soon, and they carried me up onto the bluff and over to the little houses where the sealers lived.

"You see these Russian soldiers didn't care anything about the Japs, but they treated me pretty well. They gave me a good bed and tried to set my leg, but both bones were badly smashed, and I made up my mind that without a doctor there if they tried to set the leg they would make a botch of it, and the leg would go bad and I would croak. So after a day or two I picked out one of the nerviest of the chaps and had him take my leg off. He didn't know what to do, but I sat up and helped him, saw that the arteries were taken up right and tied, and that the bone was squarely sawed off, with good flaps left that were sewed up. Three or four days after the leg was gone the gun-boat came back and her surgeon came ashore. He looked at the leg, dressed it, and said that it was a good job, and that he wondered that any of those soldiers had known how to take a leg off like that. You see, he could talk a little English and good French, and I could talk a little French and good English, so we got on pretty well. He seemed to take a kind of a shine to me, too, and after I got a little strength he had me brought on board the ship, and after a little while we sailed for Petropaulovski. Before we got there I learned from something that he said that the soldiers had told him about my sitting up and telling them how to take off the leg. He seemed to think that was a great thing.

"When we got to town they carried me ashore and up to the jail and took me in. But before they had fairly got me locked up, the doctor, who had left the ship before I did, came in and showed the governor of the jail an order, and then I was taken to a mighty comfortable house, and stopped there for quite some time. The doctor used to come in two or three times a day and talk to me. Finally I got able to get up and be around, and by that time the doctor had had a carpenter make me a wooden leg; so I pegged around with that leg and a cane, and got to having a pretty good time; but, of course, I didn't know what they were going to do with me.

"There was a prince in town, a Russian prince. He was the head, so they said, of the Russian Fur Company. Once or twice he sent for me and questioned me about the seal stealing, and I told him all I knew, for there wasn't any use of making any secret of it. He seemed to be a pretty good sort of a fellow, and at length one day, after I had been there some months--it was winter, and mighty cold at that, you bet--he said to me: 'I ought to send you to the mines, but I don't believe you would be very useful there, with that one leg of yours, and I think the best thing to do with you in spring, when the weather opens, is to send you to Yokohama on some vessel.' Of course I didn't have any ambition to go to the mines, and I was mighty glad to be let off as easy as that. So when spring came, they found a little schooner that was going to sail to Japan, and they put me on board of it, and off I went. And what do you think that prince did? Just as I was going to step into the boat to be carried out to the schooner he suddenly appeared, shook hands with me, and wished me good luck and handed me a little canvas bag, which was pretty heavy, and said: 'Take good care of that, and make it go as far as you can'; and, by Jove! when I opened that bag and counted what was in it there was six hundred dollars.

"That doctor and that prince," he said slowly, as he rubbed his chin, "were mighty good to me. They treated me white. I wish though that the doctor had got around to the island four or five days before he did, and maybe I would have two legs now."

They had listened with much interest to the sealstealing story, and Jack was anxious to ask Crocker many questions about the strange animals that he must have seen during his voyage in the North Pacific, when he followed the seal herds after they left the islands, and about the great journey that the seals make south and west and east and north again, back to their starting point. But Fannin was anxious to get on, and after he had purchased from Crocker the provisions they needed, with a hearty handshake and with many good wishes the canoe travellers stepped over the side and pushed off.

The next morning was notable for the passage of the canoe through multitudes of black sea ducks, which Jack said were coots. The flock, or succession of flocks, were as numerous as those observed some weeks before off Comox Spit. There must have been many thousands of these birds scattered over several miles of water, and continually rising as the canoe disturbed them, either flying back over it or off to one side.

Late in the afternoon the travellers, as usual, began to look for a camping place along the shore, and for some time without success. The rocky shores rose straight up from the water and seemed very inhospitable; but at length a little bay, the most encouraging place in sight, invited the tired travellers to investigate it, and it was found that, although the little beach was almost everywhere piled high with driftwood, there was a narrow pebbly place where, by squeezing up close together, there would be room enough for the white men to sleep. A tiny trickle of water through a streak of wet moss ran down each side toward the bay, and it seemed that camp might be made here. The canoe was unloaded and its cargo carried up over the raft of floating drift logs to the beach. A little hole was scraped in the sand to catch the water that fell, drop by drop, from crevices in the rock. The largest stones were removed from the spot where the beds were to be spread, and a fire was kindled.

Long ago there had fallen from the shelf of the cliff, many feet above the beach, a giant fir tree, whose roots still rested where they had always been, and whose top was supported by the bottom of the bay. The spot where the beds were to be spread was directly beneath this leaning stick of timber, which, as it was six or eight feet through, would even offer a little shelter in case it should rain that night. Charlie, however, suggested that this was not a safe place for the white man to sleep, as during the night the tree might fall and crush them. But the other men laughed at him, and pointed out to him that as the stick had never changed its position for forty or fifty years, the chances were that it would not break or slip on this particular night. Charlie said that this might be true and went about his cooking. His spirits, however, were not high, for, even with what had just been bought from Crocker, the provision box was still very light. The fresh meat had been nearly all eaten, the baking powder had all been used, there was left nothing but a little bacon, a few cans of tomatoes, some flour, coffee, and raisins. To relieve the impending famine, Jack and Fannin went up on the hills to look for game, and, although they had found no deer, they started three or four grouse, of which two were secured and brought to the camp for the next morning's breakfast. As the party turned into their blankets that night Charlie looked at the great stick of timber which overhung them and said: "Well, I hope we'll be alive in the morning."

"Oh," said Hugh, "you go to bed, Charlie; you're like a cow-puncher I once knew. He called himself a fatalist, and said that he believed 'whatever was to be would be, whether it happened so or not.'"

Fannin said: "The only thing I am afraid of for to-night is that maybe this tide will rise so high that it will drown us out, and we will be floated off among this drift."

When they turned in, the fire, by which dinner had been cooked, was still glowing brightly under the old drift log against which Charlie had built it; and the only sound heard in camp was the lapping of the water against the beach.

That night Jack had a curious dream. He thought that he was asleep in his room at his home in Thirty-eighth street, when suddenly he was awakened by a bright light, and, rushing to the window, saw that the house across the street was blazing and that a number of policemen clad in white were dancing in front of the fire. As he watched them, and wondered anxiously about the fire, the smoke from the house seemed to turn and move in a thick cloud straight into his window, causing him to choke and cough. At this Jack awoke, and sitting up in his blanket he saw the great drift log, against which the fire had been built, glowing like a furnace. Charlie, clad only in his shirt and drawers, was darting about with a bucket of water in his hands, dashing it on the flames. The fire was soon put out; and next morning, on reckoning up their losses, it was found that they were not very serious. A few cooking utensils, a towel or two, and a coat were the only things seriously damaged. If the fire had burned a little longer and communicated itself to the rest of the drift stuff, the members of the party might have been very uncomfortable, and their loss might have been serious.

When they started the next morning, the surface of the water was smooth and unbroken. There was no breath of air, and great clouds obscured the sky. Before them was seen the white lighthouse of Port Atkinson, and on either side of the channel they were following rose a low, rock-bound, fir-fringed coast. Here, for almost the first time since the trip had been begun, no striking mountain ridges or snow-capped peaks were seen. The tide was running straight against them, and they had to work hard to advance at all. After they had passed the Port Atkinson lighthouse the Inlet broadened and spread out over wide flats. The canoe kept close to the shore, to avoid the ebbing tide, and startled from the grassy shore a number of blue herons which were resting or fishing at the water's edge. Sometimes, as they rounded a little point, a group of hogs were encountered, eagerly rooting in the bare flats for shell-fish. The first one of these groups that he saw astonished Jack, because the hogs were accompanied by a number of crows. About each hog, on the ground or resting on its back, or flying about it with tumultuous cries, were three or four black-winged attendants, which wrangled bitterly over the fragments of fish that the pig unearthed and failed to secure. Sometimes a crow would pounce on a clam or other edible morsel actually under the nose of the hog, and would snatch it away before the hog realized what was happening.

"Fannin," said Hugh, as they were passing along, "does this sort of thing happen regularly? Do these crows follow the hogs around all the time?"

"No," said Fannin, "crows know too much for that. They only get together and follow them when they come down to the flats looking for clams. They have learned that the hogs turn up a great deal of stuff that they themselves like; and they have become regular attendants on them. You know it isn't so very long since they didn't have any loose hogs in this country. It is only within the last few years that they have turned them out to look out for themselves."

"Well," said Hugh, "of course there's lots of difference in size, but these crows flapping about these hogs remind me more than anything of the way the buffalo birds act out on the prairie. They are just as familiar and at home with the buffalo and cattle and horses as these crows are with the hogs here."

"It's comical," said Fannin, "how familiar any set of birds will get with animals and people or anything else, just as soon as they find that they don't hurt them."

They were now at the mouth of Burrard Inlet and had only a few miles more to go before reaching Hastings where Fannin lived, and where their canoe voyage would end. They had been about a month afloat.

The sand flats, over whose shoal waters the canoe was passing, seemed to be the home of a multitude of flat fish or flounders. They lay on the bottom, and so closely resembled it in color that it was impossible at the distance of a few feet to distinguish them from the sand. The fish remained absolutely motionless until the bow of the canoe was within two or three feet of them; and then they swam quickly away with a flapping motion that did not seem to carry them off very rapidly as compared with the arrow-like darting motions of most fish; but they stirred up a cloud of sand and mud that effectually concealed them.

"These flat fish are mighty queer animals, Mr. Fannin," remarked Jack. "They don't look to me like anything I have ever seen before in the world."

"No," said Fannin, "I guess they are not. They are mighty queer kind of fish; and, if I understand it right, they are all skewed around."

"How do you mean?" asked Jack.

"Why," said Fannin, "I understand when they are hatched they are right side up like other fish; but soon after that they have to lie on their side. That covers one of their eyes, and that eye works its way up through the head onto the top; so that, as a matter of fact, the two eyes on a flat fish which you see when you are looking down on him are both of them looking out of the same side of the head. What looks to you and me like the back, is really his side, and what looks to you and me like his white belly is really his other side. I don't understand about it very clearly, but there's a man back East who has worked that whole thing out. Somebody sent me a copy of his paper one time, and I guess I have got it somewhere in the shop now."

Before night had come the canoe had gone up the Inlet to Fannin's shop. Here they went ashore, and that night, for the first time in weeks, sat down at a table and slept in beds. It was learned at Hastings that the Indians were catching a good many salmon at the head of the North Arm; and it was proposed that instead of ending the trip here, the canoe should keep on up the Arm and see the fishing. The next morning, therefore, they went on up the Inlet.

On the way they met three canoe loads of returning Indians, and each canoe was piled high with beautiful silvery salmon, weighing eight or ten pounds each, which the Indians had caught with spears and gaffs in the Salmon River. Fannin, who spoke with the Indians, told the others that this was the fishing party, and that now there were no Indians at the head of the North Arm. It was, nevertheless, decided to go up there.

When they reached the mouth of the river they found the tide lower than it had been when they had been there some weeks ago; but soon it commenced to rise, and as the water deepened they began to pole the canoe up the stream, though frequently all hands were obliged to jump overboard and push and lift the canoe over the shoals and into the deeper water. As the tide continued to rise this became necessary less frequently, and before long the water was so good that they could push along with but little effort. During the passage up the shallow stream many salmon were seen in the clear water--fine, handsome fish, dark blue above; sometimes showing, as they darted away from the approaching canoe, the gleaming silver of their shapely sides.

The sight of these beautiful fish greatly excited Jack, and several times he struck at them with his paddle, but always miscalculated the distance, and could never feel even that he had touched a fish. At length he called out: "Mr. Fannin, can't we stop here and try to catch some of these fish? They are so big and splendid that I want to get hold of one."

"Oh," said Fannin, with a laugh, "wait a bit. You are going to a place where you'll see a hundred for one that you see now."

"Well," said Jack, rather grumblingly, half to himself and half to Hugh, "I suppose he is right, but it seems as if we might stop right here and catch some of them. The sight of these fish is enough to make any man a fisherman right off."

Again he called out: "Do you think we will be able to catch any fish to-night?"

"Yes," said Fannin; "I think that with the spear or the gaff we ought to get all we want."

"But just think," said Jack, "what fun it would be to catch one of these with a rod. It looks to me as if they would break any tackle that we have."

"No," said Fannin, "you can't catch them on a hook when they get into the fresh water. I thought I had told you that before. The salmon in fresh water will not take a hook. They will take one in the salt water, but as soon as they enter the river, no. I'll tell you about that to-night when we get into camp."

After several hours' work the canoe reached a point in the river where there was a high jam of drift logs, which it was impossible to pass. The sticks of the jam were too large to be chopped through, and the canoe was far too large to be carried about the jam to a point farther up the river; besides, it was well on toward sundown. Camp was made therefore on a smooth sandbar just below the jam, and in a short while the spot had assumed a comfortable, home-like appearance. On the shore of the river was a rather neatly built shed, which had evidently been recently occupied by Indian fishermen. This served as a storehouse for provisions and the mess kit, and a sleeping place for Charlie and the Indians. A little farther up the stream was placed the white tent fly, closed at the back with an old sail and in front with a mosquito netting. Near the storehouse a cheery fire crackled against an old cedar log, and on the beach, farther down, drawn out of the water, was the canoe.

After dinner was over, and when they were sitting about the fire, Jack, whose mind was still full of the salmon he had seen, addressed Fannin. "Now, Mr. Fannin, what more can you tell me about the salmon not taking bait in the fresh water? I believe you spoke to me about it when we saw our first salmon, but I have forgotten what you said."

"Well," said Fannin, "I can't tell you why they do not feed in fresh water, but all fishermen say that they do not, and it is certain that none of them are caught on a hook after they begin to run up a stream. Down in California, where the rivers are all muddy, people explain their refusal to feed by saying that in those waters the fish cannot see the fly or bait, and so do not take it; but such an explanation will not answer for a clear-water stream such as the one we are on. You must have noticed that the water here to-day was as pure and clear as in any trout stream you ever fished."

"Yes," said Jack, "I don't see how anything could be clearer than this water; and I am sure the fish could see the bait or a fly."

"Yes," said Fannin, "they certainly could; and if they wanted a fly they would rise to it. There's a man down here at Moody's Mills who is a great fisherman, and he has fished in these streams for trout and salmon for fourteen years. He says that in all that time he has hooked a salmon only twice, and he believes in each of these cases the fish accidentally fouled the hook. No; when the fish get into the fresh water, they seem to forget everything except their desire to get up to the head of the water and spawn."

"Well," said Jack, "Eastern salmon come into the stream to spawn just as these fish do. They also try to get to the heads of the rivers for this one purpose; yet we all know that the fishermen go salmon fishing, and expect to catch salmon on the Atlantic coast just at the time that the fish are running up the river, and we know that they do catch them, big ones, running, I believe, up to thirty-five or forty pounds."

"Well," said Fannin, "I know that is true, and I don't know just why there should be such a difference in the fish of the two coasts; but I believe that it exists. Some day, very likely, we will be able to explain it; but I can't do it now, and I don't believe I know anybody who can."

The next morning Jack and Hugh were up long before breakfast, and were talking about the difference between the surroundings of this camp and those to which they had been accustomed for the last few weeks. Ever since their departure from Nanaimo they had spent practically all their time on the water or on the seashore; and, except in a few cases, had hardly been a hundred yards from the beach. The present camp, therefore, had about it something that was new. They could not hear the soft ripple of the beach or the roar of the great waves pounding unceasingly against the unyielding cliff. The water which hurried by the camp was sweet and fresh. All about them were green forests, whose pale gray tree trunks shone like spectres among the dark leaves. The birds of the woods moved here and there among the branches or came down to the water's edge to drink or bathe. Except for the canoe, and but for the character of the rocks, they might have imagined themselves on some mountain stream, a thousand miles from the seacoast.

Said Jack to his companion: "We have had lots of surprises on this trip, Hugh, and this camp is one of the greatest of them."

"Yes," said Hugh, "I know just what you mean. It seems mighty pleasant here to be in the timber with that creek running by; and yet I don't know but I like the open sea better, where a man has a chance to look about and see what is near him."

"Well," said Jack, "we certainly have seen lots of different country on this trip, and I wish we were just starting out instead of just getting in."

"Well," said Hugh, "I believe I feel a little that way myself; though, to tell the truth, I shan't be sorry to get back to a country where there are horses, and where a man can look a long way around and see things."

"Oh, Hugh!" said Jack, interrupting the talk, "look at those little dippers there! Let's go and watch them."

They strolled to the edge of the beach and there saw a number of the queer little birds. They were, as usual, bowing, nodding, and working their wings, or tumbling into the water, disappearing there to come to the surface again some distance away, when they would rise on the wing and fly to the beach or to some almost submerged boulder in the current. Some of them were walking along the shore, from time to time stopping and nodding as if to their shadows in the water; or again taking their flight from point to point near the little stretch of beach that, upon examination, appeared barren of food. Sometimes one of the birds would bring up out of the water some little insect or worm, which it would beat against the stones and then devour. Jack and Hugh watched them for some time, but presently the coming of others to the border of the stream disturbed the dippers, and they flew away up or down the stream. They did not particularly mind being looked at by two men, but they thought that five were too many, and they all disappeared.

At breakfast it was suggested that they should take a short trip on foot up the stream to see what the river would offer. They were crossing the jam when Hugh's keen eye detected a movement in the water beneath them. Kneeling down on the floating logs they were astonished to see that the deep pool beneath the jam was full of salmon. They all stretched out at full length on the logs and stared down into the clear water beneath them. Through the openings between the logs every movement of the shoal of great fish, slowly moving about but a few feet from their faces, could be seen. The water was beautifully transparent, and it was easy to distinguish the color and form of each fish. The humped back and hooked jaw of the most fully developed males could be readily distinguished, and were in strong contrast with the slim and graceful forms of the female fish. There were probably between four and five hundred salmon in the pool, which was not a very large one. The fish crowded together so thickly that it was only occasionally possible to see the pebbly bottom. It was not long before Jack remembered the salmon spear in the canoe, and soon after he had thought of it, he and one of the Indians started back to get it. The salmon were so close together in the pool and seemed so near to the surface of the water that he thought that the spear could not be thrust down into the slow moving mass without transfixing one or two of them.

When the spear was finally brought to the log jam each one of the company secretly wished to be the first to catch a salmon, yet each was too polite to say what he wished, and they passed the implement from hand to hand, asking each other to make the first attempt. Fannin and Hugh seemed to want Jack to make the first attempt, but he declined flatly and said: "You ought to do it, Mr. Fannin, because you are more skilful than either of us, but if you don't want to do it let Hugh try his hand; he is the oldest person present."

Hugh also declined with great promptness and positiveness, but was at length prevailed to take the spear. He lay down on the logs with his face close to an opening, into which he introduced the points of the spear, lowering it through the pellucid water until the end of the shaft was in his hands and he had fitted his fingers into the notches cut there. Then he watched until he saw a fish precisely under him, and made a forcible thrust, driving the spear deep down into the water and causing a little flurry among the salmon, which moved their tails a little and then darted away. Then Hugh arose with a mortified look and said: "Well, I thought I had one that time, but it seems not. You fellows will have to try your hands now."

Fannin was the next to make a thrust, and made half a dozen without effect. The fish did not even dodge the strokes, but each time the spear went down toward them there was a general quivering of the whole school, as if each fish had started a little. The thrower of the implement looked at them with a somewhat perplexed expression, and said: "It certainly seemed to me as if that spear went through the whole school." When he had recovered the spear he passed to Jack and told him to try his hand, but Jack's luck was no better than that of his companions. To him, as he lay on his face looking down into the pool, shadowed by the log jam, the depth of the water seemed to be about five or six feet, yet as he thrust his spear into it and it passed down toward the fish, the handle being in his hand, he could see that the points were still quite a long distance above the backs of the fish, and no matter how hard he threw the spear, it created but little disturbance. Hugh, Jack, and Fannin were now stretched out at different points on the log jam, gazing at the fish beneath them. For some time they did not realize where the difficulty lay, and now and then one of them would say: "Oh, please let me have the spear for just a minute; they are so thick here that I know I can't help catching one if I only thrust it at them." But all thrusts were futile. At last, going ashore, and cutting a slender pole more than twenty feet in length, the depth of the water was measured, and it appeared that the spear was far too short to reach the fish. The excitement was too great to leave things in this condition and return to camp, so Hugh and Fannin soon added six or eight feet to the length of the salmon spear and besides made a long gaff. With these two implements they returned to the pool, and found no difficulty in catching salmon enough to supply the table.

All along the river, which they followed up for several miles, they found great numbers of salmon, and with the salmon were a great many trout, some of them of very large size. Fannin explained that these fish followed up the salmon to feed on the spawn as it was deposited. He declared that while the salmon were running the trout would pay no attention to a fly. Certain it was that all Jack's efforts to get a trout to rise to the fly were unsuccessful.

The evening after the day they had reached this camp they discussed the question as to whether they should climb the mountains and have another goat hunt. After a little discussion it was decided to do so; but the next morning when they got up they found that it was raining heavily. It rained continuously during the day until noon, when they regretfully broke camp, and paddled down the Inlet to Hastings, where they paid off and dismissed the Indians and their canoe. The unemotional savages shook hands calmly with their companions of the last month. They arranged in the canoe their blankets and provisions and the few cooking utensils which had been given them, and then paddled off down the Inlet and were soon out of sight, bound for Nanaimo.

A day or two later the travellers started for New Westminster, to return to Victoria. Jack and Hugh were loath to part with Fannin, and they persuaded him to go with them on the stage as far as the town and to see the last of them when they took the steamer back to the island.

The next morning all three boarded the stage, and, after a delightful ride through the great forest of the peninsula, they found themselves once more in New Westminster and shaking hands with Mr. James.