They were paddling along, not very far from a kelp bed, which lay north and south, along the channel that they were following for a mile or more, when suddenly Jimmie dropped his paddle and began to haul in on his line. A moment's work, however, showed that he had no fish on it, and he let it go again. But Fannin told him to draw in the line and see that the spoon was all right; for it occurred to him that the current might have carried the spoon in among the leaves of the kelp bed, that it might have caught in one of them, and been torn off. When the end of the line was recovered it appeared that this was just what had happened; and Fannin, grumbling at the Indian's carelessness, put on another spoon and threw the line overboard, but this time kept it in his own hand. It had hardly straightened out, when there was a violent tug on it, and Fannin dropped his paddle and began to haul in the line rapidly, hand over hand. Every one in the boat was more or less excited at the capture, and they all stopped paddling. The great fish was drawn nearer and nearer; sometimes out of sight, and sometimes struggling on the surface of the water and making a great splashing. It was not very long before it was close to the side. All the paddles were taken in; and Fannin, being very careful to keep the fish away from the side of the canoe, let his right hand down close to the line, and grasped the fish close behind the gills, and lifted it into the canoe. Jack, Hugh, and Charlie cheered vigorously, and the Indians grinned with delight.
It was a fine silvery fish, of ten pounds weight, fat and firm, promising delicious food. The fish was passed aft for the inspection of Hugh and Jack; and Fannin called their especial attention to the presence on its back of three of the parasites of which they had been talking only a few moments ago. Then, after they had all admired the fish, it was laid aside in a shady place and the canoe went on.
[CHAPTER XI]
FOOD FROM THE SEA
The voyagers worked on steadily through the day, and three or four hours before sundown they landed at Comox Spit, two or three miles from the village of Comox. All through the day numbers of hair-seals had been seen diligently fishing in the shoal waters, and often an old one was accompanied by her tiny young. There were hosts of water-fowl about the shore,—ducks of several kinds, seagulls, guillemots, and auks; while along the beach ran oyster catchers, turnstones, and many other shore birds. All these were picking a fat living there from the water or from the gravelly beach at the water's edge. The larger fowl fed on fish and mollusks on the bottom; the lesser ones on the small crustaceans, which are abundant among the vegetable life near the beach. At the end of the day the canoe passed through a great multitude of ducks, which seemed to contain many thousands of birds. Near these were hundreds of great seagulls, sitting on the sand spits which project from the islands far out into the water. As the canoe moved toward these great flocks of ducks, the noise of their rising, the whistling rush of their wings and the pattering of their feet upon the water made such a tumult as almost to drown ordinary conversation.
It was low water when they landed, and the boat's cargo had to be carried a long distance up to the meadow above the beach. After this had been done, the fire kindled and the tent put up, Charlie called to them: "Why don't you men try that mud flat for clams? You have a salmon to do to-night, but that won't last very long, and you had better try to get some more fresh meat."
Arming themselves with sharpened sticks, they scattered out over the mud flat, looking carefully for signs of clams, and before long were hard at work gathering them. Jack had dug clams in the East before, but this was new business for Hugh; and it was fun for Jack to tell him how to look for the clams and how to unearth them when found. It took them but a short time to gather over half a bushel of the bivalves, which were taken up to the camp and washed off and covered up.
Their dinner of salmon was greatly enjoyed. After dinner Jack and Fannin, seeing some fish jumping out at the mouth of the river, pushed off in the canoe and spent some time casting for them. But although they tried almost all their most attractive flies, they did not get a single rise, though the fish kept jumping all around them. While still occupied at this, the sun went down and before long the Indians began to make an extraordinary disturbance about the camp fire—shouting, rushing about, stooping down, and then throwing up their hands. When the two anglers reached the shore and inquired what had caused all the excitement, Hugh picked up by the wing and held aloft a tiny mottled owl. The little bird had been hunting about over the flat, and, attracted by the light of the fire, had flown about it several times; and the Indians, excited by its near approach, had begun to throw stones at it. A well-aimed shot by Jimmie had brought down the bird, which Charlie suggested would do for the next day's dinner.
"We haven't got down quite to eating owls," said Jack, with a laugh.