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.
[CHAPTER XVIII]
MILLIONS OF SALMON
Mr. James gave to Jack a number of letters which had come to Victoria for him and then been forwarded to New Westminster. They were the usual home letters which he read with great delight, and, besides these, one from his uncle, Mr. Sturgis, which told him that he had been detained at the mine and would not be able to meet Jack at Tacoma for at least two weeks.
Mr. Sturgis advised his nephew to spend the time in British Columbia and to allow himself two or three days to get from Victoria to Tacoma, where they would meet. Hugh also had received a letter from Mr. Sturgis, the purport of which was the same, and the two began to discuss the question as to how the next ten days were to be spent.
When they had reached New Westminster Mr. James had urged them to take two or three days' trip with him up the Fraser River on the steamboat, partly to see the scenery, but chiefly to get to the end of the Canadian Pacific railroad which was then being built east and west. The western end started at the town of Yale. The distance by steamer was not great, though the swift current of the Fraser is so strong that progress up the stream is not very rapid. This invitation Hugh and Jack now determined to accept, but as the salmon fishing was just at its height, they wished to spend a day investigating that.
In those days it used to be said that every fourth year the run of salmon was very great. The next year the number of fish taken would be smaller, the next still smaller; then the number would increase again until the fourth year, when there would be a great run. As it happened, the year of Jack's visit was one of the years of plenty. A great run was looked for, but up to the middle of July no fish had been taken, though for a week previous the boats had been drifting for them. The fishermen, however, were not discouraged, for at the mouth of the river were constantly seen great numbers of small black-headed gulls, oolichan gulls, so called, which Jack recognized as Bonaparte gulls.
Long before they returned to New Westminster salmon had begun to be taken in considerable numbers, the first catch being made about the last of July. The run kept increasing slowly until before their return to New Westminster it had become impossible for the canneries to use all the fish caught, and a portion of the boats were taken off. Early in August the catch was from seventy-five thousand to eighty thousand fish per day, though only one half of the boats were employed. The canneries were all running at their fullest capacity and the enormous catch was the talk of the town.