One way and the other the larder was kept well supplied, and while Dr Lascelles on the one hand talked eagerly of the precious metal he hoped to discover, Joses was always ready with promises of endless sport.
“Why, by an’ by, Master Bart,” he said one day as they journeyed slowly on, “we shall come to rivers so full of salmon that all you’ve got to do is to pull ’em out.”
“If you can catch them,” said Bart, laughing.
“Catch ’em, my boy? Why, they don’t want no catching. I’ve known ’em come up some rivers so quick and fast that when they got up to the shallows they shoved one another out on to the sides high and dry, and all you’d got to do was to catch ’em and eat ’em.”
“Let’s see, that’s what the Doctor calls a traveller’s tale, Joses.”
“Yes; this traveller’s tale,” said Bart’s companion gruffly. “You needn’t believe it without you like, but it’s true all the same.”
“Well, I’ll try and believe it,” said Bart, laughing, “but I didn’t know salmon were so stupid as that.”
“Stupid! they aren’t stupid, my lad,” replied Joses sharply. “Suppose you and millions of people behind you were walking along a narrow bit o’ land with a river on each side of you, and everybody was pushing on from behind to get up to the end of the bit of land, where there wasn’t room for you all, and suppose you and hundreds more got pushed into the water on one side or on the other, that wouldn’t be because you were so very stupid, would it?”
“No,” said Bart, “that would be because I couldn’t help it.”
“Well, it’s just the same with the salmon, my lad. Millions of ’em come up from out of the sea at spawning time, and they swim up and up till the rivers get narrower and shallower, and all those behind keep pushing the first ones on till thousands die on the banks, and get eaten by the wolves and coyótes that come down then to the banks along with eagles and hawks and birds like them.”