"In the Old Country, one doesn't grumble about eating salmon," Jimmy remarked.
"Oh, well," said Deering, "I was raised in the bush and am not fastidious, but if we can't get salmon, I'll be resigned. The trouble is, since food's short we can't push back too far from the settlements. Well, we must try to hit a creek."
In the evening they came down to a small river and pitched camp on the bank. The Indian cut and trimmed a straight fir branch, but left a fork at the thinner end. Then he pulled out two cleverly-carved bone barbs, which he fitted on the forks and fastened by sinews to the staff.
"You could carry the business part of his outfit in your pocket," Deering remarked. "I expect his folks have used barbs like that for a thousand years. An Indian's tools are standardized, but when he thinks them good enough he stops. All the same, I reckon he gets most as far as a man can get alone. He's an artist, but we beat him by cooperating to make machines. Anyhow, the fellow doesn't want you. Take a smoke and let him spear a fish."
Jimmy lighted his pipe and looked about. A few yards off, the current splashed against the stones. The water was green, and the line of driftwood and dead leaves on the bank indicated that the frost was stopping the muddy streams from the glaciers. Some distance down the river, the Indian balanced on a rock in a pool at the tail of a rapid. For a time he did not move and Jimmy thought his quietness statuesque. The fellow was like the herons he had studied with his glasses by a pool on the Scottish border. Then his body bent and the spear went down. The thrust and recovery were strangely quick and Jimmy rather doubted if the man had moved.
"It looks as if he missed his stroke," he said.
"He's using a fir branch. An Indian spear is beautifully modeled," Deering replied.
A few minutes afterwards, the Indian bent backwards and a shining object struck the bank. Coming to the fire, he put down the fish and Jimmy's appetite was blunted. The salmon was lean and battered. Its color was dull and its tail was broken. Rows of scales were rubbed off; the fins were worn from the supporting ribs.
"I'm not as hungry as I was. Are all like that?" he said.
"It depends on when you get them," Deering replied. "A June steelhead, fresh from the sea, is pretty good, but a salmon that has pushed through to head waters in the fall is another thing. When you think about it, the salmons' journey inland is remarkable. They bore against the autumn floods when the melted snow comes down; they force tremendous rapids, whirlpools, and roaring falls. Where the water's calm in the valleys, eagles and fish-hawks harry them, and the mink hunts them in the shallows. But they can't be stopped; they follow Nature's urge and shove on across all obstacles for the distant gravel banks. Then they spawn, where they were hatched, and the bears eat their spent carcasses. The trouble is, I'm not a bear, but I've got to eat salmon."