Shepherds of the Wild

Synopsis

Spread Horn knew them all. They were his neighbors. Also he knew the people that lived in the cataract at the bottom of the gorge. Sometimes, when he paused to drink, the salmon rushed past him in their mysterious journeyings,—their fourth-year migration to the waters in which they were born. They come to spawn in the waters where they were themselves spawned before they go down to the sea, and after they spawn they die.

To the naturalist there are strange significances in this repatriation of the salmon. There is a sense of curious relationships,—for strong men, too, always try to return to their homeland for their last days. After four years, almost to the day, the salmon come fighting their way back through the riffles, into dreadful gorges, up cataracts, and high is the waterfall that holds them back.

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