The New York herald., 1922-10-22
THE RED HOST COMES HOME TO DIE


from the Pacific; rain! driving rain.
drenching the forests, forests of spruce of
CEDAR of fir-thick as the hair on the back
of dog-a wind twisted, crashing inferno
Hear the laundering roar of the Robinson,
sluicing down toward the sea. its rapids
milk white. foaming. swift as hydraulic
jet.
He'll" said the hatchery man. don't
think We'll make it,"
couldn't talk. Just one more stroke
and then die!" groaned to myself (said
the same thing once at PoughkeepsieD:
and. at last, we entered the reach.
MCPHERSON" said. when the spots had
cleared out Of my vision. "the salmon aren't
worth it. Nothing is worth so much tor
ture."
Mcpherson was lighting his pipe-upside
down-defiant of rain. He bobbed his head
Gt the pool
j looked over the side d, and saw
the Red Host! Great, red, pale eyed salmon
stared up from it's depths; an army
passed, phantomlike underneath Weary.
covered with sores. they shot IN from their
fight with the stream, rested. and then
silently took up their march. Hundreds
and hundreds of salmon up from the sea,
to spawn and then diei"'
"Ghosts?"
"Ay,'' said Mcpherson. they're ghosts.
night enough. Come three weeks every
one will be dead. Look at that bucki he's
half dead already"
I looked at the fish. a diseased. dis
t. bor ~
to believe that only month or so back he
had flashed through the salt water like
silver. Then had come the Urge; he had
turned his nose toward fresh water-the
stream he had been born In two years
before-the scales had dropped off his
back, to be replaced by soft. spongy flesh:
his jaws had become hooked, the teeth
emerging until, like some savage. red dog,
he entered the Straits of Juan de Fuca.
Fasting, intent with his mission. he had
escaped the weirs, wheels and nets of the
Gamers, fought the swollen flood of the
river: leaped, twisted and mounted the
falls, won past the spears of the
Siwash-
'T have seen them" Mcpherson broke in
on my thoughts. "a male and female.
comm upstream with a gang of Rainbows
trailing their wake like wolf
pack hanging on to the flank Ay. and I've
seen the old buck turn and chase them
away from her
"Guts." Mcpherson grated the words,
pound for pound. inch for inch, the
salmon's the gamest thing in this world.
An you say they're not worth it,"
Up to that moment salmon to me had
been something that came In tin. A
hint to the grocer would land the thing
on my table But Mcpherson was telling
me things:
"An for what? In a few weeks every
one will be dead They'll raise a stink In
the land. Yell see them clogging the bars:
this water will fall and leave them in
lines on the banks. Ducks will come in
here in swarms and stuff themselves so
full Of dead, rotten fish that their own
fleshn taste worse than poison! Ay, and
the bears make a bloody mess on the
SHOWS Millions and millions Of salmon
get snuffed out like a candle
"Why?" I asked meeldy.
The ire of Mcpherson came forth in
snort: why, Now. ask me another.
Could Tor any other man-tell you why
Nature Is the damn fool that she is you
and I wouldn't be sitting out here in this
tut in this damned awful weather."
Coming up lake in the hatchery launch. .
condemned Japanese fisherman, McPher-
.[An five species of the onoorhy.chus-the
Pacific coast n,n nH boS out soo 1na ,nen
four years cycle of life; Cohoes and Humpbacks