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Good-by, four hundred per cent." "They'll wiggle through legislation to prevent export of raw salmon," MacRae suggested; "same as they have on the sockeye." "No chance. They've tried, and it can't be done," Stubby grinned. "There aren't going to be any special privileges for British Columbia salmon packers any more. I know, because I'm on the inside.

All the others, the blueback, the sockeye, the hump, the coho, and the dog salmon, run in the order named. They can be reckoned on as a man reckons on changes of the moon. These are the mainstay of the salmon canners. Upon their taking fortunes have been built and squandered men have lived and died, loved and hated, gone hungry and dressed their women in silks and furs.

The others, sockeye, humpback, cohoe, dog-salmon and masu, are smaller and of less interest to the angler, though some of them have great commercial value. The last-named is only found in the waters of Japan, but the rest occur in greater or less quantities in the rivers of Kamchatka, Alaska, British Columbia and Oregon.

Part of the time a small power boat swung to the mooring in the bay where the shining Arrow nosed to wind and tide in other days. He heard current talk among the fishermen concerning the Gowers. Gower himself was spending his time between the cottage and Folly Bay. The cannery opened five days in advance of the sockeye season on the Fraser.

He would sell the two hundred and dump more than that overboard. And the Fraser River canneries wonder why sockeye is getting scarce. My father used to rave about the waste. Criminal, he used to say." "When the fishermen were getting only ten cents apiece for sockeyes, salmon was selling at fifteen cents a pound tin," MacRae observed. "Oh, the canneries made barrels of money."

For another, I can still swing enough capital so they would hesitate about using pressure. You understand. I've got to make that Crow Harbor plant pay. I must have salmon to do so. I have to go outside my immediate territory to get them. If I could get enough blueback to keep full steam from the opening of the sockeye season until the coho run comes there's nothing to it.

I took the hint, and said no more of family matters, but talked of the fishing and the prospects of a good sockeye run this season. Afterwards, however, while I stood alone on deck watching the sun set over the rim of the Pacific, I felt a feathery touch on my arm. I turned to see Maarda, once more enveloped in her shawl, and holding two deck stools.

"No fisherman can get the prices you have had lately. No cannery can pack salmon at those prices. Sockeye, the finest canning salmon that swims in the sea, is bringing eighty cents on the Fraser. Bluebacks are sixty-five cents at Nanaimo, sixty at Cape Mudge, sixty at the Euclataws. "I can do a little better than that," MacRae hesitated a second.

Great had been the "run," and the sockeye season was almost over. For that reason I wondered many times why my old friend, the klootchman, had failed to make one of the fishing fleet. She was an indefatigable workwoman, rivalling her husband as an expert catcher, and all the year through she talked of little else but the coming run.

She was rejoicing that this little one should some time become one of the mothers of her race. We chatted over it a little longer and she gave me several playful "digs" about my own tribe thinking so much less of motherhood than hers, and so much more of battle and bloodshed. Then we drifted into talk of the sockeye and of the hyiu chickimin the Indians would get.