Chapter XXI. A Hand in the Dark

While they were talking a tug-boat towing a pile-driver came into view. Boyd asked the meaning of its presence in this part of the river.

"I don't know," answered Big George, staring intently. "Yonder looks like another one behind it, with a raft of piles."

"I thought all the Company traps were up-stream."

"So they are. I can't tell what they're up to."

A half-hour later, when the new flotilla had come to anchor a short distance below, Emerson's companion began to swear.

"I might have known it."

"What?"

"Marsh aims to 'cork' us."

"What is that?"

"He's going to build a trap on each side of this one and cut off our fish."

"Good Lord! Can he do that?"

"Sure. Why not? The law gives us six hundred yards both ways. As long as he stays outside of that limit he can do anything he wants to."

"Then of what use is our trap? The salmon follow definite courses close to the shore, and if he intercepts them before they reach us--why, then we'll get only what he lets through."

"That's his plan," said Big George, sourly, "It's an old game, but it don't always work. You can't tell what salmon will do till they do it. I've studied this point of land for five years, and I know more about it than anybody else except God 'lmighty. If the fish hug the shore, then we're up against it, but I think they strike in about here; that's why I chose this site. We can't tell, though, till the run starts. All we can do now is see that them people keep their distance."

The "lead" of a salmon-trap consists of a row of web-hung piling that runs out from the shore for many hundred feet, forming a high, stout fence that turns the schools of fish and leads them into cunningly contrived enclosures, or "pounds," at the outer extremity, from which they are "brailed" as needed. These corrals are so built that once the fish are inside they cannot escape. The entire structure is devised upon the principle that the salmon will not make a short turn, but will swim as nearly as possible in a straight line. It looked to Boyd as if Marsh, by blocking the line of progress above and below, had virtually destroyed the efficiency of the new trap, rendering the cost of its construction a total loss.

"Sometimes you can cork a trap and sometimes you can't," Balt went on. "It all depends on the currents, the lay of the bars, and a lot of things we don't know nothing about. I've spent years in trying to locate the point where them fish strike in, and I think it's just below here. It'll all depend on how good I guessed."

"Exactly! And if you guessed wrong--"

"Then we'll fish with nets, like we used to before there was