Page:The Columbia River - Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery Its Commerce.djvu/568

392 the fishermen will frequently become benumbed and drowsy, and will neglect the critical moment. When the tide fairly turns on the Bar it runs out like a mill race, and woe to the boat that waits too long. It goes out to sea, reappearing perhaps, bottom-up, in the course of the day, with owners and cargo gone. Some experienced men have asserted that not less than a hundred fishermen are lost every summer. Many boats are now fitted with gasoline power, and loss of life is lessened thereby.

To the visitor at the River's mouth the fairest sight of all in connection with the fishing industry is the incoming fleet of boats in the early morning, or the outgoing fleet of evening. On a June night it scarcely grows really dark at all, and as the faint glow of the north turns at two or three o'clock into the morning flush, the lateen sails can be seen like a flock of gulls on the rim of the ocean. When the full radiance of the dawn, with its bars of carmine and saffron, has "turned to yellow gold the salt-green streams," the fleet is within the outer headlands. Hundreds, sometimes thousands of them, a regular cloud of them, converge from all parts of the offing to the wharves of lower Astoria.

With all its benefits the fishing industry brings almost infinite trouble. The two States of Oregon and Washington never agree on laws governing the periods of lawful fishing. Sometimes Federal authorities bear a part in the imbroglio. Gill-net men, seiners, fish-trap men, union men, non-union men, local, State, and Federal officials, all combine in one great general mix-up. In the midst of the confusion the countless salmon pursue their course up the River and its