Now, loaded to capacity, the return run must be made swiftly. As the loaded boat moved off they stood at the deck rail, the old man and the young girl, shoulder to shoulder, looking down at the gleaming cargo.

“Silver,” Thor said. “Silver like that is the gold of Alaska today.” He flung his arm out in a gesture of exultation. “There it is, dear child! The silver that will pay for your years at Baranof College. But this catch is nothing compared to what they get in the salmon traps.”

“Do you ever use one?”

“No. No, Christine. Would you like to know why?” “I remember you said they were bad. But I kind of forget—–”

“Fishing traps are criminal, but they’re legal in Alaska, my dear. No state in the whole United States permits them.”

“Show me one.”

“I don’t think I can do that. It wouldn’t be wise for this boat of mine to go near one of the fish traps.”

Why? Why? Why? Why? Her brilliant face eager, her mind as absorbent of this somewhat dry factual story as that of a child listening to a fairy tale.

“Well, I’ll try to explain, not making too much of it, I’m busy. They’re wooden things, the fish traps, about a hundred feet long and maybe fifty wide, fastened to piles, or sometimes floating. The bottom of the wooden structure is sealed by netting. And fastened to that is what they call a lead, it’s hundreds of feet long, the lead, and sometimes thousands of feet, out at right angles from the shore. A webbing. Can you picture that in your mind?”

“Webbing,” she repeated, dutifully. “Like a great big tennis net?”

“Something like that, yes. Do you know what happens then?”

“The net catches the fish.”

“But it isn’t as simple as that. They put that webbing in waterways where they know the migrating fish will pass on their way to the spawning streams. Salmon are wonderful creatures, you know. No one understands why these noble fish live and die as they do, in nature.”

“Yes. Well?” The child saying go on, go on, though she was no child now.

“The webbing stops them, like a flexible wall, you see. They can’t go on. So then they turn outward, they sense they’d encounter the shore if they turned inward. They travel along the lead, thousands and millions of them, and they are led by this into a V-shaped opening, a wide one. But this wide opening leads into a second inner opening, and that’s V-shaped, too, and as they make their way, the V opening gets smaller and smaller, of course, until finally they’re into the tunnel and then into the big wooden trap that has a rope web floor that can be lifted up and out, and all those thousands of salmon dumped into the scow, and then they’re on their way to the cannery.”

“It sounds quite efficient and smart. Isn’t it all right? You’re catching salmon, too.”