The rest of the sentence was action and not words. On the echo of the shot from the fat bad actor's gun the Wildcat leaped automatically. He ran fast enough to sidestep two more shots that crashed into the night after him. The Hindoo passed him in the darkness. Down along the track the Wildcat's feet tore up great gobs of right-of-way. He passed the flagman, going like a brunet typhoon ten days overdue. After the first mile he began putting his feet down a little slower before he stepped on them. At the second mile his hind legs were dragging, and then suddenly, instead of the hard ground beneath his feet, there was nothing but a black void. He rolled a few times like a 'possum falling off a limb. He landed on the hard sand of the river bank. Night had fallen. "Lady Luck, here us is. Whah at is we?" The Wildcat curled up and went to sleep. He woke up five minutes later. "Sho' is peaceful. How come I's so thirsty?" Beside him the river offered him a solution to his thirst problems. On all fours he crawled to the river edge. He shoved his bow under the water and nearly sank himself absorbing as much of the Columbia river as could flow into his wide mouth. "Whuff! Sho' is noble water." The black rippling water before him was suddenly shot with silver. Then it became a solid glistening black. A school of smelt, seeking the quiet water of the bank, fought their way upstream. The Wildcat reached a tentative exploring paw into the stream of fish. "Fish, howdy. De table sho' is set. Come out heah." With his bare hands he snatched ashore a breakfast four sizes too big for his optimistic estimate of his stomach's capacity. "Quit floppin'. Ole Wilecat's done caught you." He felt for the box of Pullman matches in the pocket of his shirt, beneath the folds of the parade-leading Prince Albert. Here was food and a chance to sleep. With the Wildcat, all was well. He accumulated a pile of firewood from the river bank, and presently a great fire was blazing. For an hour he gorged himself on smelt. "Whuff! Sho's noble fish. Now I sees kin I sleep me." The twinkling stars rattled in their orbits in cadence to the Wildcat's snores. Sufficient unto the night was the evil thereof. Here, except for a few sand fleas, was peace. The Wildcat snuggled deeper into the intimate environment of the sand about him. His lower jaw dropped, and his tongue lolled out less than a foot. Three or four mosquitoes landed on him and did a little boring, but the Wildcat slept on. Presently the halo of fish about him quit flopping. In the dark waters of the river's margin their myriad brethren fought their way upstream. The Wildcat mumbled in his sleep, "Lady Luck sure done noble. I sleeps mos' all de time. I don' give a dog-gone If de sun don't nevah shine." 2.