"You had a wallop on the head. You're all right now." He abandoned Mr. Skooglund for a moment and turned to the Wildcat. "Where's the dividend?" "Cap'n, how come?" "Come through with the clean up. You got enough watches and rings from them passengers to sink this craft." "Mebbe it's de bag." Convoyed by the swinging muzzle of the Sheriff's gun, the Wildcat dived again into the open hatch and returned presently with the jingling wheat sack swung about his shoulders. The Sheriff inspected the contents. "That's it." He turned to the Swede. "You able to walk?" It seemed that Mr. Skooglund could navigate on his hind legs. The fat bad actor still lay unconscious on the deck. The Wildcat had done a good job with the oar, and it took six buckets of water to bring the fat man out of his slumbers. The quartette preceded the Sheriff down the narrow gang plank to the bank. They made their way a mile upstream and came upon the Sheriff's horse, hitched fast to a cottonwood on the river bank. The Sheriff fired his revolver three times in the air. Half an hour later he yelled loudly, and an answering call came from the distance through the night. "That's the rest of the gang." The party was joined presently by half a dozen riders. Two hours later the Wildcat, heavily ironed, rode beside Mr. Skooglund in the smoking car of the train headed for The Dalles. Dawn was breaking as the Sheriff and his companions marched up the street from the station. Presently, in a cell apart from the rest of the world, the Wildcat heard the clanking of the heavy bolts which made the cell door a barrier. "Lady Luck, how come?" 6. Lady Luck was on the job. At eleven o'clock that morning the fat bad actor confessed, and in his confession the Wildcat was cleared. A Deputy brought a telegram to the Sheriff. The Sheriff read it. "Thousand dollars, hey? Looks to me like that nigger deserves the reward." The Sheriff was honest. "Fetch him in here." The Wildcat was hazed into the Sheriff's presence. "The railroad is paying a thousand dollars reward for roundin' up them two men. Maybe they'd got loose if you hadn't nailed that one in the head. I'll give you a letter to the Portland office and you can go down there and get your money." "Cap'n, yessuh. Hot dam! Fish always was lucky with me." Mr. Skooglund augmented the reward with a personal offer. "Any time you wanting a salmon fisk I give you one free." "Cap'n, suh, I sho' is much obliged, but if I neveh see a fish again, dat's twice too soon fo' me." CHAPTER XI The Wildcat felt noble. Against yesterday's clouds tomorrow's skies lay blue. The Sheriff's office at The Dalles was a comfortable place wherein to wait for the thousand-dollar reward which Lady Luck had showered down on her prodigal protege.