The uplifter knew a bear trap when he saw it. He pillowed his rangy jaw on the comforting outlines of the lumpy treasure in the pocket of his vest, folded beneath his head. "Talk sure is cheap," he reflected. "Talk is cheap, but sometimes you can trade big words for big money." A violent snore answered him, and again hope mounted to his heart, but presently he realized that only one of his associates was sleeping. With the sleepers changing shifts every hour or so, the long night passed. By dawn Honey Tone was resolved to give his schemes a run for their money. You never could tell how a scheme might turn out; and the colonization business sounded pretty good, even to its overstressed inventor. CHAPTER XVIII 1. The convention of the Nobles of the Mysterious Mecca dwindled into the final stage that attends all conventions. Golf was eliminated, and business was the order of the day. The Mud Turtle left him; and thereafter the Wildcat suffered indirectly, being threatened with a resumption of his responsibility as porter on the special car that had brought the Chicago contingent west to San Francisco. A sense of restraint gradually killed off the wild free business of roaming the Lincoln Park golf course at so much per roam, eating heavy on the proceeds, and sleeping twelve hours a day. Arrayed in his yaller raiment, he sought the offices of the Pullman company and got confidential with the office boy. "I's de po'teh fo' de blue fezant boys--dis heah Mysterious Mecca business. Dey tells me us leaves fo' Chicago real soon. Ah jus' been down at de deepo lookin' fo' de cah. Whah at is dat cah? Me 'an Lily aims to git it swep' out befo' de gen'men comes." The office boy took the Wildcat's message to an inner office. Two minutes later the answer came back in the person of a gentleman who was trying to hold his temper. "You're fired! You started with your car in Chicago, left it in Wyoming, and here you are! Git out of here before I--" "Cap'n, yessuh!" The Wildcat knew a gesture when he saw it. He retreated, dragging his mascot goat a little too fast for Lily's comfort. "Goat, doggone you, whut fo' did you go A.W.O.L. an' git us bofe loose f'm dat railroad job? Heah us is wid only fo' bits, an' all yo' fault." Lily admitted the charge in a plaintive bleat which softened the harsh language which her master was bellowing at his mascot in the din of Market Street. Presently the Wildcat forgot the acute misery of not having any hard work staring him in the face. "Us has fo' bits. 'Ats mo' money dan mos' folks has. Lily, us eats. "I don't bother work, work don't bother me. I'se fo' times as happy as a bumble bee. Us eats when us kin git it, sleeps mos' all de time--"