His friends, even including Skookum Charlie, left Pete where he lay. If a man killed his klootchman and then got pahtlum, or "blind-speechless-paralytic" on something cousin-german to methylated spirit, what could be done with him but let him alone till the police came for him by daylight? Don't forget, tilikums, that none of the officers of the law could come in Sawdust Shack-Town after dark. They would as soon have gone to Cloud Cuckoo Town. It was as much as their cabezas were worth, and that's a hard-wood truth, without knots or shakes. The last time a constable (under the influence of a good but uninstructed superior and some bad whisky) did go into Shack-Town after dark he stayed there in a pool of blood (or what would have been a pool but for the convenient sawdust) till it was broad daylight, and he took much patching-up before he got into running again. After dark we had it to ourselves, Whites, Reds, and all colours who were of the order of the Mill, or the disorder of it. The "bulls" or "cops" or "fingers," as hoboes say, kept order in the orderly uptown streets. Skookum "quit" and went home. So did Annawillee, whom Chihuahua hauled off as he was doubtful of her morals in the dark. But Annie, whose windpipe was exceedingly sore, went out several times and booted Pete in the ribs where he lay, as a kind of compensation or cough lozenge. However, she let up on him at last and went home to "pound her ear" in the sleep of the just and virtuous. It never even occurred to her that Pete didn't know anything whatsoever about Quin being the man who had kapsuallowed or stolen his dear Jenny. Everybody else knew, Chinamen, Swedes, Lapps, Letts, Finns, Spaniards and a number of whites of the rougher kind who camped in Shack-Town. I knew myself. But the man who ought to have known didn't. It was a sign that life is the same everywhere. Pete woke up before dawn, as it seems to be a revenge of nature to make drunken men wake when they can't find a drink, and when he woke he hadn't the remotest notion of what had happened to him. He knew that he had a thirst on him of a miraculous intensity, and when he moved he was aware that he had a pain in his side which almost made him forget his thirst. For Annie wore a man's shoes, with heavy soles to them. And when a man is helpless and his ribs open even a woman's kicks can do mischief. "Oh," said Pete, "ah!" He rolled over and groaned, poor devil. And, just as the secret dawn began to flame, so the red deeds of the night before began to come up to him. He sat up and his jaw fell. "Ah," said Pete, "I tink I--I kill Jenny!"