At half past nine, with the booming drums of the parade sounding up the street, the shivering form of Dwindle Daniels was again sogged down to its original saturation point.
"Wilecat, I don' see how kin I make mah run to San F'mcisco."
"Yo' makes yo' run all right. Yo' dead-heads me, an' I does yo' work whilst yo' hangs out de front vegetable ob de car. Ol' wind dry yo' out sudden. Git ready fo' de gran' rush. Here's de head ob de parade."
The Wildcat threw back his head and bawled into the evening air: "Fried fish! Smelt fish! Here you is, two bits a pan!"
He lowered his head to gratify his curiosity concerning the technique of beating a bass drum. "Sho' craves 'at boy's job. Some day when I gits rich I buys me a bass drum. 'At drum bammer sho' swings a mean club."
"Fried fish! Smelt fishes! Two bits a pan!"
Following the band and leading the parade, heavily laden with a false dignity which had completely eradicated his spinal curvature, there appeared the rag-head Hindoo who had escaped with the Wildcat from the carload of undesirable aliens on the night of the train robbers' fiesta below The Dalles.
A little before the head of the parade reached the arc light under which the Wildcat and Dwindle Daniels had inaugurated their fish business, the Hindoo turned and raised his arms.
The parade stopped.
The rag-head signalled for his companions to come close about him.