"Dat sho' tamed you. Is yo' insides hot?"
The Mud Turtle's only reply was a sudden stiffening of his right leg, followed a second later by a similar movement with his left. His right arm extended violently; then the ham-sized fist on the end of his left arm went through the plate glass window beside him. He leaped to the centre of the smoking compartment. For a moment he danced on both feet, and then he began to stage a movement compared to which a cyclone was only a boy's-size disturbance. He combined the activity of a whirling dervish with the technique of an earthquake.
The Wildcat retreated to the safety of the tapestry curtain which hung in the doorway. There for a little while he conducted an innocent bystander business, which presently ended in disaster. Up to the moment, the Mud Turtle had been silent, but now from his throat came a yelp which drowned the rattle of the train.
The Wildcat sought to calm him down. "How come? Boy, git tame. You'll wake de white folks in dis car an' dey'll massacre you. Shut up befo' dey gits you."
The Mud Turtle's only answer was a renewed succession of yells. Suddenly he stopped short where he stood, and for a space of minutes he regarded his companion with a pair of glassy eyes under whose hypnotic spell the Wildcat began to shrivel.
"Don' look dat way. You's got de graveyard eye. You took too much hoof oil," he said weakly. "Lemme put 'at blanket 'roun' you." He took one step towards the centre of the compartment, and on the instant the Mud Turtle leaped at him.
The Wildcat had been in many a ruckus abroad and at home, but home was never like this, and the worst he saw in France was a busy time at Château Thierry. This was different trouble and worse. The Wildcat abandoned his tactics of fair fighting. He kicked and struck wildly at the Mud Turtle without effect. He despaired of conquering the tornado which writhed on the floor beside him. Then he succeeded in obtaining the blanket in which the Mud Turtle had been wrapped. He manœuvered for three seconds and threw a hitch around the Mud Turtle's neck and another one around his leg. An instant later the whirlwind was trussed up and confined with a hard square knot.
The Mud Turtle's yells gave place to a series of snarling grunts, punctuated now and then with the yowling scream invented some years back by the female panther. The Wildcat secured a folded towel from the rack above his head, and in a moment the panther was muffled. The victor stood panting for a little while, gazing at the conquest which still writhed and rolled on the floor.
The Wildcat reached for the empty bottle and inspected five or six drops of liquid which remained in it. "Hoof oil, you sho' is double dynamite. Rabbi juice, I saves you. Mebbe sometime I meets up wid a army whut starts a ruckus wid me. Den I'll 'sorb two drops an' win de battle."
He replaced the cork in the bottle and stowed it carefully in his pocket. "Does I need to I figger dat wid fo' drops ob dis hoof oil I kin conquer de worl'."