He accumulated a pile of firewood from the river bank, and presently a great fire was blazing. For an hour he gorged himself on smelt.
"Whuff! Sho's noble fish. Now I sees kin I sleep me."
The twinkling stars rattled in their orbits in cadence to the Wildcat's snores. Sufficient unto the night was the evil thereof. Here, except for a few sand fleas, was peace. The Wildcat snuggled deeper into the intimate environment of the sand about him. His lower jaw dropped, and his tongue lolled out less than a foot. Three or four mosquitoes landed on him and did a little boring, but the Wildcat slept on. Presently the halo of fish about him quit flopping. In the dark waters of the river's margin their myriad brethren fought their way upstream. The Wildcat mumbled in his sleep,
"Lady Luck sure done noble.
I sleeps mos' all de time.
I don' give a dog-gone
If de sun don't nevah shine."
2.
In the Cascades there had been berries enough for the bears and for the Indians. Now that the salmon run was heralded in the Columbia by the little fish scouts, all of the scattered members of the Flathead tribe not otherwise engaged coagulated from their several loafing grounds and headed for Memloose Island to pay their annual respects to the ghost of the King Salmon.
Included in the tribe were a few solid citizens. Some of these were college graduates. John Running Bear, better known to the business men of The Dalles as John Franklin, left his tailored clothes at home and painted his brown body with yellow ochre. He stained his arms and face with the tribal marks of his people. He drove in his twelve-cylinder car to a point near the upstream tip of Memloose Island, whereon the Flathead salmon dance was to be held. He parked his car in a thicket of willows.