"Them words sure sounds noble. How come you pester me talkin' voodoo talk?"
"After the feast the fires of sacrifice will be lighted. It is written that one of our number shall be burned at the stake."
To the Wildcat's ears this sounded homelike, but not reassuring.
"Lemme go! Lemme go!"
He leaped from the rock and plunged through the fringing skeletons. Running Bear and a dozen of his companions loped along after the Wildcat. The galloping party covered the length of the island. Running Bear and his companions deployed in open order, to permit the Wildcat to double on his trail; but that panic-stricken individual had fixed his course, and he sailed true to it.
He headed for a twenty-foot bank, and his racing legs did not stop until the swirling waters of the Columbia had closed heavily over them.
Running Bear, who had followed as swiftly as his civilized muscles would permit, gazed anxiously at the swimming Wildcat for a moment, to reassure himself of his victim's safety.
"Go to it," he commented. "You'll make the mile in nothing flat with that panic crawl." He watched the Wildcat until the current swept him around the bend downstream.
"He's safe," Running Bear commented. "On with the dance."
He resumed the redskin rôle of a distant yesterday.