Another leaping salmon slapped the Wildcat with his tail.
"Don't kick me wid yo' tail. I'll bust you in de haid."
The Wildcat struck wildly at the offending salmon. He slipped and fell into a vast fighting mass of lively fish. He wrestled with fins and tails.
He called loudly for Captain Jack and for Lady Luck. Once he thought his call was answered, but for half an hour the Wildcat led an unstable slippery life. He sought a bed of inert fish, only to awaken five or six gasping demons who flopped upon him heavily. He reached in vain for the hatch coaming five feet above him.
Half erect and with the deck timbers almost in his grasp, time and again his feet slipped from the back of a wriggling salmon.
"Dog-gone you, stand still; get pacified." He hauled off and slammed a kick at a salmon which had tripped him.
"I'll bust you in de belly."
He landed with his equator submerged by nine nervous fish. He sought to embrace a giant salmon. The Chinook slapped at him with his tail.
"Don' kick me wid yo' tail. I'll bust you in de nose."
He swung wildly at the salmon and was completely submerged. He came snorting to the surface of the mass.