he in the wall, and from the
niche clear across the room and out of the window. About then I was some
nervous, and after a while lay down before the fire and tried to go to
sleep.

"It was a terrible night outside--one of those nights when you can hear
things; and with the vivid imagination I was enjoying then, I was almost
afraid to try to sleep. But just as I was going into a doze, I raised
up my head, and there was my cat walking up and down my frame, his back
arched and his tail flirting with the slow sinuous movement of a snake.
I reached for my gun, and as it clicked in cocking, he began raking my
legs, sharpening his claws and growling like a tiger. I gave a yell and
kicked him off, when he sprang up on the old table and I could see his
eyes glaring at me. I emptied my gun at him a second time, and at every
shot he crouched lower and crept forward as if getting ready to spring.
When I had fired the last shot I jumped up and ran out into the rain,
and hadn't gone more than a hundred yards before I fell into a dry wash.
When I crawled out there was that d----d cat rubbing himself against my
boot leg. I stood breathless for a minute, thinking what next to do, and
the cat remarked: 'Wasn't that a peach of a race we just had!'

"I made one or two vicious kicks at him and he again vanished. Well,
fellows, in that dream I walked around that old _jacal_ all night in my
shirt sleeves, and it raining pitchforks. A number of times I peeped in
through the window or door, and there sat the cat on the hearth, in full
possession of the shack, and me out in the weather. Once when I looked
in he was missing, but while I was watching he sprang through a hole
in the roof, alighting in the fire, from which he walked out gingerly,
shaking his feet as if he had just been out in the wet. I shot away
every cartridge I had at him, but in the middle of the shooting he would
just coil up before the fire and snooze away.

"That night was an eternity of torment to me, and I was relieved when
some one knocked on the door, and I awoke to find myself in a good bed
and pounding my ear on a goose-hair pillow in a hotel in Oakville. Why,
I wouldn't have another dream like that for a half interest in the Las
Palomas brand. No, honest, if I thought drinking gave me that hideous
dream, here would be one lad ripe for reform."

"It strikes me," said Uncle Lance, rising and lifting a pot lid, "that
these birds are parboiled by this time. Bring me a f