Gary had measured his man rather accurately, and his guess hit close to the mark. He slept late that morning, probably because he had lain awake until the morning star looked at him through the window. The sun was three hours high when he got up, and he loitered over his breakfast, gave Faith a severe talking to and fed her all the canned milk she would drink, so that she would not be teasing him for it later on when her insistence might be embarrassing. Faith was a methodical cat and a self-reliant cat. She loved her milk breakfast and her little talk with Gary afterward. Then she would head straight for the creek, cross it and go bounding away up the bluff. She always took the same direction, and Gary had sometimes wondered why. Of course, she hunted birds and kangaroo rats and mice; she
