by extreme deliberation. He closed the salve-box, wiped his hands slowly and thoroughly on Sally's furry coat, stood up, went over to the corner and looked at the thermometer, and came back again. He spoke in a low, toneless, and super-polite voice.
'Do you mind kindly just repeating over how many eggs you said the man didn't sell to you?' he asked.
'Twenty-eight.'
'Hum,' Shorty communed to himself, with a slight duck of the head of careless acknowledgment. Then he glanced with slumbering anger at the stove. 'Smoke, we'll have to dig up a new stove. That fire-box is burned plumb into the oven so it blacks the biscuits.'
'Let the fire-box alone,' Smoke commanded, 'and tell me what's the matter.'
'Matter? An' you want to know what's the matter? Well, kindly please direct them handsome eyes of yourn at that there pail settin' on the table. See it?'
Smoke nodded.
'Well, I want to tell you one thing, just one thing. They's just exactly, preecisely, nor nothin' more or anythin' less'n twenty-eight eggs in the pail, an' they cost, every danged last one of 'em, just exactly seven great big round iron dollars a throw. If you stand in cryin' need of any further items of information, I'm willin' and free to impart.'
'Go on,' Smoke requested.
'Well, that geezer you was dickerin' with is a big buck Indian. Am I right?'
Smoke nodded, and continued to nod to each question.
'He's got one cheek half gone where a bald-face grizzly swatted him. Am I right? He's a dog-trader — right, eh? His name is Scar-Face Jim. That's so, ain't it? D'ye get my drift?'
'You mean we've been bidding — ?'
'Against each other. Sure thing. That squaw's his wife, an' they keep house on the hill back of the hospital. I could 'a' got them eggs for two a throw if you hadn't butted in.'
'And so could I,' Smoke laughed, 'if you'd kept out, blame you! But it doesn't amount to anything. We know that we've got the corner. That's the big thing.'
Shorty spent the next hour wrestling with a stub of a pencil on the margin of a three-year-old newspaper, and the more interminable and hieroglyphic grew his figures the more cheerful he became.
'There she stands,' he said at last. 'Pretty? I guess yes. Lemme give you the totals. You an' me has right now in our possession exactly nine hundred an' seventy-three eggs. They cost us exactly two thousand, seven hundred an' sixty dollars, reckonin' dust at sixteen an ounce an' not countin' time. An' now listen to me. If we stick up Wild Water for ten dollars a egg we stand to win, clean net an' all to the good, just exactly six thousand nine hundred and seventy dollars. Now that's a book-makin' what is, if anybody should ride up on a dog-sled an' ask you. An' I'm in half on it! Put her there, Smoke. I'm that thankful I'm sure droolin' gratitude. Book-makin'! Say, I'd sooner run with the chicks than the ponies any day.'
At eleven that night Smoke was routed from sound sleep by Shorty, whose fur parka exhaled an atmosphere of keen frost and whose hand was extremely cold in its contact with Smoke's cheek.
'What is it now?' Smoke grumbled. 'Rest of Sally's hair fallen out?'
'Nope. But I just had to tell you the good news. I seen Slavovitch. Or Slavovitch seen me, I guess, because he started the seance. He says to me: 'Shorty, I want to speak to you about them eggs. I've kept it quiet. Nobody knows I sold 'em to you. But if you're speculatin', I can put you wise to a good thing.' An' he did, too, Smoke. Now what'd you guess that good thing is?'
'Go on. Name it.'
'Well, maybe it sounds incredible, but that good thing was Wild Water Charley. He's lookin' to buy eggs. He goes around to Slavovitch an' offers him five dollars an egg, an' before he quits he's offerin' eight. An' Slavovitch ain't got no eggs. Last thing Wild Water says to Slavovitch is that he'll beat the head offen him if he ever finds out Slavovitch has eggs cached away somewheres. Slavovitch had to tell 'm he'd sold the eggs, but that the buyer was secret.
'Slavovitch says to let him say the word to Wild Water who's got the eggs. 'Shorty,' he says to me, 'Wild Water'll come a-runnin'. You can hold him up for eight dollars.' 'Eight dollars, your grandmother,' I says. 'He'll fall for ten before I'm done with him.' Anyway, I told Slavovitch I'd think it over and let him know in the mornin'. Of course we'll let 'm pass the word on to Wild Water. Am I right?'
'You certainly are, Shorty. First thing in the morning tip off Slavovitch. Have him tell Wild Water that you and I are partners in the deal.'
Five minutes later Smoke was again aroused by Shorty.
'Say! Smoke! Oh, Smoke!'
'Yes?'
'Not a cent less than ten a throw. Do you get that?'
'Sure thing — all right,' Smoke returned sleepily.
In the morning Smoke chanced upon Lucille Arral again at the dry-goods counter of the A. C. Store.
'It's working,' he jubilated. 'It's working. Wild Water's been around to Slavovitch, trying to buy or bully eggs out of him. And by this time Slavovitch has told him that Shorty and I own the corner.'
Lucille Arral's eyes sparkled with delight. 'I'm going to breakfast right now,' she cried. 'And I'll ask the waiter for eggs, and be so plaintive when there aren't any as to melt a heart of stone. And you know Wild Water's been around to Slavovitch, trying to buy the corner if it costs him one of his mines. I know him. And hold out for a stiff figure. Nothing less than ten dollars will satisfy me, and if you sell for anything less, Smoke, I'll never forgive you.'
That noon, up in their cabin, Shorty placed on the table a pot of beans, a pot of coffee, a pan of sourdough biscuits, a tin of butter and a tin of condensed cream, a smoking platter of moose-meat and bacon, a plate of stewed dried peaches, and called: 'Grub's ready. Take a slant at Sally first.'
Smoke put aside the harness on which he was sewing, opened the door, and saw Sally and Bright spiritedly driving away a bunch of foraging sled-dogs that belonged to the next cabin. Also he saw something else that made him close the door hurriedly and dash to the stove. The frying-pan, still hot from the moose-meat and bacon, he put back on the front lid. Into the frying-pan he put a generous dab of butter, then reached for an egg, which he broke and dropped spluttering into the pan. As he reached for a second egg, Shorty gained his side and clutched his arm in an excited grip.
'Hey! What you doin'?' he demanded.
'Frying eggs,' Smoke informed him, breaking the second one and throwing off Shorty's detaining hand. 'What's the matter with your eyesight? Did you think I was combing my hair?'
'Don't you feel well?' Shorty queried anxiously, as Smoke broke a third egg and dexterously thrust him back with a stiff-arm jolt on the breast. 'Or are you just plain loco? That's thirty dollars' worth of eggs already.'
'And I'm going to make it sixty dollars' worth,' was the answer, as Smoke broke the fourth. 'Get out of the way, Shorty. Wild Water's coming up the hill, and he'll be here in five minutes.'
Shorty sighed vastly with commingled comprehension and relief, and sat down at the table. By the time the expected knock came at the door, Smoke was facing him across the table, and, before each, was a plate containing three hot, fried eggs.
'Come in!' Smoke called.
Wild Water Charley, a strapping young giant just a fraction of an inch under six feet in height and carrying a clean weight of one hundred and ninety pounds, entered and shook hands.
'Set down an' have a bite, Wild Water,' Shorty invited. 'Smoke, fry him some eggs. I'll bet he ain't scoffed an egg in a coon's age.'
Smoke broke three more eggs into the hot pan, and in several minutes placed them before his guest, who looked at them with so strange and strained an expression that Shorty confessed afterward his fear that Wild Water would slip them into his pocket and carry them away.
'Say, them swells down in the States ain't got nothin' over us in the matter of eats,' Shorty gloated. 'Here's you an' me an' Smoke gettin' outside ninety dollars' worth of eggs an' not battin' an eye.'
Wild Water stared at the rapidly disappearing eggs and seemed petrified.
'Pitch in an' eat,' Smoke encouraged.
'They — they ain't worth no ten dollars,' Wild Water said slowly.
