They dipped down the high bank at the foot of the street and came out upon the ice-covered Yukon. Three-quarters of a mile away, directly opposite, the other bank of the stream uprose in precipitous bluffs hundreds of feet in height. Toward these bluffs, winding and twisting in and out among broken and upthrown blocks of ice, ran a slightly traveled trail. Shorty trudged at Smoke"s heels, beguiling the time with guesses at what Dwight Sanderson had to sell.
"Reindeer? Copper-mine or brick-yard? That"s one guess. Bear-skins, or any kind of skins? Lottery tickets? A potato-ranch?"
"Getting near it," Smoke encouraged. "And better than that."
"Two potato-ranches? A cheese-factory? A moss-farm?"
"That"s not so bad, Shorty. It"s not a thousand miles away."
"A quarry?"
"That"s as near as the moss-farm and the potato-ranch."
"Hold on. Let me think. I got one guess comin"." Ten silent minutes pa.s.sed. "Say, Smoke, I ain"t goin" to use that last guess. When this thing you"re buyin" sounds like a potato-ranch, a moss-farm, and a stone-quarry, I quit. An" I don"t go in on the deal till I see it an"
size it up. What is it?"
"Well, you"ll see the cards on the table soon enough. Kindly cast your eyes up there. Do you see the smoke from that cabin? That"s where Dwight Sanderson lives. He"s holding down a town-site location."
"What else is he holdin" down?"
"That"s all," Smoke laughed. "Except rheumatism. I hear he"s been suffering from it."
"Say!" Shorty"s hand flashed out and with an abrupt shoulder grip brought his comrade to a halt. "You ain"t telling me you"re buyin" a town-site at this fallin"-off place?"
"That"s your tenth guess, and you win. Come on."
"But wait a moment," Shorty pleaded. "Look at it--nothin" but bluffs an"
slides, all up-and-down. Where could the town stand?"
"Search me."
"Then you ain"t buyin" it for a town?"
"But Dwight Sanderson"s selling it for a town," Smoke baffled. "Come on.
We"ve got to climb this slide."
The slide was steep, and a narrow trail zigzagged up it on a formidable Jacob"s ladder. Shorty moaned and groaned over the sharp corners and the steep pitches.
"Think of a town-site here. They ain"t a flat s.p.a.ce big enough for a postage-stamp. An" it"s the wrong side of the river. All the freightin"
goes the other way. Look at Dawson there. Room to spread for forty thousand more people. Say, Smoke. You"re a meat-eater. I know that. An"
I know you ain"t buyin" it for a town. Then what in Heaven"s name are you buyin" it for?"
"To sell, of course."
"But other folks ain"t as crazy as old man Sanderson an" you."
"Maybe not in the same way, Shorty. Now I"m going to take this town-site, break it up in parcels, and sell it to a lot of sane people who live over in Dawson."
"Huh! All Dawson"s still laughing at you an" me an" them eggs. You want to make "em laugh some more, hey?"
"I certainly do."
"But it"s too danged expensive, Smoke. I helped you make "em laugh on the eggs, an" my share of the laugh cost me nearly nine thousan"
dollars."
"All right. You don"t have to come in on this. The profits will be all mine, but you"ve got to help me just the same."
"Oh, I"ll help all right. An" they can laugh at me some more. But nary a ounce do I drop this time.
"What"s old Sanderson holdin" it at? A couple of hundred?"
"Ten thousand. I ought to get it for five."
"Wisht I was a minister," Shorty breathed fervently.
"What for?"
"So I could preach the gosh-dangdest, eloquentest sermon on a text you may have hearn--to wit: a fool an" his money."
"Come in," they heard Dwight Sanderson yell irritably, when they knocked at his door, and they entered to find him squatted by a stone fireplace and pounding coffee wrapped in a piece of flour-sacking.
"What d"ye want?" he demanded harshly, emptying the pounded coffee into the coffee-pot that stood on the coals near the front of the fireplace.
"To talk business," Smoke answered. "You"ve a town-site located here, I understand. What do you want for it?"
"Ten thousand dollars," came the answer. "And now that I"ve told you, you can laugh, and get out. There"s the door. Good-by."
"But I don"t want to laugh. I know plenty of funnier things to do than to climb up this cliff of yours. I want to buy your town-site."
"You do, eh? Well, I"m glad to hear sense." Sanderson came over and sat down facing his visitors, his hands resting on the table and his eyes c.o.c.king apprehensively toward the coffee-pot. "I"ve told you my price, and I ain"t ashamed to tell you again--ten thousand. And you can laugh or buy, it"s all one to me."
To show his indifference he drummed with his k.n.o.bby knuckles on the table and stared at the coffee-pot. A minute later he began to hum a monotonous "Tra-la-loo, tra-la-lee, tra-la-lee, tra-la-loo."
"Now look here, Mr. Sanderson," said Smoke. "This town-site isn"t worth ten thousand. If it was worth that much it would be worth a hundred thousand just as easily. If it isn"t worth a hundred thousand--and you know it isn"t--then it isn"t worth ten cents."
Sanderson drummed with his knuckles and hummed, "Tra-la-loo, tra-la-lee," until the coffee-pot boiled over. Settling it with a part cup of cold water, and placing it to one side of the warm hearth, he resumed his seat. "How much will you offer?" he asked of Smoke.
"Five thousand."
Shorty groaned.
Again came an interval of drumming and of tra-loo-ing and tra-lee-ing.
"You ain"t no fool," Sanderson announced to Smoke. "You said if it wasn"t worth a hundred thousand it wasn"t worth ten cents. Yet you offer five thousand for it. Then it IS worth a hundred thousand."
"You can"t make twenty cents out of it," Smoke replied heatedly. "Not if you stayed here till you rot."
"I"ll make it out of you."