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 co