'd seen the
last of you."

"Now what is your lowest figure?" Smoke asked.

"Twenty thousand."

"I'll give you ten thousand."

"All right, I'll sell at that figure. It's all I wanted in the first
place. But when will you pay the dust over?"

"To-morrow, at the Northwest Bank. But there are two other things I want
for that ten thousand. In the first place, when you receive your money
you pull down the river to Forty Mile and stay there the rest of the
winter."

"That's easy. What else?"

"I'm going to pay you twenty-five thousand, and you rebate me fifteen of
it."

"I'm agreeable." Sanderson turned to Shorty. "Folks said I was a fool
when I come over here an' town-sited," he jeered. "Well, I'm a ten
thousand dollar fool, ain't I?"

"The Klondike's sure full of fools," was all Shorty could retort, "an'
when they's so many of 'em some has to be lucky, don't they?"

Next morning the legal transfer of Dwight Sanderson's town-site was
made--"henceforth to be known as the town-site of Tra-Lee," Smoke
incorporated in the deed. Also, at the Northwest Bank, twenty-five
thousand of Smoke's gold was weighed out by the cashier, while half
a dozen casual onlookers noted the weighing, the amount, and the
recipient.

In a mining-camp all men are suspicious. Any untoward act of any man is
likely to be the cue to a secret gold strike, whether the untoward
act be no more than a hunting trip for moose or a stroll after dark to
observe the aurora borealis. And when it became known that so prominent
a figure as Smoke Bellew had paid twenty-five thousand dollars to old
Dwight Sanderson, Dawson wanted to know what he had paid it for. What
had Dwight Sanderson, starving on his abandoned town-site, ever owned
that was worth twenty-five thousand? In lieu of an answer, Dawson was
justified in keeping Smoke in feverish contemplation.

By mid-afternoon it was common knowledge that several score of men had
made up light stampeding-packs and cached them in the convenient saloons
along Main Street. Wherever Smoke moved, he was the observed of many
eyes. And as proof that he was taken seriously, not one man of the many
of his acquaintance had the effrontery to ask him about his deal with
Dwight Sanderson. On the other hand, no one mentioned eggs to Smoke.
Shorty was under similar surveillance and delicacy of friendliness.

"Makes me feel like I'd killed somebody, or had smallpox, the way they
watch me an' seem afraid to speak," Shorty c