“I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” Smoke said to Wentworth.  “I’ve got holdings in this country, and my paper is good anywhere.  I’ll give you five hundred dollars a potato up to fifty thousand dollars’ worth.  That’s one hundred potatoes.”

“Was that all the dust you had?” Wentworth queried.

“Shorty and I scraped up all we had.  But, straight, he and I are worth several millions between us.”

“I haven’t any potatoes,” Wentworth said finally.  “Wish I had.  That potato I gave you was the only one.  I’d been saving it all the winter for fear I’d get the scurvy.  I only sold it so as to be able to buy a passage out of the country when the river opens.”

Despite the cessation of potato-juice, the two treated cases continued to improve through the third day.  The untreated cases went from bad to worse.  On the fourth morning, three horrible corpses were buried.  Shorty went through the ordeal, then turned to Smoke.

“You’ve tried your way.  Now it’s me for mine.”

He headed straight for Wentworth’s cabin.  What occurred there, Shorty never told.  He emerged with knuckles skinned and bruised, and not only did Wentworth’s face bear all the marks of a bad beating, but for a long time he carried his head, twisted and sidling, on a stiff neck.  This phenomenon was accounted for by a row of four finger-marks, black and blue, on one side of the windpipe and by a single black-and-blue mark on the other side.

Next, Smoke and Shorty together invaded Wentworth’s cabin, throwing him out in the snow while they turned the interior upside down.  Laura Sibley hobbled in and frantically joined them in the search.

“You don’t get none, old girl, not if we find a ton,” Shorty assured her.

But she was no more disappointed than they.  Though the very floor was dug up, they discovered nothing.

“I’m for roastin’ him over a slow fire an’ make ’m cough up,” Shorty proposed earnestly.

Smoke shook his head reluctantly.

“It’s murder,” Shorty held on.  “He’s murderin’ all them poor geezers just as much as if he knocked their brains out with an ax, only worse.”

Another day passed, during which they kept a steady watch on Wentworth’s movements.  Several times, when he started out, water-bucket in hand, for the creek, they casually approached the cabin, and each time he hurried back without the water.

“They’re cached right there in his cabin,” Shorty said.  “As sure as God made little apples, they are.  But where?  We sure overhauled it plenty.”  He stood up and pulled on his mittens.  “I’m goin’ to find ’em, if I have to pull the blame shack down a log at a time.”

He glanced at Smoke, who, with an intent, absent face, had not heard him.

“What’s eatin’ you?” Shorty demanded wrathfully.  “Don’t tell me you’ve gone an’ got the scurvy!”

“Just trying to remember something, Shorty.”