“You’re in wrong, Shorty,” he said with cold deliberation.  “I’m not going to throw eggs at her.  Why, man,” he cried, with growing excitement, “I want to give them eggs to her, on a platter, shirred—­that’s the way she likes ’em.”

“I knowed I was wrong,” Shorty cried generously, “I knowed you couldn’t do a low-down trick like that.”

“That’s all right, Shorty,” Wild Water forgave him.  “But let’s get down to business.  You see why I want them eggs.  I want ’em bad.”

“Do you want ’em ninety-six hundred an’ twenty dollars’ worth?” Shorty queried.

“It’s a hold-up, that’s what it is,” Wild Water declared irately.

“It’s business,” Smoke retorted.  “You don’t think we’re peddling eggs for our health, do you?”

“Aw, listen to reason,” Wild Water pleaded.  “I only want a couple of dozen.  I’ll give you twenty apiece for ’em.  What do I want with all the rest of them eggs?  I’ve went years in this country without eggs, an’ I guess I can keep on managin’ without ’em somehow.”

“Don’t get het up about it,” Shorty counseled.  “If you don’t want ‘em, that settles it.  We ain’t a-forcin’ ’em on you.”

“But I do want ’em,” Wild Water complained.

“Then you know what they’ll cost you—­ninety-six hundred an’ twenty dollars, an’ if my figurin’s wrong, I’ll treat.”

“But maybe they won’t turn the trick,” Wild Water objected.  “Maybe Miss Arral’s lost her taste for eggs by this time.”

“I should say Miss Arral’s worth the price of the eggs,” Smoke put in quietly.

“Worth it!” Wild Water stood up in the heat of his eloquence.  “She’s worth a million dollars.  She’s worth all I’ve got.  She’s worth all the dust in the Klondike.”  He sat down, and went on in a calmer voice.  “But that ain’t no call for me to gamble ten thousand dollars on a breakfast for her.  Now I’ve got a proposition.  Lend me a couple of dozen of them eggs.  I’ll turn ’em over to Slavovitch.  He’ll feed ’em to her with my compliments.  She ain’t smiled to me for a hundred years.  If them eggs gets a smile for me, I’ll take the whole boiling off your hands.”

“Will you sign a contract to that effect?” Smoke said quickly; for he knew that Lucille Arral had agreed to smile.

Wild Water gasped.  “You’re almighty swift with business up here on the hill,” he said, with a hint of a snarl.

“We’re only accepting your own proposition,” Smoke answered.

“All right—­bring on the paper—­make it out, hard and fast,” Wild Water cried in the anger of surrender.

Smoke immediately wrote out the document, wherein Wild Water agreed to take every egg delivered to him at ten dollars per egg, provided that the two dozen advanced to him brought about a reconciliation with Lucille Arral.

Wild Water paused, with uplifted pen, as he was about to sign.  “Hold on,” he said.  “When I buy eggs I buy good eggs.”