Shorty had lost the sixteenth consecutive game of solitaire, and Smoke was casting about to begin the preparation of supper, when Colonel Bowie knocked at the door, handed Smoke a letter, and went on to his own cabin.

“Did you see his face?” Shorty raved.  “He was almost bustin’ to keep it straight.  It’s the big ha! ha! for you an’ me, Smoke.  We won’t never dast show our faces again in Dawson.”

The letter was from Wild Water, and Smoke read it aloud: 

Dear Smoke and Shorty:  I write to ask, with compliments of the season, your presence at a supper to-night at Slavovitch’s joint.  Miss Arral will be there and so will Gautereaux.  Him and me was pardners down at Circle five years ago.  He is all right and is going to be best man.  About them eggs.  They come into the country four years back.  They was bad when they come in.  They was bad when they left California.  They always was bad.  They stopped at Carluk one winter, and one winter at Nutlik, and last winter at Forty Mile, where they was sold for storage.  And this winter I guess they stop at Dawson.  Don’t keep them in a hot room.  Lucille says to say you and her and me has sure made some excitement for Dawson.  And I say the drinks is on you, and that goes.

Respectfully your friend,
W. W.

“Well?  What have you got to say?” Smoke queried.  “We accept the invitation, of course?”

“I got one thing to say,” Shorty answered.  “An’ that is Wild Water won’t never suffer if he goes broke.  He’s a good actor—­a gosh-blamed good actor.  An’ I got another thing to say:  my figgers is all wrong.  Wild Water wins seventeen thousan’ all right, but he wins more ’n that.  You an’ me has made him a present of every good egg in the Klondike—­nine hundred an’ sixty-four of ’em, two thrown in for good measure.  An’ he was that ornery, mean cussed that he packed off the three opened ones in the pail.  An’ I got a last thing to say.  You an’ me is legitimate prospectors an’ practical gold-miners.  But when it comes to fi-nance we’re sure the fattest suckers that ever fell for the get-rich-quick bunco.  After this it’s you an’ me for the high rocks an’ tall timber, an’ if you ever mention eggs to me we dissolve pardnership there an’ then.  Get me?”

XI.  THE TOWN-SITE OF TRA-LEE

Smoke and Shorty encountered each other, going in opposite directions, at the corner where stood the Elkhorn saloon.  The former’s face wore a pleased expression, and he was walking briskly.  Shorty, on the other hand, was slouching along in a depressed and indeterminate fashion.

“Whither away?” Smoke challenged gaily.

“Danged if I know,” came the disconsolate answer.  “Wisht I did.  They ain’t nothin’ to take me anywheres.  I’ve set two hours in the deadest game of draw—­nothing excitin’, no hands, an’ broke even.  Played a rubber of cribbage with Skiff Mitchell for the drinks, an’ now I’m that languid for somethin’ doin’ that I’m perambulatin’ the streets on the chance of seein’ a dogfight, or a argument, or somethin’.”