“I’ve got something better on hand,” Smoke answered.  “That’s why I was looking for you.  Come on along.”

“Now?”

“Sure.”

“Where to?”

“Across the river to make a call on old Dwight Sanderson.”

“Never heard of him,” Shorty said dejectedly.  “An’ never heard of no one living across the river anyway.  What’s he want to live there for?  Ain’t he got no sense?”

“He’s got something to sell,” Smoke laughed.

“Dogs?  A gold-mine?  Tobacco?  Rubber boots?”

Smoke shook his head to each question.  “Come along on and find out, because I’m going to buy it from him on a spec, and if you want you can come in half.”

“Don’t tell me it’s eggs!” Shorty cried, his face twisted into an expression of facetious and sarcastic alarm.

“Come on along,” Smoke told him.  “And I’ll give you ten guesses while we’re crossing the ice.”

They dipped down the high bank at the foot of the street and came out upon the ice-covered Yukon.  Three-quarters of a mile away, directly opposite, the other bank of the stream uprose in precipitous bluffs hundreds of feet in height.  Toward these bluffs, winding and twisting in and out among broken and upthrown blocks of ice, ran a slightly traveled trail.  Shorty trudged at Smoke’s heels, beguiling the time with guesses at what Dwight Sanderson had to sell.

“Reindeer?  Copper-mine or brick-yard?  That’s one guess.  Bear-skins, or any kind of skins?  Lottery tickets?  A potato-ranch?”

“Getting near it,” Smoke encouraged.  “And better than that.”

“Two potato-ranches?  A cheese-factory?  A moss-farm?”

“That’s not so bad, Shorty.  It’s not a thousand miles away.”

“A quarry?”

“That’s as near as the moss-farm and the potato-ranch.”

“Hold on.  Let me think.  I got one guess comin’.”  Ten silent minutes passed.  “Say, Smoke, I ain’t goin’ to use that last guess.  When this thing you’re buyin’ sounds like a potato-ranch, a moss-farm, and a stone-quarry, I quit.  An’ I don’t go in on the deal till I see it an’ size it up.  What is it?”

“Well, you’ll see the cards on the table soon enough.  Kindly cast your eyes up there.  Do you see the smoke from that cabin?  That’s where Dwight Sanderson lives.  He’s holding down a town-site location.”

“What else is he holdin’ down?”

“That’s all,” Smoke laughed.  “Except rheumatism.  I hear he’s been suffering from it.”

“Say!” Shorty’s hand flashed out and with an abrupt shoulder grip brought his comrade to a halt.  “You ain’t telling me you’re buyin’ a town-site at this fallin’-off place?”

“That’s your tenth guess, and you win.  Come on.”

“But wait a moment,” Shorty pleaded.  “Look at it—­nothin’ but bluffs an’ slides, all up-and-down.  Where could the town stand?”

“Search me.”