To show his indifference he drummed with his knobby knuckles on the table and stared at the coffee-pot.  A minute later he began to hum a monotonous “Tra-la-loo, tra-la-lee, tra-la-lee, tra-la-loo.”

“Now look here, Mr. Sanderson,” said Smoke.  “This town-site isn’t worth ten thousand.  If it was worth that much it would be worth a hundred thousand just as easily.  If it isn’t worth a hundred thousand—­and you know it isn’t—­then it isn’t worth ten cents.”

Sanderson drummed with his knuckles and hummed, “Tra-la-loo, tra-la-lee,” until the coffee-pot boiled over.  Settling it with a part cup of cold water, and placing it to one side of the warm hearth, he resumed his seat.  “How much will you offer?” he asked of Smoke.

“Five thousand.”

Shorty groaned.

Again came an interval of drumming and of tra-loo-ing and tra-lee-ing.

“You ain’t no fool,” Sanderson announced to Smoke.  “You said if it wasn’t worth a hundred thousand it wasn’t worth ten cents.  Yet you offer five thousand for it.  Then it is worth a hundred thousand.”

“You can’t make twenty cents out of it,” Smoke replied heatedly.  “Not if you stayed here till you rot.”

“I’ll make it out of you.”

“No, you won’t.”

“Then I reckon I’ll stay an’ rot,” Sanderson answered with an air of finality.

He took no further notice of his guests, and went about his culinary tasks as if he were alone.  When he had warmed over a pot of beans and a slab of sour-dough bread, he set the table for one and proceeded to eat.

“No, thank you,” Shorty murmured.  “We ain’t a bit hungry.  We et just before we come.”

“Let’s see your papers,” Smoke said at last.  Sanderson fumbled under the head of his bunk and tossed out a package of documents.  “It’s all tight and right,” he said.  “That long one there, with the big seals, come all the way from Ottawa.  Nothing territorial about that.  The national Canadian government cinches me in the possession of this town-site.”

“How many lots you sold in the two years you’ve had it?” Shorty queried.

“None of your business,” Sanderson answered sourly.  There ain’t no law against a man living alone on his town-site if he wants to.”

“I’ll give you five thousand,” Smoke said.  Sanderson shook his head.

“I don’t know which is the craziest,” Shorty lamented.  “Come outside a minute, Smoke.  I want to whisper to you.”

Reluctantly Smoke yielded to his partner’s persuasions.

“Ain’t it never entered your head,” Shorty said, as they stood in the snow outside the door, “that they’s miles an’ miles of cliffs on both sides of this fool town-site that don’t belong to nobody an’ that you can have for the locatin’ and stakin’?”

“They won’t do,” Smoke answered.

“Why won’t they?”

“It makes you wonder, with all those miles and miles, why I’m buying this particular spot, doesn’t it?”