Smoke Bellew - Jack London (best summer reads of all time .txt) 📗

poke. When I cough up ten bucks an egg I want to know what I’m gettin’.”

“If you don’t like it, I’ll eat it,” Shorty volunteered maliciously.

Wild Water looked and smelled and shook his head. “No, you don’t, Shorty. That’s a good egg. Gimme a pail. I’m goin’ to eat it myself for supper.”

Thrice again Wild Water cracked good eggs experimentally and put them in the pail beside him.

“Two more than you figgered, Shorty,” he said at the end of the count. “Nine hundred an’ sixty-four, not sixty-two.”

“My mistake,” Shorty acknowledged handsomely. “We’ll throw ‘em in for good measure.”

“Guess you can afford to,” Wild Water accepted grimly. “Pass the batch. Nine thousan’ six hundred an’ twenty dollars. I’ll pay for it now. Write a receipt, Smoke.”

“Why not count the rest,” Smoke suggested, “and pay all at once?”

Wild Water shook his head. “I’m no good at figgers. One batch at a time an’ no mistakes.”

Going to his fur coat, from each of the side pockets he drew forth two sacks of dust, so rotund and long that they resembled bologna sausages. When the first batch had been paid for, there remained in the gold-sacks not more than several hundred dollars.

A soap-box was carried to the table, and the count of the three thousand began. At the end of one hundred, Wild Water struck an egg sharply against the edge of the table. There was no crack. The resultant sound was like that of the striking of a sphere of solid marble.

“Frozen solid,” he remarked, striking more sharply.

He held the egg up, and they could see the shell powdered to minute fragments along the line of impact.

“Huh!” said Shorty. “It ought to be solid, seein’ it has just been freighted up from Forty Mile. It’ll take an ax to bust it.”

“Me for the ax,” said Wild Water.

Smoke brought the ax, and Wild Water, with the clever hand and eye of the woodsman, split the egg cleanly in half. The appearance of the egg’s interior was anything but satisfactory. Smoke felt a premonitory chill. Shorty was more valiant. He held one of the halves to his nose.

“Smells all right,” he said.

“But it looks all wrong,” Wild Water contended. “An’ how can it smell when the smell’s frozen along with the rest of it? Wait a minute.”

He put the two halves into a frying-pan and placed the latter on the front lid of the hot stove. Then the three men, with distended, questing nostrils, waited in silence. Slowly an unmistakable odor began to drift through the room. Wild Water forbore to speak, and Shorty remained dumb despite conviction.

“Throw it out,” Smoke cried, gasping.

“What’s the good?” asked Wild Water. “We’ve got to sample the rest.”

“Not in this cabin.” Smoke coughed and conquered a qualm. “Chop them open, and we can test by looking at them. Throw it out, Shorty— Throw it out! Phew! And leave the door open!”

Box after box was opened; egg after egg, chosen at random, was chopped in two; and every egg carried the same message of hopeless, irremediable decay.

“I won’t ask you to eat ‘em, Shorty,” Wild Water jeered, “an’ if you don’t mind, I can’t get outa here too quick. My contract called for GOOD eggs. If you’ll loan me a sled an’ team I’ll haul them good ones away before they get contaminated.”

Smoke helped in loading the sled. Shorty sat at the table, the cards laid before him for solitaire.

“Say, how long you been holdin’ that corner?” was Wild Water’s parting gibe.

Smoke made no reply, and, with one glance at his absorbed partner, proceeded to fling the soap boxes out into the snow.

“Say, Shorty, how much did you say you paid for that three thousand?” Smoke queried gently.

“Eight dollars. Go ‘way. Don’t talk to me. I can figger as well as you. We lose seventeen thousan’ on the flutter, if anybody should ride up on a dog-sled an’ ask you. I figgered that out while waitin’ for the first egg to smell.”

Smoke pondered a few minutes, then again broke silence. “Say, Shorty. Forty thousand dollars gold weighs two hundred pounds. Wild Water borrowed our sled and team to haul away his eggs. He came up the hill without a sled. Those two sacks of dust in his coat pockets weighed about twenty pounds each. The understanding was cash on delivery. He brought enough dust to pay for the good eggs. He never expected to pay for those three thousand. He knew they were bad. Now how did he know they were bad? What do you make of it, anyway?”

Shorty gathered the cards, started to shuffle a new deal, then paused. “Huh! That ain’t nothin’. A child could answer it. We lose seventeen thousan’. Wild Water wins seventeen thousan’. Them eggs of Gautereaux’s was Wild Water’s all the time. Anything else you’re curious to know?”

“Yes. Why in the name of common sense didn’t you find out whether those eggs were good before you paid for them?”

“Just as easy as the first question. Wild Water swung the bunco game timed to seconds. I hadn’t no time to examine them eggs. I had to hustle to get ‘em here for delivery. An’ now, Smoke, lemme ask you one civil question. What did you say was the party’s name that put this egg corner idea into your head?”

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 tonight 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 finance 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’.”

“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. Bearskins, 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.”

“Then you ain’t buyin’ it for a town?”

“But Dwight Sanderson’s selling it for a town,” Smoke baffled. “Come on. We’ve got to climb this slide.”

The slide was steep, and a narrow trail zigzagged up it on a formidable Jacob’s ladder. Shorty moaned and groaned over the sharp corners and the steep pitches.

“Think of a town-site here. They ain’t a flat space big enough for a postage-stamp. An’ it’s the wrong side of the river. All the freightin’ goes the other way. Look at Dawson there. Room to spread for forty thousand more people.