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"To pick out a lot," Wild Water called back. "Look at the river. All Dawson's stampeding to buy lots, an' we're going to beat 'em to it for the choice. That's right, ain't it, Bill?" "Sure thing," Saltman corroborated. "This has the makin's of a Jim-dandy suburb, an' it sure looks like it'll be some popular."
We'll all come in." "You first, then," Smoke exclaimed, lurching into a clinch and tipping the other into deep snow beside the trail. Shorty hawed the dogs and swung the team to the south on the trail that led among the scattered cabins on the rolling slopes to the rear of Dawson. Smoke and Saltman, locked together, rolled in the snow.
Stop in your tracks, Bill, or I'll sure bore you!" Shorty thundered, drawing and leveling two Colt's forty-fours. "Step another step in your steps an' I let eleven holes through your danged ornery carcass. Get that?" Saltman stopped, perplexed. "He sure got me," Shorty mumbled to Smoke. "But if he goes on I'm up against it hard. I can't shoot. What'll I do?"
"An' between you an' me," his gaze drifted over the blanket-draped windlass, "it's a pretty good-looking town-site." "But Bill wants some," Smoke said grudgingly, "and we simply won't part with more than five hundred shares." "How much you got to invest?" Wild Water asked Saltman. "Oh, say five thousand. It was all I could scare up."
Smoke considered himself in gilt-edged condition, but Saltman outweighed him by fifty pounds of clean, trail-hardened muscle and repeatedly mastered him. Time and time again he got Smoke on his back, and Smoke lay complacently and rested. But each time Saltman attempted to get off him and get away, Smoke reached out a detaining, tripping hand that brought about a new clinch and wrestle.
What's a country residence good for, except for peace and quietness?" "You ain't answered the question," Bill Saltman came back with rigid logic. "And I'm not going to, Bill. That affair is peculiarly a personal affair between Dwight Sanderson and me. Any other question?" "How about that crowbar an' steel cable then, what you had on your sled the other night?"
Saltman said, stepping near enough for them to see the loom of his form. "Can't shake you, Bill, I see," Smoke replied cheerfully. "Where're your friends?" "Gone to have a drink. They left me to keep an eye on you, and keep it I will. What's in the wind anyway, Smoke? You can't shake us, so you might as well let us in. We're all your friends. You know that."
"Where are YOU bound?" Saltman demanded. "And who are you?" Smoke countered. "Committee of safety?" "Just interested, just interested," Saltman said. "You bet your sweet life we're interested," another voice spoke up out of the darkness. "Say," Shorty put in, "I wonder who's feelin' the foolishest?" Everybody laughed nervously.
And from then until four in the morning, at fifteen-minute intervals, the seeming of a bucket was hoisted on the windlass that creaked and ran around on itself and hoisted nothing. Then their visitors departed, and Smoke and Shorty went to bed. After daylight, Shorty examined the moccasin-marks. "Big Bill Saltman was one of them," he concluded. "Look at the size of it."
One of them stopped Smoke's lead-dog, and the rest clustered around. "Seen a sled goin' the other way?" was asked. "Nope," Smoke answered. "Is that you, Bill?" "Well, I'll be danged!" Bill Saltman ejaculated in honest surprise. "If it ain't Smoke!" "What are you doing out this time of night?" Smoke inquired. "Strolling?" Before Bill Saltman could make reply, two running men joined the group.
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