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Updated: June 1, 2025
He's settled down with a squaw. Got two kids already, but he'll skin out if ever the chance opens up. See that low fire over there to the right? That's his camp." Apparently this was Smoke's appointed domicile, for his captors left him and his dogs, and went on deeper into the big camp. While he attended to his foot-gear and devoured strips of hot meat, Shorty cooked and talked.
The cold snap had broken. On top of their blankets lay six inches of frost crystals. "Good morning! how are your feet?" was Smoke's greeting across the ashes of the fire to where Joy Gastell, carefully shaking aside the snow, was sitting up in her sleeping-furs. Shorty built the fire and quarried ice from the creek, while Smoke cooked breakfast. Daylight came on as they finished the meal.
"And what I want to know is where we're going to camp to-night," Shorty said, staring disconsolately at the sky-line in the southwest, where the mid-afternoon twilight was darkening into night. "Let's follow the track up the creek," was Smoke's suggestion. "There's plenty of dead timber. We can camp any time."
Of course it hurts to get well, but I'm going to get you well." "Too late," Amos Wentworth sneered pallidly at Smoke's efforts. "They ought to have started in that way last fall." "Come along with me," Smoke answered. "Pick up those two pails. You're not ailing." From cabin to cabin the three men went, dosing every man and woman with a full pint of spruce-tea. Nor was it easy.
An' I'm in half on it! Put her there, Smoke. I'm that thankful I'm sure droolin' gratitude. At eleven that night Smoke was routed from sound sleep by Shorty, whose fur parka exhaled an atmosphere of keen frost and whose hand was extremely cold in its contact with Smoke's cheek. "What is it now?" Smoke grumbled. "Rest of Sally's hair fallen out?" "Nope. But I just had to tell you the good news.
"You might play them up to twenty a throw an' double your money," Shorty suggested. Wild Water shook his head sadly and helped himself to the beans. "That would be too expensive, Shorty. I only want a few. I'll give you ten dollars for a couple of dozen. I'll give you twenty but I can't buy 'em all." "All or none," was Smoke's ultimatum.
"Keep your mouth covered," Smoke commanded. A pervasive flashing of light from all about them drew Smoke's eyes upward to the many suns. They were shimmering and veiling. The air was filled with microscopic fire-glints. The near peaks were being blotted out by the weird mist; the young men, resolutely struggling nearer, were being engulfed in it.
"You can go some," Saltman acknowledged, panting at the end of ten minutes, as he sat astride Smoke's chest. "But I down you every time." "And I hold you every time," Smoke panted back. "That's what I'm here for, just to hold you. Where do you think Shorty's getting to all this time?" Saltman made a wild effort to go clear, and all but succeeded.
Smoke, at the lower end of the table, reached over a player, and blindly tossed the dollar. It slid along the smooth, green cloth and stopped fairly in the center of "34." The ball came to rest, and the game-keeper announced, "Thirty-four wins!" He swept the table, and alongside of Smoke's dollar, stacked thirty-five dollars. Smoke drew the money in, and Shorty slapped him on the shoulder.
A hideous, emaciated old woman sat in the darkest corner of the lodge rocking to and fro with pain and hiding her eyes from the light by pressing the palms of both hands against her face. At Smoke's command, she came forward, very unwillingly, and exhibited a pair of eyes that had nearly disappeared from excess of inflammation.
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