"Rather early for a call," he observed. "What brings you across the river? Going hunting?"

"We're on, Smoke," Wild Water said confidentially. "An' you'd just as well come through. You've got something here."

"If you're looking for eggs--" Smoke began.

"Aw, forget it. We mean business."

"You mean you want to buy lots, eh?" Smoke rattled on swiftly. "There's some dandy building sites here. But, you see, we can't sell yet. We haven't had the town surveyed. Come around next week, Wild Water, and for peace and quietness, I'll show you something swell, if you're anxious to live over here. Next week, sure, it will be surveyed.

Good-by. Sorry I can't ask you inside, but Shorty--well, you know him.

He's peculiar. He says he came over for peace and quietness, and he's asleep now. I wouldn't wake him for the world."

As Smoke talked he shook their hands warmly in farewell. Still talking and shaking their hands, he stepped inside and closed the door.

They looked at each other and nodded significantly.

"See the knees of his pants?" Saltman whispered hoa.r.s.ely.

"Sure. An' his shoulders. He's been b.u.mpin' an' crawlin' around in a shaft." As Wild Water talked, his eyes wandered up the snow-covered ravine until they were halted by something that brought a whistle to his lips. "Just cast your eyes up there, Bill. See where I'm pointing? If that ain't a prospect-hole! An' follow it out to both sides--you can see where they tramped in the snow. If it ain't rim-rock on both sides I don't know what rim-rock is. It's a fissure vein, all right."

"An' look at the size of it!" Saltman cried. "They've got something here, you bet."

"An' run your eyes down the slide there--see them bluffs standin' out an' slopin' in. The whole slide's in the mouth of the vein as well."

"And just keep a-lookin' on, out on the ice there, on the trail,"

Saltman directed. "Looks like most of Dawson, don't it?"

Wild Water took one glance and saw the trail black with men clear to the far Dawson bank, down which the same unbroken string of men was pouring.

"Well, I'm goin' to get a look-in at that prospect-hole before they get here," he said, turning and starting swiftly up the ravine.

But the cabin door opened, and the two occupants stepped out.

"Hey!" Smoke called. "Where are you going?"

"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."

"Well, we're not selling lots over in that section where you're heading," Smoke answered. "Over to the right there, and back on top of the bluffs are the lots. This section, running from the river and over the tops, is reserved. So come on back."

"That's the spot we've gone and selected," Saltman argued.

"But there's nothing doing, I tell you," Smoke said sharply.

"Any objections to our strolling, then?" Saltman persisted.

"Decidedly. Your strolling is getting monotonous. Come on back out of that."

"I just reckon we'll stroll anyways," Saltman replied stubbornly. "Come on, Wild Water."

"I warn you, you are trespa.s.sing," was Smoke's final word.

"Nope, just strollin'," Saltman gaily retorted, turning his back and starting on.

"Hey! 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 carca.s.s. 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?"

"Look here, Shorty, listen to reason," Saltman begged.

"Come here to me an' we'll talk reason," was Shorty's retort.

And they were still talking reason when the head of the stampede emerged from the zigzag trail and came upon them.

"You can't call a man a trespa.s.ser when he's on a town-site lookin' to buy lots," Wild Water was arguing, and Shorty was objecting: "But they's private property in town-sites, an' that there strip is private property, that's all. I tell you again, it ain't for sale."

"Now we've got to swing this thing on the jump," Smoke muttered to Shorty. "If they ever get out of hand--"

"You've sure got your nerve, if you think you can hold them," Shorty muttered back. "They's two thousan' of 'em an' more a-comin'. They'll break this line any minute."

The line ran along the near rim of the ravine, and Shorty had formed it by halting the first arrivals when they got that far in their invasion.

In the crowd were half a dozen Northwest policemen and a lieutenant.

With the latter Smoke conferred in undertones.

"They're still piling out of Dawson," he said, "and before long there will be five thousand here. The danger is if they start jumping claims.

When you figure there are only five claims, it means a thousand men to a claim, and four thousand out of the five will try to jump the nearest claim. It can't be done, and if it ever starts, there'll be more dead men here than in the whole history of Alaska. Besides, those five claims were recorded this morning and can't be jumped. In short, claim-jumping mustn't start."

"Right-o," said the lieutenant. "I'll get my men together and station them. We can't have any trouble here, and we won't have. But you'd better get up and talk to them."

"There must be some mistake, fellows," Smoke began in a loud voice.

"We're not ready to sell lots. The streets are not surveyed yet. But next week we shall have the grand opening sale."

He was interrupted by an outburst of impatience and indignation.

"We don't want lots," a young miner cried out. "We don't want what's on top of the ground. We've come for what's under the ground."

"We don't know what we've got under the ground," Smoke answered. "But we do know we've got a fine town-site on top of it."

"Sure," Shorty added. "Grand for scenery an' solitude. Folks lovin'

solitude come a-flockin' here by thousands. Most popular solitude on the Yukon."

Again the impatient cries arose, and Saltman, who had been talking with the later comers, came to the front.

"We're here to stake claims," he opened. "We know what you've did--filed a string of five quartz claims on end, and there they are over there running across the town-site on the line of the slide and the canyon.

Only you misplayed. Two of them entries is fake. Who is Seth Bierce? No one ever heard of him. You filed a claim this mornin' in his name. An'

you filed a claim in the name of Harry Maxwell. Now Harry Maxwell ain't in the country. He's down in Seattle. Went out last fall. Them two claims is open to relocation."