“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. Bear-skins, or any kind of skins? Lottery tickets? A potato-ranch?”