Shorty groaned.
Again came an interval of drumming and of tra-loo-ing and tra-lee-ing.
“You ain't no fool,” Sanderson announced to Smoke. “You said if it wasn't worth a hundred thousand it wasn't worth ten cents. Yet you offer five thousand for it. Then it IS worth a hundred thousand.”
“You can't make twenty cents out of it,” Smoke replied heatedly. “Not if you stayed here till you rot.”
“I'll make it out of you.”
“No, you won't.”
“Then I reckon I'll stay an' rot,” Sanderson answered with an air of finality.
He took no further notice of his guests, and went about his culinary tasks as if he were alone. When he had warmed over a pot of beans and a slab of sour-dough bread, he set the table for one and proceeded to eat.
“No, thank you,” Shorty murmured. “We ain't a bit hungry. We et just before we come.”
“Let's see your papers,” Smoke said at last. Sanderson fumbled under the head of his bunk and tossed out a package of documents. “It's all tight and right,” he said. “That long one there, with the big seals, come all the way from Ottawa. Nothing territorial about that. The national Canadian government cinches me in the possession of this town-site.”