“How many lots you sold in the two years you've had it?” Shorty queried.
“None of your business,” Sanderson answered sourly. “There ain't no law against a man living alone on his town-site if he wants to.”
“I'll give you five thousand,” Smoke said. Sanderson shook his head.
“I don't know which is the craziest,” Shorty lamented. “Come outside a minute, Smoke. I want to whisper to you.”
Reluctantly Smoke yielded to his partner's persuasions.
“Ain't it never entered your head,” Shorty said, as they stood in the snow outside the door, “that they's miles an' miles of cliffs on both sides of this fool town-site that don't belong to nobody an' that you can have for the locatin' and stakin'?”
“They won't do,” Smoke answered.
“Why won't they?”
“It makes you wonder, with all those miles and miles, why I'm buying this particular spot, doesn't it?”
“It sure does,” Shorty agreed.