Smoke cast an incurious glance at the coarse gold, poured himself a cup of coffee at the fire, and sat down. Joy sensed something wrong and looked at him with eagerly solicitous eyes. Shorty, however, was disgruntled by his partner's lack of delight in the discovery.
“Why don't you kick in an' get excited?” he demanded. “We got our pile right here, unless you're stickin' up your nose at two-hundred-dollar pans.”
Smoke took a swallow of coffee before replying. “Shorty, why are our two claims here like the Panama Canal?”
“What's the answer?”
“Well, the eastern entrance of the Panama Canal is west of the western entrance, that's all.”
“Go on,” Shorty said. “I ain't seen the joke yet.”
“In short, Shorty, you staked our two claims on a big horseshoe bend.”
Shorty set the gold pan down in the snow and stood up. “Go on,” he repeated.
“The upper stake of 'twenty-eight' is ten feet below the lower stake of 'twenty-seven.'”
“You mean we ain't got nothin', Smoke?”