Hootchinoo Bill swallowed. Never in his life had he dreamed of so rich a test-pan.
“Kind of thick, my friend,” he said huskily. “How much might you reckon that-all to be?”
Ans Handerson did not look up as he replied, “Ay tank fafty ounces.”
“You must be scrumptious rich, then, eh?”
Still Ans Handerson kept his head down, absorbed in putting in the fine touches which wash out the last particles of dross, though he answered, “Ay tank Ay ban wort’ five hundred t’ousand dollar.”
“Gosh!” said Hootchinoo Bill, and he said it reverently.
“Yes, Bill, gosh!” said Kink Mitchell; and they went out softly and closed the door.
THE ONE THOUSAND DOZEN
David Rasmunsen was a hustler, and, like many a greater man, a man of the one idea. Wherefore, when the clarion call of the North rang on his ear, he conceived an adventure in eggs and bent all his energy to its achievement. He figured briefly and to the point, and the adventure became iridescent-hued, splendid. That eggs would sell at Dawson for five dollars a dozen was a safe working premise. Whence it was incontrovertible that one thousand dozen would bring, in the Golden Metropolis, five thousand dollars.
On the other hand, expense was to be considered, and he considered it well, for he was a careful man, keenly practical, with a hard head and a heart that imagination never warmed. At fifteen cents a dozen, the initial cost of his thousand dozen would be one hundred and fifty dollars, a mere bagatelle in face of the enormous profit. And suppose, just suppose, to be wildly extravagant for once, that transportation for himself and eggs should run up eight hundred and fifty more; he would still have four thousand clear cash and clean when the last egg was disposed of and the last dust had rippled into his sack.