nd by a single black-and-blue mark on
the other side.

Next, Smoke and Shorty together invaded Wentworth's cabin, throwing him
out in the snow while they turned the interior upside down. Laura Sibley
hobbled in and frantically joined them in the search.

"You don't get none, old girl, not if we find a ton," Shorty assured
her.

But she was no more disappointed than they. Though the very floor was
dug up, they discovered nothing.

"I'm for roastin' him over a slow fire an' make 'm cough up," Shorty
proposed earnestly.

Smoke shook his head reluctantly.

"It's murder," Shorty held on. "He's murderin' all them poor geezers
just as much as if he knocked their brains out with an ax, only worse."

Another day passed, during which they kept a steady watch on Wentworth's
movements. Several times, when he started out, water-bucket in hand, for
the creek, they casually approached the cabin, and each time he hurried
back without the water.

"They're cached right there in his cabin," Shorty said. "As sure as God
made little apples, they are. But where? We sure overhauled it plenty."
He stood up and pulled on his mittens. "I'm goin' to find 'em, if I have
to pull the blame shack down a log at a time."

He glanced at Smoke, who, with an intent, absent face, had not heard
him.

"What's eatin' you?" Shorty demanded wrathfully. "Don't tell me you've
gone an' got the scurvy!"

"Just trying to remember something, Shorty."

"What?"

"I don't know. That's the trouble. But it has a bearing, if only I could
remember it."

"Now you look here, Smoke; don't you go an' get bug-house," Shorty
pleaded. "Think of me! Let your think-slats rip. Come on an' help me
pull that shack down. I'd set her afire, if it wa'n't for roastin' them
spuds."

"That's it!" Smoke exploded, as he sprang to his feet. "Just what I was
trying to remember. Where's that kerosene-can? I'm with you, Shorty. The
potatoes are ours."

"What's the game?"

"Watch me, that's all," Smoke baffled. "I always told you, Shorty, that
a deficient acquaintance with literature was a handicap, even in the
Klondike. Now what we're going to do came out of a book. I read it when
I was a kid, and it will work. Come on."

Several minutes later, under a pale-gleaming, greenish aurora
borealis, the two men crept up to Amos Wentworth's cabin. Carefully
and noiselessly they poured kerosene over the logs, extra-drenching the
door-frame and window-sash. Then the match was appli