mells all right," he said.

"But it looks all wrong," Wild Water contended. "An' how can it smell
when the smell's frozen along with the rest of it? Wait a minute."

He put the two halves into a frying-pan and placed the latter on the
front lid of the hot stove. Then the three men, with distended, questing
nostrils, waited in silence. Slowly an unmistakable odor began to drift
through the room. Wild Water forbore to speak, and Shorty remained dumb
despite conviction.

"Throw it out," Smoke cried, gasping.

"What's the good?" asked Wild Water. "We've got to sample the rest."

"Not in this cabin." Smoke coughed and conquered a qualm. "Chop them
open, and we can test by looking at them. Throw it out, Shorty--Throw it
out! Phew! And leave the door open!"

Box after box was opened; egg after egg, chosen at random, was chopped
in two; and every egg carried the same message of hopeless, irremediable
decay.

"I won't ask you to eat 'em, Shorty," Wild Water jeered, "an' if you
don't mind, I can't get outa here too quick. My contract called for GOOD
eggs. If you'll loan me a sled an' team I'll haul them good ones away
before they get contaminated."

Smoke helped in loading the sled. Shorty sat at the table, the cards
laid before him for solitaire.

"Say, how long you been holdin' that corner?" was Wild Water's parting
gibe.

Smoke made no reply, and, with one glance at his absorbed partner,
proceeded to fling the soap boxes out into the snow.

"Say, Shorty, how much did you say you paid for that three thousand?"
Smoke queried gently.

"Eight dollars. Go 'way. Don't talk to me. I can figger as well as you.
We lose seventeen thousan' on the flutter, if anybody should ride up on
a dog-sled an' ask you. I figgered that out while waitin' for the first
egg to smell."

Smoke pondered a few minutes, then again broke silence. "Say, Shorty.
Forty thousand dollars gold weighs two hundred pounds. Wild Water
borrowed our sled and team to haul away his eggs. He came up the hill
without a sled. Those two sacks of dust in his coat pockets weighed
about twenty pounds each. The understanding was cash on delivery. He
brought enough dust to pay for the good eggs. He never expected to pay
for those three thousand. He knew they were bad. Now how did he know
they were bad? What do you make of it, anyway?"

Shorty gathered the cards, started to shuffle a new deal, then paused.
"Huh! That ain't nothin'. A child could answer it. We lose