“He'll be here,” Smoke asserted with conviction. “He's a born gambler, and when Breck whispers the tip to him not even heart disease would stop him.” Within the hour came a knock at the door, and Wild Water entered, followed by Bill Saltman. Their eyes swept the cabin eagerly, coming to rest on the windlass elaborately concealed by blankets. “But suppose I did want to vote twelve hundred shares,” Wild Water was arguing half an hour later. “With the other five thousand sold to-day it'd make only sixty-two hundred shares. That'd leave you and Shorty with sixty-three hundred. You'd still control.” “But what d' you want with all that of a town-site?” Shorty queried. “You can answer that better 'n me,” Wild Water replied. “An' between you an' me,” his gaze drifted over the blanket-draped windlass, “it's a pretty good-looking town-site.” “But Bill wants some,” Smoke said grudgingly, “and we simply won't part with more than five hundred shares.” “How much you got to invest?” Wild Water asked Saltman. “Oh, say five thousand. It was all I could scare up.” “Wild Water,” Smoke went on, in the same grudging, complaining voice, “if I didn't know you so well, I wouldn't sell you a single besotted share. And, anyway, Shorty and I won't part with more than five hundred, and they'll cost you fifty dollars apiece. That's the last word, and if you don't like it, good-night. Bill can take a hundred and you can have the other four hundred.” Next day Dawson began its laugh. It started early in the morning, just after daylight, when Smoke went to the bulletin-board outside the A. C. Company store and tacked up a notice. Men gathered and were reading and snickering over his shoulder ere he had driven the last tack. Soon the bulletin-board was crowded by hundreds who could not get near enough to read. Then a reader was appointed by acclamation, and thereafter, throughout the day, many men were acclaimed to read in loud voice the notice Smoke Bellew had nailed up. And there were numbers of men who stood in the snow and heard it read several times in order to memorize the succulent items that appeared in the following order: The Tra-Lee Town-Site Company keeps its accounts on the wall. This is its first account and its last. Any shareholder who objects to donating ten dollars to the Dawson General Hospital may obtain his ten dollars on personal application to Wild Water Charley, or, failing that, will absolutely obtain it on application to Smoke Bellew. MONEYS RECEIVED AND DISBURSED