Smoke Bellew

“You can’t call a man a trespasser when he’s on a town-site lookin’ to buy lots,” Wild Water was arguing, and Shorty was objecting: “But they’s private property in town-sites, an’ that there strip is private property, that’s all. I tell you again, it ain’t for sale.”

“Now we’ve got to swing this thing on the jump,” Smoke muttered to Shorty. “If they ever get out of hand – ”

“You’ve sure got your nerve, if you think you can hold them,” Shorty muttered back. “They’s two thousan’ of ‘em an’ more a-comin’. They’ll break this line any minute.”

The line ran along the near rim of the ravine, and Shorty had formed it by halting the first arrivals when they got that far in their invasion. In the crowd were half a dozen Northwest policemen and a lieutenant. With the latter Smoke conferred in undertones.

“They’re still piling out of Dawson,” he said, “and before long there will be five thousand here. The danger is if they start jumping claims. When you figure there are only five claims, it means a thousand men to a claim, and four thousand out of the five will try to jump the nearest claim. It can’t be done, and if it ever starts, there’ll be more dead men here than in the whole history of Alaska. Besides, those five claims were recorded this morning and can’t be jumped. In short, claim-jumping mustn’t start.”

“Right-o,” said the lieutenant. “I’ll get my men together and station them. We can’t have any trouble here, and we won’t have. But you’d better get up and talk to them.”

“There must be some mistake, fellows,” Smoke began in a loud voice. “We’re not ready to sell lots. The streets are not surveyed yet. But next week we shall have the grand opening sale.”

He was interrupted by an outburst of impatience and indignation.

“We don’t want lots,” a young miner cried out. “We don’t want what’s on top of the ground. We’ve come for what’s under the ground.”

“We don’t know what we’ve got under the ground,” Smoke answered. “But we do know we’ve got a fine town-site on top of it.”

“Sure,” Shorty added. “Grand for scenery an’ solitude. Folks lovin’ solitude come a-flockin’ here by thousands. Most popular solitude on the Yukon.”

Again the impatient cries arose, and Saltman, who had been talking with the later comers, came to the front.

“We’re here to stake claims,” he opened. “We know what you’ve did – filed a string of five quartz claims on end, and there they are over there running across the town-site on the line of the slide and the canyon. Only you misplayed. Two of them entries is fake. Who is Seth Bierce? No one ever heard of him. You filed a claim this mornin’ in his name. An’ you filed a claim in the name of Harry Maxwell. Now Harry Maxwell ain’t in the country. He’s down in Seattle. Went out last fall. Them two claims is open to relocation.”

“Suppose I have his power of attorney?” Smoke queried.

“You ain’t,” Saltman answered. “An’ if you have you got to show it. Anyway, here’s where we relocate. Come on, fellows.”

Saltman, stepping across the dead-line, had turned to encourage a following, when the police lieutenant’s voice rang out and stopped the forward surge of the great mass.

“Hold on there! You can’t do that, you know!”

“Can’t, eh?” said Bill Saltman. “The law says a fake location can be relocated, don’t it?”

“Thet’s right, Bill! Stay with it!” the crowd cheered from the safe side of the line.

“It’s the law, ain’t it?” Saltman demanded truculently of the lieutenant.

“It may be the law,” came the steady answer. “But I can’t and won’t allow a mob of five thousand men to attempt to jump two claims. It would be a dangerous riot, and we’re here to see there is no riot. Here, now, on this spot, the Northwest police constitute the law. The next man who crosses that line will be shot. You, Bill Saltman, step back across it.”

Saltman obeyed reluctantly. But an ominous restlessness became apparent in the mass of men, irregularly packed and scattered as it was over a landscape that was mostly up-and-down.

“Heavens,” the lieutenant whispered to Smoke. “Look at them like flies on the edge of the cliff there. Any disorder in that mass would force hundreds of them over.”

Smoke shuddered and got up. “I’m willing to play fair, fellows. If you insist on town lots, I’ll sell them to you, one hundred apiece, and you can raffle locations when the survey is made.” With raised hand he stilled the movement of disgust. “Don’t move, anybody. If you do, there’ll be hundreds of you shoved over the bluff. The situation is dangerous.”

“Just the same, you can’t hog it,” a voice went up. “We don’t want lots. We want to relocate.”

“But there are only two disputed claims,” Smoke argued. “When they’re relocated where will the rest of you be?”

He mopped his forehead with his shirt-sleeve, and another voice cried out:

“Let us all in, share and share alike!”

Nor did those who roared their approbation dream that the suggestion had been made by a man primed to make it when he saw Smoke mop his forehead.

“Take your feet out of the trough an’ pool the town-site,” the man went on. “Pool the mineral rights with the town-site, too.”

“But there isn’t anything in the mineral rights, I tell you,” Smoke objected.

“Then pool them with the rest. We’ll take our chances on it.”

“Fellows, you’re forcing me,” Smoke said. “I wish you’d stayed on your side of the river.”

But wavering indecision was so manifest that with a mighty roar the crowd swept him on to agreement. Saltman and others in the front rank demurred.

“Bill Saltman, here, and Wild Water don’t want you all in,” Smoke informed the crowd. “Who’s hogging it now?”

And thereat Saltman and Wild Water became profoundly unpopular.

“Now how are we going to do it?” Smoke asked. “Shorty and I ought to keep control. We discovered this town-site.”

“That’s right!” many cried. “A square deal!” “It’s only fair!”

“Three-fifths to us,” Smoke suggested, “and you fellows come in for two-fifths. And you’ve got to pay for your shares.”

“Ten cents on the dollar!” was a cry. “And non-assessable!”

“And the president of the company to come around personally and pay you your dividends on a silver platter,” Smoke sneered. “No, sir. You fellows have got to be reasonable. Ten cents on the dollar will help start things. You buy two-fifths of the stock, hundred dollars par, at ten dollars. That’s the best I can do. And if you don’t like it, just start jumping the claims. I can’t stand more than a two-fifths gouge.”

“No big capitalization!” a voice called, and it was this voice that crystallized the collective mind of the crowd into consent.

“There’s about five thousand of you, which will make five thousand shares,” Smoke worked the problem aloud. “And five thousand is two-fifths of twelve thousand, five hundred. Therefore The Tra-Lee Town-Site Company is capitalized for one million two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, there being twelve thousand, five hundred shares, hundred par, you fellows buying five thousand of them at ten dollars apiece. And I don’t care a whoop whether you accept it or not. And I call you all to witness that you’re forcing me against my will.”

With the assurance of the crowd that they had caught him with the goods on him, in the shape of the two fake locations, a committee was formed and the rough organization of the Tra-Lee Town-Site Company effected. Scorning the proposal of delivering the shares next day in Dawson, and scorning it because of the objection that the portion of Dawson that had not engaged in the stampede would ring in for shares, the committee, by a fire on the ice at the foot of the slide, issued a receipt to each stampeder in return for ten dollars in dust duly weighed on two dozen gold-scales which were obtained from Dawson.

By twilight the work was accomplished and Tra-Lee was deserted, save for Smoke and Shorty, who ate supper in the cabin and chuckled at the list of shareholders, four thousand eight hundred and seventy-four strong, and at the gold-sacks, which they knew contained approximately forty-eight thousand seven hundred and forty dollars.

“But you ain’t swung it yet,” Shorty objected.

“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.