answered indirectly. As though he hadn’t been interrupted he continued: “Whoever has never been out for gold doesn’t know what’s really going on at the spot. I know for a fact it’s easier to leave a gambling-table when you’re winning than to leave a rich claim after you’ve made your good cut. It’s all spread out before you like the treasures of that Arabian mug Aladdin. It’s all yours for the taking. No, sir, you can’t leave it, not even with a wire in your fist that your old mother back home is dying and all alone. See, I’ve dug in Alaska and made a bit; I’ve been in the crowd in British Columbia and made there at least my fair wages. I was down in Australia, where I made the fare back home, with a few hundred left over to cure me of a stomach trouble I caught down there. I’ve dug in Montana and in Colorado and I don’t know where else.”
One of the youngsters asked: “As you say, mister, you’ve dug practically all over the world, then how come you’re sitting here flow in this dirty joint and all broke?”
“Gold, my young man, that’s the gold, that’s what it makes out of us. There was a time when I had a bank account of over a hundred thousand spot cash, and another hundred grand invested. One of the banks went singing the old song: that there wasn’t one cent to the dollar left. Two of the investments failed and left me with the first claim on a melting company. After all was paid out, I had on hand a debt of some sixteen grand. I’ve made here in this port some seventy grand on a gusher. The last fifty, which I kept with the idea that I’d never touch the principal, went into a dry hole. So you see me here now in the Oso Negro, pushing old friends in the streets to get fifty centavos for a cot to sleep on. Sure, I’m an old bone by now. No doubt as to that. But don’t you kids think that the spirit is gone. Not on your life. I’m all set to shoulder pick-ax and shovel again any time you say—any time somebody is willing to share the expenses. I’d like best to go all alone, all by myself. But I haven’t got the funds to do that. Tell you, the best thing is going alone. Of course you must have the guts to stand loneliness. Lots of guys go nutty being alone for a long time. On the other hand, going with a partner or two is dangerous. All the time murder’s lurking about. The cuts are not so good as when you’re all by yourself. Worst of all, hardly a day passes without quarrels, everybody accusing everybody else of all sorts of crimes, and suspecting whatever you do or say or even look at. As long as there’s no find, the noble brotherhood will last. Woe when the piles begin to grow! Then you know your men and what they are worth.”
None of the three fellows interrupted the old prospector. Lying on their cots, they listened to his talk with more eagerness than they would have shown in reading a hot story. Here one of the true regulars was speaking, and such a chance might never come again. The stories told in the puips seemed to them right now just so much rot. Who writes these stories, anyhow? Men sitting in an office in a big city. Men who have never been on the spot themselves. What do they know? The real life is quite different. Here it was, the real life, and the man who had lived the real life and had seen the world, who had been rich, very rich, and who was now so broke that he had to ask a fellow in the street for fifty centavos for a meal with the Chink.
Once started, and seeing around him three fellows who forgot their breathing while he spun his yarns, Howard gave them a story such as they never could have read in a magazine sold at street corners.
Chapter 3
“Ever heard the story—I mean the real true story—of La Mina Agua Verde, the Green Water Mine? I don’t think so. Well, here it is for your benefit. I got it at first hand from Harry Tilton. He was one of those who made their pile in that mine.
“It seems a company of fifteen fellows set out to trace that old mine. You couldn’t say that they went absolutely unprepared. Far from it.
“In that section, right at the international line of Arizona and the Mexican state of Sonora, a rumor about a lost gold mine would never die. The tale had come down for the last four centuries if not more. The old Mexicans, the Aztecs, had worked that mine long before any European knew a thing about America. The gold was carried to old Tenochtitlan, that is today Mexico City, to be worked there into ornaments and dishes for their emperor and for their kings and nobles, and of course for their great temples.
“The Spaniards in their greed for gold tried to locate all the gold and silver mines on seeing the rich treasures of the Aztec and the Tarascan kings. By the most terrible tortures, which only Spaniards grown up under the regime of the Inquisitors could conceive, the old Mexicans and the other Indians were forced to reveal the mines where the gold had come from for the royal treasures. All the gruesome tortures were committed for the love of Christ and the Holy Virgin, because there was never a torture without a monk holding out a crucifix before the victim, and the greater part of the gold was to go partly to the Spanish king and partly to the Holy Father in Rome. As the Indians were not Christians, but wretched heathen, it was no sin to get hold of their gold by robbing them.
“This mine was betrayed to monks who had come to the Indians with oiled speeches of saving their souls and shipping them off to heaven. The church took possession of the mine. Before long, however, the viceroy of New Spain—that was what Mexico was called in those times—in consideration of huge land concessions, bought the mine in the name of the king.
“It was an unbelievably rich mine. The gold lay practically open, and in thick lodes. The mine was located in a mountainous region, and near by was a little lake of crystal-clear emerald water bedded in the rocks. From this beautiful little lake the mine received its name.
“Something was certainly queer about the mine. The Spaniards who were working there as officials seldom survived for any length of time. Hardly one of them ever saw his country again, and few even returned to the capital. They were attacked by all sorts of misfortune. Some were bitten by snakes; others by venomous scorpions or tarantulas; others contracted rare skin diseases that never healed, or they caught a sickness the cause and nature of which nobody, including all their doctors, could explain. As if this was not sufficient, whoever was spared attacks from reptiles and mysterious diseases died from the different kinds of fevers that abounded.
“It was evident that the Indians had cursed the mine to revenge the tortures inflicted upon them for the possession of the mine and the outrageous robbery committed by the invaders. In those times whatever could not be explained was considered caused by witchcraft.
“Priests and even bishops were sent to bless the mine. When this was of no avail the Pope himself sent his special benediction for the mine. A hundred masses were celebrated all about the mine; every drift_way and tunnel was blessed separately; all tools, machinery, and furnaces were blessed.
“Anyway, the curse of the Indians turned out to be far stronger than all the blessings and benedictions of all the dignitaries of the Roman church. Conditions became worse. Officials lasted hardly a year; then they died or disappeared on huntingtrips.
“Men, Christians and Jews alike, are so greedy or brave where gold is at stake that, regardless how many human beings it may cost, as long as the gold itself does not give out and disappear, they will risk life, health, and mind, and face every danger and risk conceivable, to get hold of the precious metal.
“The curse, or what the invaders called the curse, took on greater dimensions, but this widening of the curse had nothing to do with mysterious doings of the Indians and of their chiefs.
“All the real work at the mine was done by Indians. At the beginning, when the monks owned the mine, labor was acquired by a clever scheme of the fathers. The Indians were baptized, and in return for having their souls saved, they had to work for the new Lord in heaven, since they were considered now His beloved children and with those Indians it was law that children had to work for their fathers whenever required. Occasionally the fathers gave them little gifts of cheap merchandise. One of the various reasons why the church so readily agreed to sell out to the government was that the labor problem had become extremely difficult. The Indians became wise to the real meaning of the tricks of the fathers and to the fact that these white men with their new god cared less for the earthly welfare of their children than for the riches they could accumulate. Consequently the fathers found every day fewer men willing to work here just for the grace of the Lord. Since the fathers were more concerned with an easy life for themselves than with walking on thorny and rocky roads and doing all the work in the mine without the help of the innocent children of the earth, it was decided that exploiting this gold mine was a sinful operation if carried on by the church, and that it was more virtuous before the Lord to accept the good offer of the government to buy it. Concessions for immense tracts of land suited the church better, for a mine may give out, while land will last forever. Besides, a very important point had been that the fathers could not transport the proceeds of the mine to the capital without the help of the government, which furnished the soldiers to protect the transport. And the viceroy, if asked for the convoy, never had soldiers ready, for— this was his excuse—they were badly needed to quell an upheaval of rebellious Indians somewhere. No gold has any value if it cannot be transported to a place
