Dobbs was up in an instant, gun drawn. Curtin was saved only because he had left his gun on his cot in the tent. Otherwise Dobbs would have pulled the trigger.
“Haven’t I been waiting for just that for a long time?” Dobbs bellowed. “And who is it that wants to baby- nurse me? Weren’t you horsewhipped in Georgia for taking a jane across a treetrunk? We know what brought you down here into this country. You aren’t here for pleasure. One more crack about my face and I pump you up, chest and belly alike.”
The fact was that Curtin did not know whether Dobbs had ever been in jail, so that he was not justified in calling him a penbird. Nor did Dobbs know whether Curtin had ever been in Georgia, because he had never said so and he had never mentioned that he had been out on a necking party with results not fully approved by the gal.
The old man kept quiet while this battle was on. He smoked his pipe and puffed out thick clouds to protect himself from the mosquitoes.
Finally Dobbs laid down his cannon, and Howard felt that his advice might now be welcomed.
“What’s all this row about, boys? We won’t make any money if we have to doctor bullet-wounds. Wait until we are back in town. Besides, we don’t know yet for what better purpose we may need that ammunition you’re so ready to waste, like the real boneheads you are.”
Neither of the youngsters answered.
After a long silence at the fire, Dobbs took up his gun and turned in, leaving the old man and Curtin to themselves.
Soon came a morning when Curtin poked his gun in Dobbs’s ribs: “Any more lip from you and I’ll pull off, you rattler.”
“Why don’t you pull? Yellow, hey? All right, I haven’t said a word. Forget it. She was only a bitch anyway. Trust me, sonny.”
A new quarrel early in the morning before a hard day made Howard mad: “Why the damn hell can’t you hicks behave like real guys? You act worse than a married couple on Sunday night. Bury the gun, Curty.”
“You telling me, ordering us about, hey?”
“I haven’t anybody to order about here.” Howard, too, seemed to be the victim of that devastating disease caused by the monotony of their life. “And I repeat, I’m not here to give orders. I’ve come here to make money and not to nurse kiddies so dumb they couldn’t live out here two weeks without being eaten alive by the coyotes and the buzzards. Here we need one another, like him or hate him. Gees crisp, if one is banged up by your foolishness, the other two can go home, for two alone can’t do anything here. Not me. I want to make money, and if I want to see a good fight, it won’t be you two I’d pay to see put it on.”
Curtin fingered his gun and then put it back in its holster.
“And that’s not all,” Howard continued. “I’m plumb sick and dog-tired, not of the job here, but of you two guys. I’m not willing to stay behind here with one alone after the other has been bumped off. I’m going, that’s what I’m doing. I’m through, you can get that right now. I’m satisfied with what I’ve made so far. I certainly won’t take any more chances with you.”
Dobbs protested. “You may have enough, but we haven’t. Your old bones may carry you along on what we’ve helped you to make, but we’re still young and we have a damn long life before us; we’ll need dough, and plenty of it. You can’t run out on us like that and leave us here on the cracked ice. We want to clean up, and not before that is done will we give you our kind permission to walk off.”
“Now come here, sweet oldy,” Curtin broke in. “You really shouldn’t show your second infancy at this time. It isn’t good taste. How would you do it, anyhow? Just try. Don’t misjudge our legs, old man. Want to know what we’d do in such a case?”
“You don’t have to tell me. I know both of you so damn well that I’m sure I’d make no mistake in guessing what fate would be in store for me.”
“Mebbe we are worse than you think.” This came from Dobbs. “We would wait until you were packed up, so as to be sure you had your dust wrapped up. Then we’d get hold of you and tie you to a tree. With that well done, we’d go our smooth road back home, where money still counts, no matter where it comes from and how you got it. Kill? Kill you? No, it would be very nasty to do such a dirty thing to a good pal like you. You, of course, with your dirty thinking, believe we might murder you in cold blood. Nope, we aren’t that bad.”
“I get you, Dobby, my fine boy.” Howard grinned sardonically at the two. “To tell you the truth, I had thought, really and seriously thought, that you might murder me just to get rid of me and have my dough thrown in into the bargain. But I’d never figured on anything like being left behind in the wilderness, tied to a tree, exposed to mosquitoes, scorpions, rattlers, wolves, coyotes, ants, and other pretty creatures handed us by the Lord to make life miserable. You wouldn’t burden your good conscience with a merciful quick shot into my chest to deliver me from pain. Oh no, you are too goodnatured for that. All right, you win. I shall stay and have my fate delivered into your soft hands.”
Followed a long silence. The youngsters avoided the old man’s searching face. They became restless. Dobbs surely had not meant to do such a thing; neither had Curtin. He had, or so at least Howard figured, used only the best weapon he could think of to keep him on the field, for without him they would have been lost.
Curtin couldn’t stand the awkward silence any longer. “Hell, that’s all bosh. Nothing back of it. We’re all cracked in our heads Somehow, that’s what’s the matter with us.”
“Exactly what I was thinking myself. Don’t believe a word of what I’ve spouted here, Howy. Cross my heart, this is all nonsense. Well, I’m shaky, sort of shaky all over. I don’t know myself what I’m saying. Forget it, oldy. Let’s get to work and lift a quarter of an ounce.”
Howard laughed. “Now, that’s the way to talk. You’re just kiddies. One day, perhaps thirty years hence, both of you will be standing in the same shoes I am in now. Then you’ll know better. I didn’t take you seriously, anyhow. Well, Curty, get the burros going; we haven’t got water enough.”
3
It had done them a great deal of good to clean their chests. After the argument they seemed to get along better for quite a while, and the work progressed more rapidly.
The last quarrel, however, had an unexpected effect. The word had been dropped that one might pack up and leave. This suggestion began to take root in their minds. Howard had said that he was satisfied with what he had made so far. He knew the value in cash of the dust they had accumulated. The boys had never sold pay-dirt, so they didn’t know how much money they would have after it had been properly assayed.
Therefore it was quite natural for Curtin to bring up this question one evening: “How much do you think, Howy, we may collect on what we have so far?”
The old man was silent for a while, making calculations in his mind. Then: “I can’t say in dollars and cents, but I should be very much mistaken if each of us had much less than fifteen thousand dollars. It may be fourteen, it may be sixteen. That’s my figure, and I feel satisfied that I’m not very far wrong.”
The partners had not expected so much. It came as a surprise to them.
“If it’s that much,” Dobbs said, “I move we stay here about six weeks more, work like devils, and then return to town.”
Curtin assented. “Suits me perfectly.”
“I’ve been thinking of making this proposition to you,” Howard began. “Yes, that’s what I was going to do. Because as far as I can figure, there will hardly be anything left after six weeks. It looks to me as if the field is getting suspiciously thin. If we should come upon a new rich layer, which I don’t think will happen, then it would pay to stay on. As it is, it looks as though after six weeks there will no longer be a good day’s wages in our work. So what would be the use of staying here?”
It was agreed, therefore, to put in another six or eight weeks and not one day more. Eight weeks would be the limit.
4
This decision, more than anything else, brought peace to the partners.
They fixed the day of departure from the wilderness of the Sierra Madre, and having done so, their mood
