So they went to the Western Union cable office and with a few words Curtin told the old pal of his plight. The same night the pal from San Antonio cabled him two hundred dollars instead of the borrowed hundred.
“Didn’t I tell you he’s on the level, that old pal of mine over in good old S.A.? That’s what you may call a friend in need.” Curtin felt not less superior now than Dobbs had felt on cashing his lottery ticket in the morning.
“We’d better not wait long,” Howard suggested. “Let’s take off tomorrow.”
They agreed. Next day they took the night train to San Luis Potosi, where they boarded the train for Aguascalientes to reach the main line going north. Four days later they were in Durango.
Here they occupied themselves for two days studying maps and trying to get information from all sorts of people who knew this part of the republic.
“Now look here, you puppies,” Howard explained. “Where you see a railroad, there’s no use going there. There aren’t any motorroads. So let’s forget about these roads. Don’t even look near dirt roads. Wherever there is a railroad or any other road, there’s no use going close. Because railroad-constructors and roadbuilders usually examine every bit of soil near the roads while they are building them. That’s only natural, and it’s part of their business. So it would be waste of time to look for anything around places where engineers have been at work.”
“I think I see what you’re driving at.” Dobbs began to understand Howard’s plans.
“Not so difficult to see, boys, after I’ve made it clear what is virgin soil and what isn’t.” Howard went with a pencil over the map he had spread out before him. “We have to go where there is no trail. We have to go where we can be positive that no surveyor or anybody who knows something about mining has ever been before. The best spots are those where you feel sure that anybody who is paid for his job would be afraid to go and would not think it worth while to risk his hide for the salary he gets. Only at such spots is there a chance that we might find something. These are the regions we have to make out on this map.”
He drew a few lines over small sections of the map, made a few dots here and a few dots there. For a while he looked at these vague sketches, seemingly weighing one against the other. Then, with a definite gesture, he made a little circle on the map at a certain point. “Here’s where we are bound. Hereabouts.” He thickened the little ring with his pencil. “The exact site doesn’t matter very much—not in detail, so to say. Let’s see the spot at close range and then decide what to do. Here on this map I can’t make out properly whether it’s mountain, swamp, desert, or what. But that shows that the makers of the map themselves don’t know for sure what there is. Once on the spot, all you have to do is to wipe your eyes and look carefully around you. I once knew a feller who, believe it or not, could smell gold if it was close, just as an ass will smell water if he is thirsty and wants to drink. And this reminds me, boys, we’ll have to go Out to a few villages near by to buy burros, which we need for carrying our packs and for other services at the camp.”
So they spent the next three days buying burros from the Indian peasants.
Chapter 5
Curtin and Dobbs learned soon that without Howard they would have been utterly helpless. Had they been alone, they would not have been able to follow even a trail. They had no idea how to keep the burros at the camp during the night, how to pack them the right way, or how to make them go over the rocky paths across the high mountains, where often the boys themselves could not get hold with their feet.
On this trip the boys had to do without such little conveniences as were always found even in the most primitive oilcamps. It took them almost a week to learn how to pitch camp under such difficult conditions as they found here every day. This was no boy scouts’ hike and camp-fires were not built according to instructions in printed guides for hunting parties. Here it meant work, and nothing but hard work. Often at night when they were so tired that they could sleep like blocks they had to get up and search for the burros that had gone astray. There were many other things to attend to even more disagreeable and more wearisome and annoying.
There were many days and more nights when both of them said that if they had known beforehand what it meant to go prospecting, they would have preferred to stay in town and wait for a job to turn up.
Every day their respect for old Howard grew greater and greater. That old fellow nevet complained, never whined, never felt too tired to lend here a pull and there a push. He appeared to become younger and more active with every mile that the little train made toward its goal. He climbed steep rocks like a cat and trotted for long, dreary hours across arid stretches without even mentioning a drink of water.
