There was still another danger, which might be most serious of all. A great mining company in good standing with the government or certain officials might receive word of the filing of the claim. How long would these three miserable proletarians last after the great company started to bring before the courts claims of prior rights to this field, with some native puppet ready to Swear away the blue sky for a hundred pesos?
“Here you see for yourselves, provided you have brains to think with, that, much as we want to, we can’t afford to be honest with the government.” Howard finished up his explanation. “I certainly don’t like to cheat anybody out of a just share in my profits, not even a government. If we were on British territory I wouldn’t hesitate a minute to do what is right by the law. In this case we have no alternative. Not alone our earnings but our life and health depend upon forgetting about the license. Are you guys agreed upon that?”
“We are and no mistake.”
“Right. Of course, you understand that if we are found out it will mean confiscation of all we have made, of all we have here, and, very likely, a year in jail.”
“I think we can take this chance, don’t you?” Curtin asked Dobbs.
“Sure we take it. Not for a minute did I expect that any one of us would be silly enough even to propose any other course.”
So the question of the license was settled. If you have a license, you are not protected at all against bandits or racketeers. If nobody knows what you have, you have a better chance of safety. The bush is so wide and the Sierra is so great and lonely that you disappear and nobody knows where you are or what has bef alien you.
4
The discussion about the registration of their claim brought comprehension of their changed standing in life. With every ounce more of gold possessed by them they left the proletarian class and neared that of the property-holders, the well-to-do middle class. So far they had never had anything of value to protect against thieves. Since they now owned certain riches, their worries about how to protect them had started. The world no longer looked to them as it had a few weeks ago. They had become members of the minority of mankind.
Those who up to this time had been considered by them as their proletarian brethren were now enemies against whom they had to protect themselves. As long as they had owned nothing of value, they had been slaves of their hungry bellies, slaves to those who had the means to fill their bellies. All this was changed now.
They had reached the first step by which man becomes the slave of his property.
Chapter 7
The three men, gathered together solely to gain riches, had never been real friends. They had in common only business relations. That they had combined their forces and brains and resources for no other reason than to make high profits was the factor which had prevented them from becoming true friends.
As it was, this proved to be to the advantage of their work. Friends, really good friends, kept together by business and forced upon each other without any contact with other people, more often than not part the bitterest of enemies.
They were not even real pals. Each was only looking for his proper share, and if a grain more seemed to be going to another partner, battle was on at once, and without quarter.
The common worries, labor, disappointments, the common hopes, made them comrades in a sort of war. More than once one had saved the life of another. Several times Dobbs had endangered his own safety to fetch either the old man or Curtin when one fell into a ravine or into a chasm or was caught in thorny underbrush on a steep rock. Help in dangerous situations had been rendered to Dobbs by the others. Still none of them ever believed that such assistance was given, or that sacrifices were made, out of pure kindness. Each of them felt that this service was rendered because, had one of them lost his life, the other two could not have worked the field alone. Just as soldiers, personally unknown to each other but belonging to the same nationality or to that of allied armies, will help their fellowsoldiers not alone for patriotic reasons but for many other reasons, which may, often, be very difficult to explain in detail.
Under such circumstances mutual service usually leads to lasting friendship, but it did not work that way among these three.
One day Dobbs was inside a tunnel where earth was being extracted. While he was there, the tunnel broke down, burying him. Howard, digging on the opposite side, did not know what had happened.
