“Maybe. Maybe that’s what you think. But how can you prove that you were really the first here on this spot? What if I was here long before you ever thought of coming?”
“Registered your claim?” Howard asked.
“Did you?”
“That’s beyond the point. We are here right now. And suppose you have been here before, as you say you have; why didn’t you stake it? Since you didn’t, you haven’t the slightest chance in any court if you mean to fight it out. Well, let’s have breakfast.”
2
Breakfast over, the partners did not know what to do. They couldn’t go to work at the mine, for the stranger would find them out.
Curtin then had an idea. He said that they all might go hunting together.
The stranger looked from one to another. He was not sure what was behind this proposal. The hunt might give the partners a great opportunity to get rid of him through an accident. Thinking this over, he concluded that if they meant to kill him they would do it anyhow, accident or no accident. They alone would be the witnesses.
So he said: “Okay with me. Today I’ll go hunting with you, but tomorrow I’ve got other things to do, more important things.”
“What?” the three partners asked almost simultaneously.
“Tomorrow I start to dig for gold here.”
“You don’t say so?” Howard had heard the word with a deep breath. He had become pale. So had his two partners.
“Yes, I’m going to prospect here. Right at this spot or somewhere around in the neighborhood. Here is the stuff I was looking for. If none of you have found anything here, that would only be evidence that all of you are boneheads. But I don’t think you are.”
“You’re smart, stranger,” Howard answered him. “Where would we be if it were not for you to show us the glory of heaven? My, my! What a great guy!”
“I figure you’ve scratched up, let’s say, around fifty ounces.”
“Or five hundred. Isn’t that what you mean?” Howard found it hard to open his mouth, which seemed to dry out. Dobbs and Curtin were without speech.
“Or five hundred. Right, partner. But here is at least an easy million, if you ask me and my grandfather.”
“A million?” Dobbs and Curtin shouted, and with this they were fully home again, color, breath, wet lips, moisture in the eyes, and all that they had lost during the last two minutes.
“Yes, a full uncut million. If you haven’t found it yet, it’s your fault, not the mountain’s. I know you haven’t got the rich pot yet, although you have been hanging around here eight months or nine. The Indians down in the valley told me that only one man was up here. If you had come upon the right entrance and knocked at the door behind which the treasure is open to view, you would have had so much that you would have left long ago, because you couldn’t carry all that’s here without arousing suspicion and being waylaid on your road home. Or you would have sent back just one man to get the claim legally registered and then have formed a regular mining company, with all the machinery and a hundred men working for you.”
“That so?” Dobbs said scoffingly. “Well, you may as well know facts. We haven’t got anything, nothing. See?”
The stranger could not be talked off. “You may tell me what you like. I don’t believe a word anyhow. I don’t care what you have, how much you have, whether you have anything at all, or what you are doing here. I’m not a baby. If I see three men living up here for eight months, then I know without a Bible that they are not staying for pleasure or for an ordinary fishing-trip. You can’t put this one over on me, partners. You’d better lay the cards on the table and then let’s see who has buried away the four jacks. What’s the use playing hide-and-seek? I’m not a criminal, not a crook, not a spy. I’m just as decent as any one of you three fellers is. Better than you I don’t want to be. It suits me all right to be just the kind you are. We all are Out here to make money. If we were looking for pleasure, we wouldn’t select this godforsaken region full of mosquitoes, yellow fever, typhoidal Water, scorpions, tarantulas, and even hungry tigers sniffing around the camp by night. I know quite well you can bump me off any minute you wish. But that could happen to me any place, even in Chicago walking quietly down the street. You always have to risk something if you want to make money. If you bump me off you can’t be sure but that tomorrow another guy may show up whom you’ll have to give the final works. Or instead of one guy popping up, there may be a full dozen any day. Then you stop bumping off, and you are worse off than you are right now.”
“All right, stranger,” Howard said, “what’s above your shoulders? Spit it out. We are at least willing to tune in.”
3
“Let’s make a clean breast,” the stranger suggested.
