Curtin laughed. “You see, Laky, we have our own thoughts, and you are not in them. We three have become so accustomed to speaking to each other that we sometimes forget you are here. No harm.”
Dobbs butted in. “It’s only to let you see how unimportant you are, brother. We’ve eaten together, we’ve fought together, we’ve even been very close to going to hell together, but you are still outside of the community, if you get what we mean. We might have come to like each other. But now, I reckon, it’s too late.”
“I get what you mean, Dobbs.”
“That reminds me,” Howard addressed him; “didn’t you say something about a plan?”
“Yes, your plan.” Dobbs spoke up. “Yes, that plan of yours. Well, you may keep it as your well-earned property. I’m not interested a bit. I’ve got the same idea old man Curtin has; to be more exact, I’d like to see a girl and see how she looks underneath, you know, and I have the funny desire to sit once more at a real table in a restaurant with wellcooked food set before me.”
“But can’t you see? Here are tens of thousands of dollars lying about ready to be picked up!”
Curtin yawned. “All right, sweety, pick them up and be happy. Don’t let them lie around here, somebody might come and carry them away. Well, partners, should somebody ask me how I feel right now, I’d say: I’m going to hit the hay in the old barn. Good night.”
Howard and Dobbs rose also, stretched their limbs, yawned with mouths wide open, and walked to the tent.
Curtin, already standing by the tent, called: “Hey, Laky, if you want to bunk with us, the apartment we have here is big enough to house you too. Just step in and don’t slam the door.”
“If you don’t mind, I prefer to sleep here by the fire. I have to think a few schemes over, and I can do it best with the stars above me. Thanks just the same.” Lacaud carried his packs and blankets near the fire. “Only I’d like to put my packs in your tent, in case it should rain.”
“Bring them in,” Howard invited him. “Room enough; no storage charged.”
When the three partners were alone in the tent, Curtin said: “I still can’t see what is wrong about that guy. Sometimes he seems perfectly all right, and then again he seems to be all nuts.”
“Poor feller, he is,” Howard said. “He’s cracked somehow. He hasn’t got all his screws tight. That much is sure. I think he is an eternal.”
“An eternal? What do you mean?” Curtin was curious.
“An eternal prospector. He can stay for ten years at the same place digging and digging, convinced that he is on the right spot and that there can be no mistake about it and that all he needs is patience. He is sure that some day he will make the big hit. He is of the same family as were men in bygone centuries who spent their whole lives and all their money trying to find the formula for producing gold by mixing metals and chemicals—smelting them, cooking them, and brewing them until they themselves turned insane. He is the more modern sort. He is working day in and day out over plans and schemes just as men do who want to bust the banks in a gambling-resort.”
“Tomorrow he will see our mine,” Dobbs said.
“Let him. It doesn’t matter, since we are leaving. We close it properly, and if he should open it again, that’s his affair, not ours. I really feel sorry for that guy.” Howard admitted this. “Really sorry for him. But you can’t cure these fellers, and I suppose if somebody could cure them they wouldn’t like it. They prefer to stay this way. It’s their whole excuse for being alive.”
Dobbs was not fully convinced. He said: “I’m not sure there isn’t something else behind that guy. He doesn’t seem to be all cracked up.”
Howard waved his hands and shrugged. “Have it your way. I’ve met this sort before. Good night.”
Chapter 15
Another week of labor was put in by the partners, during which they worked up all the piles of dirt and rocks which had been ready to be washed. It proved worth while to get out of these piles all they contained. It was good pay. But nevertheless they stuck by their decision to give up. So they began breaking down the mine.
While doing so, Dobbs cut his hand and yelled angrily: “For what hellish reason of yours do we have to work like hunks in a steel-mill to level this field? Just tell me, old man.”
“We decided upon that the day we started to work here,” Howard answered, “didn’t we?”
“Yes, we did. But I say it’s a waste of time, that’s what I think.”
