“No one has ordered you to camp here. If you want to march twenty miles more, what the hell do I care?” Dobbs stood before Curtin as if he were ready to spring at him.
“Ordered? You?” Curtin asked. “You don’t mean to say you are the boss of this outfit?”
“Perhaps you are. Just say it. I’m waiting.” Dobbs’s face became redder.
“All right, if you can’t do any more—”
“Can’t do any more? What do you mean by that crack?” Dobbs seemed to go mad. “Don’t make me laugh. I can do four times as much as a mug like you and kick half a dozen of your size both sides of your pants. Can’t do any more? And how is your grandmother? It’s simple; I don’t want any more, if you must know, mug.”
“What’s the good of hollering?” Curtin stayed calm enough. “We’ve started; now we have to stick it out, like it or not. All right, then, let’s camp here.”
“That’s what I said long ago. Here is water, and very good water. It’s a good place for camping, isn’t it?”
“Right you are. Not likely we’d find any water during the next three hours.”
“So what’s the arguing about?” Dobbs began to unload the burro standing next to him. Curtin came close and gave him a hand at the job.
The burros unloaded, quarreling started again. Who was to cook, who was to look for fuel, who was to care for the burros, who repair the pack-saddles? There had never been any disputing about these jobs as long as Howard had been with them. Now it seemed as if they had lost the capacity for sound and simple reasoning. They were overtired, their nerves quivering like telegraph wires in the open country. They couldn’t agree any longer on who had to do this job and who that. When the meal was finally cooked and ready, Curtin found that he had done most of the work—three times his share. He didn’t mind, and said nothing. He put up with Dobbs’s bad humor. Something during the march today, the climate, the growing altitude, a fall, the hot sun, a sting from a reptile, a bite of an insect, a scratch of a poisonous thorn, whatever it was, must, so it appeared to Curtin, be responsible for Dobbs’s strange behavior.
2
Eating usually conciliates people. So also here in the loneliness of the Sierra the meal Curtin and Dobbs had together softened their feelings toward each other. It calmed their nerves. They came to speak with less yelling and with more sense than they had done during the last six hours.
“I wonder what the old man is doing now,” Curtin said.
“I’m sure he’s having a swell time with these Indians,” Dobbs replied. “His meal will be better than ours, sure.”
At mention of the old man, Dobbs looked casually at Howard’s packs, which lay close to where Dobbs was sitting and filling his pipe. For a minute his looks were fixed on these packs, and in his mind he tried to figure out how much they might be worth in dollars and cents.
Curtin misjudged Dobbs’s expression, for he said: “Oh, I think we can manage his packs all right. This was the first day we had to handle everything without his help. Tomorrow it will be lots easier, once we get the real go of it and are used to being one hand short.”
“How far from the railroad do you think we are now?” Dobbs asked.
“As the crow flies, it wouldn’t be so far. Since we aren’t crows, it will take us quite some time. Days, perhaps a week more. These mountain trails make the way ten times longer, winding round and round and going up and down as if they would never end; and if in the evening you look behind, it seems as if you can almost spit at the place you left in the morning. The worst isn’t over yet. One of the guys we met near the village told me we’ll have stretches where we will hardly make six miles during the whole day, loading and unloading a dozen times when the animals can’t take the steep ravines. I figure we can make the high pass in two days more. Then three or four days more to go before we actually reach the railroad. But it may be more still. Any sort of difficulties may come our way any time.”
To this Dobbs said nothing. He stared into the fire. Then he filled his pipe once more and lighted it. It was as though he could not take his eyes off the packs; his glance wandered from the fire to them and back again very often.
Yet Curtin took no notice of it.
3
Unexpectedly Dobbs pushed Curtin in the ribs and laughed in a curious way.
Curtin felt uneasy. Something was wrong with Dobbs. He was not himself any longer. To cover his growing anxiety Curtin tried to laugh, his eyes resting on Dobbs’s face.
As if keyed up by Curtin’s nervous laugh, Dobbs broke out into bellowing laughter which made him almost lose his breath. Curtin became still more confused. He did not know what to make of it. “What’s the joke? Won’t you let me in on it, Dobby?”
“In on it? I should say I will.” He roared with laughter and had to hold his belly.
“Well, spill it.”
“Oh, sonny, my boy, isn’t that too funny for words?” He had to stop for breath, for his laughter became hysterical.
“What’s so funny?” Curtin’s face was turning gray with anxiety. Dobbs acted no longer sane.
