During all the long months the three miners had been at work here, nobody had ever come this way. The peasants below were satisfied with the explanation that the American was hunting for hides of tiger-cats, mountain lions, foxes. The owner of the general store in the village, like all the others, was an Indian, and at the same time mayor of the village and therefore the highest authority in the neighborhood. He had never had such a flourishing business in all his life as since this hunter up on the mountain had begun to patronize him. Curtin paid in cash and seldom if ever quarreled about prices. For him the price seemed ridiculously low, while the storekeeper charged him a trifle more than he would ask from his native customers. He would have lost this excellent business had he made trouble for the foreigner up there. Since this hunter molested none of the natives in any way, nobody was interested in his business. So from this side the adventurers had nothing to fear.
It was something else that every day became more troublesome for the partners, until they thought that it hardly could be borne any longer.
It was a miserable life they now led. The grub was the same, day in, day out. Always it was cooked and prepared hastily when everyone was so tired and worn out that he would have preferred not eating at all to cooking the meal. Yet they must eat, or at least fill their bellies. And doing so every day, treating their stomachs the way they did, it was no wonder that they began to show the effects of it.
To this was added the growing monotony of their work. It had been interesting enough during the first weeks. Now there was not the slightest variety. If once in a while a nugget were found, or now and then a few grains the size of wheat grains, so that they had something new to talk about, then they might have felt afresh that glamour of adventure which had led them out here. But nothing of that sort occurred.
Sand and dirt, dirt and sand, coupled with inhumane privations; crushing rocks from the bitter cold morning hours, through the broiling of midday, and far into the darkness of night made them feel worse than convicts. When it turned out that a huge heap of crushed rocks held, as frequently happened, hardly the day’s pay of a union bricklayer in Chicago, the disappointment of the gang became so great that they could have killed each other just for the pleasure of doing something different from the daily routine.
Every night, when the day had been hard and the gains not in proportion to their labor, a hot quarrel about the uselessness of this sort of life would arise. The men would decide to keep on one more week and not a day longer. Almost every time such a decision was made, the next day or the day after the profits would rise so high that it seemed to be a sin to give up when such rich earnings could be made. So the decision was disregarded and work would go on as before.
The companionship which they had to endure had become the source of troubles they never would have thought of had they been in town. Had it not been for Howard, who, out of his long experience, could not be surprised by anything, the two youngsters would have had fights every day.
During the first weeks of work there was something new to talk about every day and always something interesting to worry about, problems to solve or to think over. These kept their minds occupied for a time, so that there was no need to look to their partners for entertainment.
Then came a time when each had heard the same jokes and stories three hundred times. Also each one, after a few weeks, knew the whole life-story of both his partners.
Dobbs, perhaps owing to an early head injury, had the habit of moving the skin of his forehead upward and so wrinkling it when speaking. Curtin had never noticed this while he knew Dobbs in the oil-fields and in town. Out here, during the first weeks, he and the old man had found this sort of frown rather jolly for the comic impression it made when used with certain phrases. Then they had come to crack jokes about it, with Dobbs goodnaturedly joining in. Now came an evening when Curtin yelled at Dobbs: “You cursed dog, if you for once don’t drop that nasty frown of yours, bigud, I’ll smash your head with this stone. You know quite well, you penbird, that I’m sick of that face_making of yours, damn it to hell.”
Dobbs was up in an instant, gun drawn. Curtin was saved only because he had left his gun on his cot in the tent. Otherwise Dobbs would have pulled the trigger.
“Haven’t I been waiting for just that for a long time?” Dobbs bellowed. “And who is it that wants to baby-nurse me? Weren’t you horsewhipped in Georgia for taking a jane across a treetrunk? We know what brought you down here into this country. You aren’t here for pleasure. One more crack about my face and I pump you up, chest and belly alike.”
The fact was that Curtin did not know whether Dobbs had ever been in jail, so that he was not justified in calling him a penbird. Nor did Dobbs know whether Curtin had ever been in Georgia, because he had never said so and he had never mentioned that he had been out on a necking party with results not fully approved by the gal.
The old man kept quiet while this battle was on. He smoked his pipe and puffed out thick clouds to protect himself from the mosquitoes.
Finally Dobbs laid down his cannon, and Howard felt that his advice might now be welcomed.
“What’s all this row about, boys? We won’t make any money if we have to doctor bullet-wounds. Wait until we are back in town. Besides, we don’t know yet for what better purpose we may need that ammunition you’re so ready to waste, like the real boneheads you are.”
Neither of the youngsters answered.
After a long silence at the fire, Dobbs took up his gun and turned in, leaving the old man and Curtin to themselves.
Soon came a morning when Curtin poked his gun in Dobbs’s ribs: “Any more lip from you and I’ll pull off, you rattler.”
“Why don’t you pull? Yellow, hey? All right, I haven’t said a word. Forget it. She was only a bitch anyway. Trust me, sonny.”
A new quarrel early in the morning before a hard day made Howard mad: “Why the damn hell can’t you hicks behave like real guys? You act worse than a married couple on Sunday night. Bury the gun, Curty.”
“You telling me, ordering us about, hey?”
“I haven’t anybody to order about here.” Howard, too, seemed to be the victim of that devastating disease caused by the monotony of their life. “And I repeat, I’m not here to give orders. I’ve come here to make money and not to nurse kiddies so dumb they couldn’t live out here two weeks without being eaten alive by the coyotes and the buzzards. Here we need one another, like him or hate him. Gees crisp, if one is banged up by your foolishness, the other two can go home, for two alone can’t do anything here. Not me. I want to make money, and if I want to see a good fight, it won’t be you two I’d pay to see put it on.”
Curtin fingered his gun and then put it back in its holster.
“And that’s not all,” Howard continued. “I’m plumb sick and dog-tired, not of the job here, but of you two guys. I’m not willing to stay behind here with one alone after the other has been bumped off. I’m going, that’s what I’m doing. I’m through, you can get that right now. I’m satisfied with what I’ve made so far. I certainly won’t take any more chances with you.”
Dobbs protested. “You may have enough, but we haven’t. Your old bones may carry you along on what we’ve helped you to make, but we’re still young and we have a damn long life before us; we’ll need dough, and plenty of it. You can’t run out on us like that and leave us here on the cracked ice. We want to clean up, and not before that is done will we give you our kind permission to walk off.”