“So you mean to tell us he actually waited for you to show up? Is that what you mean to say?” Dobbs got more and more excited.
“You heard me, or did you sleep while I was reporting? Well, he waited for me. So the very moment I stepped into the store, he came, that hell of a brother from Arizona. He was an entire stranger to me. I’d never seen him before anywhere in this here country. ‘Hello, stranger, how are ye?’ and with this he bumped me. I tried to shake him off and show him an icy shoulder. I only said: ‘How’s y’self?’ and tuned off, paying all my attention to the storekeeper. And what do you think? He didn’t mind my being cold at all. He went on talking and saying that he thinks there must be truckloads of real goods up there in the mountains. So that I might understand what he meant, he explained that he, of Course, was speaking of the real stuff—that is, of yellow glittering dirt.”
“Hell!” Howard blared out. “Looks tough to me, it sure does. Somehow he must have got an idea into his head when that storekeeper told him about you staying up here for so long a time without looking for other hunting-grounds.”
“What did you tell him after he’d touched the right switch?” Dobbs asked.
“I said to him he shouldn’t take me for a kid. Sure I’ve been up here for quite a while and I know the whole landscape around, and if there were a single grain of gold he could bet that I’d sure know it, and I assured him that there is nothing doing here for gold, or even copper, or I’d have seen it.”
“What did he say to that door leading out?”
“He just answered with a smile showing that he was wise, and, to make everything positive and no mistake about it, he said: ‘I wouldn’t think you so dumb, brother. Believe me, if I only see a hill five miles away, I can tell you whether it carries an ounce or a ship-load. If you haven’t found anything yet, I’ll come up and put your nose into it. Here in the valley I’ve seen indications, lots of indications in fact, and tracing the rocks I found that they must have come from that ridge up there, washed down by the tropical torrents.’ ‘You don’t say so, you mug,’ I said to him, and says he: ‘Yes, believe it or not, I say so, and take this home with you.’”
Howard interrupted Curtin: “I have to say this much for that guy, if he can tell from the landscape and from the wash-down the load of a mountain, well, then he must be a very great man.”
“Maybe he is a geogist or what they call the guys who can tell right from the ground if there is oil or if there is a dry hole.”
“You mean geologist, Dobby,” Howard corrected him. “Maybe he is, maybe he’s just beating the -brush to see if the rabbit is coming out of it.”
An idea occurred to Dobbs. “Did you ever think that he might be a spy sent by the government or by the chieftains of a horde of bandits, to watch for our return and rob us or get the government to confiscate all we’ve made? Why, I’m almost sure he’s in touch with bandits. Even if they don’t know that we’ve got good pay with us, they might rob us just for our burros and hides and, what is of more worth to them, for our shotguns, tools, clothes. We have enough things outside of the pay to lure any bandit to get us on our way home.”
Curtin shook his head. “I don’t think so. He didn’t impress me as being a government spy or a tip-off for bandits. I’m sure he means what he says. He is earnestly after gold. That’s what I think he is.”
“How come you know what he is after?” Howard asked.
“Because he had packed up already when I left.”
“What do you mean packed up? Packed up what and on what?”
“He has two mules. One is a saddle-mule, and the other he uses for his packs.”
“What sort of packs?”
“Seems to be a tent. Blankets. Frying-pans. A coffeepot.”
“No tools? I mean, no shovels and pick-axes and all that?” This from Dobbs.
The old man said: “If he’s after the riches he can’t very well dig up the dirt with his claws. You didn’t see any shovels and such things?”
“Matter of fact, I didn’t exactly search his packs.”
“Of course not.” Howard was thinking. Then he stared at Curtin. “He may carry the outfit wrapped up in his tent. Did the rags look as though tools might be inside of them?”
“Might. They looked bulky enough.”
The fellows occupied themselves for quite a while with their own thoughts.
Curtin finally broke the silence. “I’m almost positive that he’s no government spy and no crow for bandits. He impressed me as being a bit cracked up.”
“Aw, let him stay, for hell’s sake. I’m sick of this twaddle about that mug,” Dobbs said. “We’ve nothing to worry about.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” Curtin began to explain. “I think we ought to worry. Fact is, he followed me. First he asked me right out if he might come with me to my camp. I said no, he could not. Then he just came trailing after me. For two miles I didn’t mind; then I halted and let him come up. So I said to him, said I: ‘Listen here, you mug, don’t you make me sore. It may cost you dear. I don’t butt into your racket, so you’d better not nose into mine, and we might still be friends. I can talk the other way round just as well, if you get what I mean, and believe me, you hick, I can tackle any guy your size, so you better lay off me if you know what’s healthy for you. And now go to hell or heaven, what do I care?’”
“And what did he say to that?” Howard and Dobbs asked at the same time.
“He said that he didn’t mean to bother me at all, and that he only wanted to be in the company of a white man for a few days because he hadn’t met an American for months, and that he was about to go nuts roaming about the Sierra and seeing only Indians and never hearing a word but corrupt Spanish, and that he wanted to sit for a few nights with a white man by the fire, have a smoke together, and a danm talk, and that was all. To this I said that I didn’t feel like swallowing his chatter and that I wanted to be alone. I think he doesn’t know that I’m not alone up here. I think he has the idea that I’m camping single-handed.”
“Where do you think he is right now?” Dobbs asked.
“Do you think he followed you?” Howard wanted to know.
“I took good care to go ‘way round and look for ground that the burros couldn’t easily leave stamped with their tracks. I even crawled with the animals through long stretches of brush to get the mug off my trail. But, hell, whenever I got a chance to shoot a glance back at him from a higher point of the mountains, I could see that he was coming along all right. Seems he has got a good nose. If I’d been all by myself, I could have thrown him off the trail easily, but with three burros on your hands it couldn’t be done. It’s only a matter of time, for if he means to find me he sure will. No way out. There’s only one question to settle right now.”
“What question?” Dobbs asked.
“What are we going to do with him if he shows up one of these days? We couldn’t very well work the mine any longer with him around for a watch-dog.”
Howard stirred the fire and said: “Hard to tell what to do. If he were an Indian from the valley or from the village below, it wouldn’t matter a bit. An Indian doesn’t stay. He goes back to his village, to his family. It’s different with such a guy. He will smell us out. He won’t be so dumb as not to ask himself why three white men are camping up here for months. We can’t tell him that we’re here on a vacation. We might tell him that we’ve committed a couple of murders and are hiding out. But suppose he’s the wrong kind; he’ll go back after a while and set a company of federal troops after us. If they get you, and the officer in command is in a hurry to return to his jane, he orders his soldiers to shoot you like a sick dog. They shoot you while you are trying to escape. You can’t prove afterwards that they were mistaken, because they bury you right where you drop, and before that they make you dig a hole to spend your time in until the trumpets call you to check up the register of your sins.”