“Tell us all this later,” Dobbs broke in. “We’ve got other worries now. I move that we tell him to check out the minute he pops up, and say to him in a straightforward manner that if we see him around here just once more, we’ll fill his belly up with plums hard enough for him to digest.”
Howard was against such a measure. “That would be foolish. He’d sit around for an hour, play the innocent, and then go down to the nearest town and put the mounted police on our track. Then what? What do the police know about us? We might be escaped convicts, or rebels against the government, or bandits. The police would be here in no time if that guy told them we’ve got stolen treasure with us. Once the police are here, even if they didn’t find anything, we couldn’t stay any longer and we couldn’t take home with us what we have.”
“All right,” Dobbs said, “then there’s nothing else to do but pull the trigger the very minute he comes. Or we might hang him. Then there’ll be peace again.”
“Mebbe,” was all Howard had to say to that. He took the potatoes from the fire to see if they were done. Potatoes were the greatest luxury they had had since they had been here, for they Were seldom to be found in the village. This time the grocer had ordered a few pounds from the town because he knew that Curtin would buy them.
Placing the pot of potatoes back on the fire, Howard began to Speak: “We can’t shoot him. That’s out. He may be just a tramp, a guy that likes to roam about this great country without any special aim, just to thank the Lord for these beautiful mountains. We can’t shoot him for that. He hasn’t done us any wrong, and we don’t know by a lost penny whether he means to nose into our business. Some fellows are working themselves to death in the oil-fields or in the copper mines to make a living or to pile up dough, while others prefer to go hungry sometimes rather than miss the opportunity to contemplate the wonders and the beauty of nature. It’s no crime to visit these mountains with an open heart; at least it’s no crime against us.”
Dobbs didn’t seem convinced. “How can we tell if he’s that sort of a nut or if he’s crooked?”
“We can’t. Right you are.” The old man agreed perfectly. “But we ought to give him a chance. And besides, if we shoot him, it might come to light.”
“Might come to light? How come?” Dobbs could not get away from his idea of killing him. “We dig him in and leave him there. Suppose somebody has seen him coming up here, what of it? That’s no evidence that we shot him. If we don’t want to shoot him we can easily push him over a rock and he’ll break his neck. If his body is found, everybody will accept it as a lamentable accident.”
“Yes, quite easy.” Howard grinned at Dobbs. “Easy. As easy as kicking an old mule in the buttocks. And just who is going to shoot him or push him off into a ravine? You, Dobby?”
“Why not? We can flip a coin to find out who will have to do it.”
“Oh, yes? And the one who did it will be forever in the hands of those who know it. Not me, brother. Count me out. That’s too costly for me. No sale as far as I’m concerned.”
During all this long discussion between Howard and Dobbs, Curtin had sat silent, drinking his coffee, poking the fire occasionally, and raising his eyes from the ground at times to let his gaze wander around the brush that fenced in the camp.
Howard suddenly noted that Curtin had not taken part in the conversation for a long time, and asked: “Are you sure he was trailing you?”
“I’m quite sure of that.”
“How come?”
“Because there he is.” Curtin made a tired gesture with his shoulders and shot a glance at an opening in the bushes where the path led to the camp.
Howard and Dobbs were so bewildered that for a few seconds they could not bring themselves to look in the direction Curtin had indicated.
“Where?” they asked both at the same time. They were so surprised that they forgot to fatten the question with an oath.
Curtin nodded his head toward the path.
Howard and Dobbs finally turned round and looked at the path, and there, in the deep shadows of the falling night, uncertainly lighted up by the flickering camp-fire, the stranger stood, at either side of him a mule which he held by ropes.
He looked at the three men in amazement, for he had expected to find Curtin alone.
He didn’t call out a friendly “Hello,” but stood silent, waiting to be called or shot at or cursed. It was difficult to tell from his attitude what he really expected to happen. He gave the impression that he was willing to submit to anything that these three rough-looking fellows should decide to do to him. At the same time he seemed too proud to beg or even to accept any sort of help for which he was not able to pay.
Chapter 10
While Curtin was telling of the stranger, Howard and Dobbs had built up in their minds an idea of what he might look like. Each had pictured the stranger differently.
Dobbs had imagined him a crude tramp with the features of an old drunkard, coupled with the looks of a man who is spending his life in the tropics, living from robberies on the highway and from all sorts of tricks, and not afraid to slay any man who might resist him.
Howard, on the other hand, had pictured him as the ordinary prospector, robust, with weather-beaten, leatherlike face, hands like roots of old trees, and not afraid of anything; a man using all his experience, knowledge, and brain and stubbornly trying to find a rich claim and exploit it to the limit. To Howard the stranger appeared to be an honest gold-digger of the old, sturdy sort who would never commit a crime or steal even a nail, but would stand ready to commit murder at any moment to defend his claim against anyone who tried to deprive him of what he was sure was his rightful property.
Now both Howard and Dobbs were surprised. The stranger looked entirely different from their pictures of him, and as he had appeared so unexpectedly, neither the old man nor Dobbs could utter a sound.
The stranger was still standing in the opening. Obviously he was at a loss what to do or say.
His mules sniffed at the ground, then, lifting their noses high, sniffed the air. After this they turned their heads and brayed with all their might to others of their kind in the pasture where the burros were kept. It was this earthy braying of the mules that broke the spell.
Dobbs rose. With long, slow strides he went across the camp toward the stranger, who did not move.
Dobbs had had it in mind to treat the intruder as rough as hell and to ask him outright what he wanted and then send him to the devil. But when he reached him he merely said indifferently: “Hello, stranger!”
“Hello, friend!” the stranger answered quietly.
Dobbs had his hands in his pants pockets. He looked at the man, moved his tongue inside of a tightly closed mouth, scratched the ground with his right foot, and said: “Okay, won’t you come over and sit by the fire?”
“Thank you, friend,” was all the stranger said.
He came closer to the fire, took off the packs and the saddles from his mules, coupled the forelegs of the animals with a leather thong, patted their necks in a friendly way, pushed his fist into their hams, and said: “Now, you rascals, off for your supper.” This he murmured so low it could hardly be heard by the fellows at the fire.
None of the partners had given him a hand in unpacking his mules. He seemed not to have expected any assistance.