There was less quietness in the tent, which was too far away from the fire for the stranger to distinguish all that was said there, though he could hear hushed voices.
“I am still of the opinion that we must get rid of him some Way,” Dobbs insisted.
Howard tried to calm him: “Hush, hush! Not so hot. We don’t know a damn thing about him yet. Give him a chance. To me he looks absolutely harmless. I would bet that he isn’t a spy for any outside party, government or highwaymen. If he were that he wouldn’t come alone, and he sure wouldn’t look so hungry.”
“Hungry, yea? He? You make me sick,” Dobbs interrupted the old man. “Did he eat? He hardly touched the food.”
“Come, come. If you are as dead tired as he seemed to be you can’t eat very well. I rather figure he has a guilty conscience. Guess he’s running away from something or somebody. Something or somebody is after him. It may not be just murder or a hold-up. There are other things. Often worse than the cops.”
Now Curtin spoke up. “Perhaps we could start a quarrel with him and make him boil over, and as soon as he draws, we could switch him off and be fully justified.”
“That doesn’t look so very swell to me.” Howard was sitting on his cot pulling off his boots. “No, I’m against it. It’s dirty_ would be dirty that way. It isn’t fair.”
“Oh hell, fair or no fair,” Dobbs howled, “we have to get rid of him. That’s all there is to it. He is warned about his health, isn’t he? If he doesn’t take heed, it’s his funeral.”
Stretched on their cots, they were still talking and trying to find a solution for the problem which so unexpectedly confronted them. All were agreed that the stranger was not welcome and that he had to be disposed of. Yet they also admitted that killing him had many disadvantages and only one benefit. And even this benefit was rather doubtful.
Finally they fell asleep without having reached any definite decision.
Chapter 11
The next morning found the three partners very early by the fire. Having had a bad night with all sorts of heavy dreams, they were in as bad humor as a girl whose new white dress has been soiled by a passing motorist just three minutes before she is to meet the boy friend.
The stranger had been busy. Fuel was heaped by the fire, which was blazing, and his own cooking-kettles, with beans and coffee, were hanging over it.
Dobbs greeted him: “Hey, you mug, where did you get the water for your stuff?”
“I just took it from the bucket.”
“Oh, you did, did you? Fine. But don’t get the idea into your cone that we are pulling up the water for you. We don’t wait on anybody—least of all on a tramp like you.”
“Excuse me, I didn’t know that water was so hard to get here.”
“You know it now, and no more lip from you, you son of a bitch.”
“I’ll get the bucket filled for you.”
“Better hurry.”
At this moment Curtin came to the fire:’ “Water-stealing, hey? And stealing our fuel? What do you think you are, anyway? Just let me catch you once more taking one thing that belongs to us. Then I’ll fill your belly up, doggone it to hell.”
“I thought that perhaps I was among civilized men who would not mind letting me have a drink of fresh water,” he said very politely.
Dobbs was on his feet as though he had been sitting on a bomb. “You don’t mean to say that we can’t read or write, that we are just bandits and Sons of a dozen bitches? Is that it?” And without waiting for an answer he planted his fist in the stranger’s face with such force that he dropped full-length as if felled by a heavy club.
He needed time to come to. Slowly he rose and shook his head as if he wanted to find the full use of his neck again.
Then he came close to Dobbs and said: “I could easily do the same to you, and it isn’t settled yet who might come out the better of us two. What good would it do me? I know you three are only waiting for the moment I draw to catch me and bump me off the landscape. I won’t make it so easy for you. No fooling for me. Never mind, perhaps there will come a day when we shall have an accounting, and then we’ll look at the balance. This time I took it. Thanks for your kind attention.”
He went to the fire and lifted his kettles off. Just as he started to carry them away to another site, where he wanted to build his own fire, Howard approached him.
“Got something to eat, stranger?” Howard asked in a friendly voice.
“Yes, partner. I’ve got tea, coffee, beans, rice, dried meat, and two cans of milk.”
“Never mind your own eats. Today you may eat with us. But tomorrow I’d suggest you have your own kitchen ready.”
“Thanks. I certainly shall take your hint.”
“Tomorrow?” Dobbs, who by his victory had steamed off his anger, spoke less harshly. “Tomorrow? Now, listen here, stranger, what do you mean? You don’t mean to rent an apartment here and spend your vacation in our neighborhood? We sure wouldn’t be pleased to have you for our next-door family.”
“Who cares?” the stranger answered, throwing a few pinches of tea into his kettle, and without looking up from the boiling brew he added: “I mean to stay here. It’s pretty around here.”
Curtin with a voice louder than necessary said: “No parking here without our permission, partner.”
“Bush and mountains are free, ain’t they?”
“Not the way you think, friend,” Howard broke in. “Free is the bush, and the desert, and the woods, and the mountain ranges for whoever likes to camp there. In that you are right. But we were the first here; we’ve got the first claim.”
“Maybe. Maybe that’s what you think. But how can you prove that you were really the first here on this spot? What if I was here long before you ever thought of coming?”
“Registered your claim?” Howard asked.
“Did you?”
“That’s beyond the point. We are here right now. And suppose you have been here before, as you say you have; why didn’t you stake it? Since you didn’t, you haven’t the slightest chance in any court if you mean to fight it out. Well, let’s have breakfast.”
Breakfast over, the partners did not know what to do. They couldn’t go to work at the mine, for the stranger would find them out.
Curtin then had an idea. He said that they all might go hunting together.
The stranger looked from one to another. He was not sure what was behind this proposal. The hunt might give the partners a great opportunity to get rid of him through an accident. Thinking this over, he concluded that if they meant to kill him they would do it anyhow, accident or no accident. They alone would be the witnesses.
So he said: “Okay with me. Today I’ll go hunting with you, but tomorrow I’ve got other things to do, more important things.”
“What?” the three partners asked almost simultaneously.
“Tomorrow I start to dig for gold here.”
“You don’t say so?” Howard had heard the word with a deep breath. He had become pale. So had his two partners.
“Yes, I’m going to prospect here. Right at this spot or somewhere around in the neighborhood. Here is the stuff I was looking for. If none of you have found anything here, that would only be evidence that all of you are boneheads. But I don’t think you are.”
“You’re smart, stranger,” Howard answered him. “Where would we be if it were not for you to show us the glory of heaven? My, my! What a great guy!”
“I figure you’ve scratched up, let’s say, around fifty ounces.”