The Treasure OfThe Sierra Madre

“Anyway,” Howard, the old fellow, said, “anyway, gold is a very devilish sort of a thing, believe me, boys. In the first place, it changes your character entirely. When you have it your soul is no longer the same as it was before. No getting away from that. You may have so much piled up that you can’t carry it away; but, bet your blessed paradise, the more you have, the more you want to add, to make it just that much more. Like sitting at roulette. Just one more turn. So it goes on and on and on. You cease to distinguish between right and wrong. You can no longer see clearly what is good and what is bad. You lose your judgment. That’s what it is.”

“I don’t see why,” one of the youngsters broke in.

“Oh yes, you’ll see it. When you go out, you tell yourself: I shall be satisfied with fifty thousand handsome smackers, or the worth of it, so help me, Lord, and cross my heart. Elegant resolution. After sweating the hell out of you, going short of provisions, and seeing nothing and finding nothing, you come down to forty thousand, then to thirty, and you reach five thousand, and you say to yourself: If I only could make five grand, Lord, I sure would be grateful and never want anything, anything more in all my life.”

“Five thousand wouldn’t be so bad, after all,” the same young fellow butted in.

“Oh, be quiet,” said his partner; “can’t you shut up a minute when you see somebody is telling you something worth listening to, you mug?”

“It’s not at all so easy as you fellers think it might be,” Howard went on. “You’d be satisfied with five grand. But I tell you, if you find something then, you couldn’t be dragged away; not even the threat of miserable death could stop you getting just ten thousand more. And if you reach fifty, you want to make it a hundred, to be safe for the rest of your life. When you finally have a hundred and fifty, you want two hundred, to make sure, absolutely sure, that you’ll be really on the safe side, come what may.”

Dobbs had become excited. To show that he had a right to be there and to listen to the wise man he said: “That wouldn’t happen to me. I swear it. I’d take twenty thousand, pack up, and go. I’d do that even if there were still half a million bucks’ worth lying around howling to be picked up. I wouldn’t take it. It’s just twenty grand that I’m after to make me perfectly happy and healthy.”

Howard looked at him, scrutinizing, it seemed, every wrinkle of his face. He did so for quite a while. But he answered indirectly. As though he hadn’t been interrupted he continued: “Whoever has never been out for gold doesn’t know what’s really going on at the spot. I know for a fact it’s easier to leave a gambling-table when you’re winning than to leave a rich claim after you’ve made your good cut. It’s all spread out before you like the treasures of that Arabian mug Aladdin. It’s all yours for the taking. No, sir, you can’t leave it, not even with a wire in your fist that your old mother back home is dying and all alone. See, I’ve dug in Alaska and made a bit; I’ve been in the crowd in British Columbia and made there at least my fair wages. I was down in Australia, where I made the fare back home, with a few hundred left over to cure me of a stomach trouble I caught down there. I’ve dug in Montana and in Colorado and I don’t know where else.”

One of the youngsters asked: “As you say, mister, you’ve dug practically all over the world, then how come you’re sitting here flow in this dirty joint and all broke?”