The Treasure OfThe Sierra Madre

Dobbs, only half listening to what Curtin was saying, leaned back on the bench and looked up at the roofs of houses where men were at work putting up telephone wires. He had watched them the day before and he watched them now, waiting for something to happen to them. They were standing there so unprotected that he wondered how they could work at all. “And all this,” he said, “all this for four pesos and fifty centavos a day, with the possibility of dropping off and breaking their necks. A working-man’s life is a dog’s life, that’s what it is. Oh hell, let’s talk about something more amusing. Getting back once more to that story, I wonder would you betray your pals just to have all the gold for yourself.”

Curtin did not answer right away. “I don’t think that anyone can say what he would do if he had a chance to get all the cuts for himself just by a little trick or a bit of cheating. I’m sure that every man has acted differently from the way he had thought he would when face to face with a heap of money or with the opportunity to pocket a quarter of a million with only the move of one hand.”

“I think I would do as Harry Tilton did,” Dobbs said. “That is the safe thing. Then one wouldn’t have to sweat for others and run around hungry all the time. I sure would be satisfied with a certain sum, take it and go away and settle down in a pretty little town, and let the others quarrel.”

2

Returning to town in the afternoon after a swim in the river and a walk of three miles back to the city along a dusty road, to save the fifteen centavos street-car fare, the two men began to talk about prospecting again.

It was not exactly the gold alone they desired. They were tired of hanging around waiting for a new job to turn up and of chasing contractors and being forced to smile at them and laugh at their jokes to keep them friendly. A change was what they wanted most. This running after jobs could not go on forever. There must be some way out of this crazy-go-round. It was so silly to stand by the windows of the Banking Company and block the way of everybody who looked as if he might give you a job Somewhere out in the fields.

Half a week went by without even the smell of a job. It looked more than ever as if the whole oil business were going to die, at least in the republic here and for sure in this section of the Country.

By the end of the week Dobbs felt that for the next three months there was practically no chance of any paying job. Many companies were beginning to close up a great number of fields, and others were making preparations to withdraw from the republic altogether. Men who had worked steadily during the last five years were coming back to town and crowding the jobless. Dobbs, in a fit of desperation, said: “Everything is dying now. A lot of boys who have got the money to pay for the tickets are making off for Venezuela, where a boom seems to be on its way. So everything is at an end here now for sure. Tell you, buddy, I’m making off now for gold even if I have to go all by myself. I’m sick of this town and of this life. If I have to eat the dust, I may just as well do it among the Indians in the Sierra Mache as in this dying town. That’s what I think and what I mean.”

“You said it, brother,” Curtin admitted, “and as for me, you may count me in; I’m ready even for stealing horses or cattlerustling.”

“That’s what I like to hear. What chances are you expecting to have after, let’s say, four weeks?” Dobbs asked. “Pocketpicking and the Islas Marias.”

“Islas Marias? Are there new oil-fields?”

“No, you sap,” Dobbs put him right; “that’s the penal colony where you will go if the pocketpicking goes wrong and somebody grabs you firmly by your wrist. It isn’t just a vacation to be on those islands, if you ask me. Do you know why the pictures of the Holy Virgin you see here in all churches show a knife stabbed into her breast? That knife has been thrust into the heart of the Virgin by someone who had come back alive from the Maria Islands. There are very few guards on these islands, but you can’t escape by swimming or going off in a small canoe, because they are guarded by half a million ferocious man-sharks.”

“Pretty place, I have to say,” Curtin laughed. “And so pocketpicking and the like are out. Who wants to be guarded by sharks?”

“That’s what I said. So I think we shuffle off tomorrow. The sooner we leave, the better. In this town we spend our money for nothing; when we’re on our way, we’re actually investing our money. I’ll talk it over tonight with old man Howard.”

“With him?” asked Curtin. “What for? You don’t mean to take him along? He’s too old. We might have to carry him on our back.”