“The workings are three hundred miles inland. Just three hundred miles of pure Hades. You can get all the fevers you ever heard of, and a few more, I got most of them last trip.”
“I thought you were looking pretty bad.”
“I ought to be. I’ve swallowed so much quinine since I saw you last that my ears are buzzing still. And then there are the insects. They all bite. Some bite worse than others, but not much. Darn it! even the butterflies bite out there. Every animal in the country has some other animal constantly chasing it until a white man comes along, when they call a truce and both chase him. And the vegetation is so thick and grows so quickly that you have to cut down the jungle about the workings every few days or so to avoid being swamped by it. Otherwise,” finished Hank, refilling his pipe and lighting it, “the place is a pretty good kind of summer resort.”
“And you’re going back to it? Back to the quinine and the beasts and the butterflies?”
“Sure. The gold runs up to twenty dollars the cubic yard and is worth eighteen dollars an ounce.”
“When are you going?”
“I’m in no hurry. This year, next year, some time, never. No, not never. Call it some time.”
“And you want me to come, too?”
“I would give half of whatever there is in the mine to have you come. But things being as they are, well, I guess we can call it off. Is there any chance in the world, Kirk, of your ever ceasing to be a bloated capitalist? Could any of your stocks go back on you?”
“I doubt it. They’re pretty gilt-edged, I fancy, though I’ve never studied the question of stocks. My little gold-mine isn’t in the same class with yours, but it’s as solid as a rock, and no fevers and insects attached to it, either.”