“‘Blest be the man that spares these stones, and cursed be he that moves my bones.’ Hey, you don’t want to be cussed, do yer? Cussed for life fer a grave-snatching ghoul? Your own pal, at that? Poor old Nock!”
Alfred Turner’s eyes were averted. He smoked the last half of his cigarette in three long puffs and tossed the stub away with a determined gesture. He was as big, as quick and as strong as McAdams, and younger by fifteen years. However, he would try his wit first. He scooped a handful of the rich pay dirt.
“Do you realize, McAdams, what we have here? Not a dozen buckets of gravel, probably. A couple of hundred pans at the most, and perhaps as much more that you didn’t disturb in digging the hole.”
“Hole, is it? Just a hole! Sentimental, you are, fer a fact!”
“Just wait a minute. You’re a placer miner. You know what gravel goes to the pan when you can see the gold in it—pick out nuggets with your fingers! There’s five, six, seven thousand dollars in this pothole, this pocket, just as sure as the world. I need the money—need it bad, if you don’t. You’re broke, ain’t you?”
“What’s that got to do with it?” demanded McAdams.
Turner studied him. Was it affectation? No, the fellow looked frankly bewildered at the question. Was it cupidity? Did he intend later to return and take it all?
“It’s all right, this sentimentality—for that’s what it is—mere mawkish sentimentality. If you can afford it! Why we’d be just plain fools if we went off without it!”
McAdams had recourse to the grimy bandanna. He mopped his brow.
“Any man can work,” he answered doggedly. “He don’t have ter rob graves. I ain’t superstitious, Turner. But it’s durn funny old Whipple dies with them words on his lips: ‘In a grave that’s decked with gold.’ An’ here he is in a grave full of it. If there’s anything in sperits, maybe the old man’s hovering around and laughin’ to beat the dickens. Struck it at last—when it can’t do him no good!”