Harold Lamb

“ Dearest Clara:
I have made arrangements with our friends in Ancud for you to come to Punta. We can leave Punta very soon because I have made a fortune for you. Then we will go home. I have located a claim that I have called after your mother—the Isabella. It is so rich that gold can be washed by hand on the barranca—but you do not understand such things. I am living now in a big white house on the plaza that you will like.
The name signed to the letter was Señor Juan. On the envelope Dave saw an inscription:
From John Bruce, Cuerpo de Bomberos, Punta Arenas. ”

“ So it was agreed that Dave was to work for Calbuco for one month. For this he was to receive fifty dollars, gold. He would leave Punta on a coastal steamer for the place on the morrow at sunup. Meanwhile he could sleep on the vessel.
“You’re sure it’s out on a mining claim, Mr. Calbuco?” he insisted warily.
Calbuco smiled indulgently.
“A landmark, Thornton. Every one in the strait is bound for it.”
When the game broke up the three others went out, Calbuco nodding cordially to Dave; but Mr. John remained slumped in his chair. ”

“ The negro nodded cautiously.
“Look here, Jamaica, you’re a good guy. Bruce’s girl is here, and Calbuco has her.”
“Han English lydy?”
“Sure.” Dave strained a point. “She’s a lady, all right. And that’s more’n Mrs. Calbuco is.”
Jamaica was profoundly disturbed. He had been born under the British flag, and an Englishwoman was sacrosanct in his eyes. A few words from him assured the American that the Calbuco woman had kept a house of bad repute in Rio de Janeiro before migrating to Punta, and that many of her associates had found lodging in the white house on the plaza. ”

“ Dave reflected that Calbuco must have heard him talking to the barkeep.
“Maybe,” he admitted. “I’d like to get out to the gold fields.”
Calbuco tossed, faces down, three queens into the discard. Now, Dave had seen that Señor Juan, the Englishman, who took the pot, had held a lonely pair of tens. It struck him as curious; but bis mind was intent on Calbuco’s offer.
“Certainly,” the Portuguese agreed. “I need a watchman—a guard. I will pay well.” His black eyes scanned the young American appraisingly. “Ten pounds a month, when your job is ended. You can handle a revolver. You have one, yes?” ”

“ Walstrom smiled. “But I advise you to do your best to leave Punta while it’s dark. There is no American consul within a thousand miles, or any countryman. You’ve—ah—held up an alcalde and robbed Calbuco, who has a good deal of money and influence, besides a ship or two.”
“He’s my meat.” Dave puffed at his cigarette seriously. “You was talking about the Tierra del Fuego mines when I busted in this evening. Did you see anything of the claim of John Bruce when you was over there?” ”

“ Clara was not quite seventeen. She had been left by her father in a Catholic seminary for four years, up the coast at Ancud. Now her father had sent for her, and she had been put in charge of the captain, a good Catholic. Her mother, a Spaniard, had been dead for many years. Had Dave seen her father in Punta?
“Sure, I saw him.”
“He is a very fine man. He has become rich.”
“That’s what I heard,” admitted Dave. His quarrel was not with the daughter of Calbuco, if Clara was Calbuco’s daughter. She smiled and showed him the letter she had received. ”

“ My young brigand—I don’t know your name—the gold of Tierra del Fuego can, literally, be picked up or rather washed by hand. It is produced solely by the action of the sea on the sands along the coastal barranca. The sea has been washing down that sand for hundreds of years. ”

“ Whimpering, Clara admitted that she did not. She asked him, uncertainly, to leave the room.
“I can’t,” said Dave truthfully. “Anyway, you hurry up and dress. I’ll be over by the window and I can’t see nothing in the dark. Hurry.”
Peering, out through the shutters, he could make out men passing back and forth along the balcony and lights bobbing in front of the house. Presently the balcony was quiet and the lights moved out into the plaza as the pursuit drew further afield. ”

“ The stout alcalde spluttered something in Spanish about thieves.
“Keep your hands up like I said, Spiggotty,” Dave advised him. “Now, Calbuco, you lied to me. You robbed an American citizen of his gun. That’s right, ain’t it? Well, I’m telling you that you have a lot more coming to you. Don’t forget that. Stop wiggling your hands, Pedro—I ain’t talking to you.”
Dave pocketed the money and moved back toward the window.
“Tell your friends to turn around, Calbuco, and look at the wall. You do it, too.”
Walstrom and Quensel looked at each other and grinned involuntarily. ”

“ The sea is gray, the fogs are gray. The gray curtain of rain shuts in the Evangelistas and the lighthouse that stands on one of the rocks.
When food is brought to the keepers of the light it is hauled up by a rope when the weather is fair and a whaleboat can approach the rock. Once the vessel bringing supplies to the Evangelistas waited forty days for fair weather.
So you understand that the Evangelistas are very much like a prison and the keepers of the light are the prisoners.
“The Good Book says,” John Bruce repeats, “that God, when He made the world, separated the water from the land ”

“ Mus’ be careful.” Gripping Dave’s shoulder, he walked through the saloon tolerably steadily. The boy looked for the Jamaica barkeep, thinking to question him concerning Calbuco and his affairs. But the negro had been relieved and was no longer in the place.
“What sort of a guy is this Calbuco?” inquired Dave of his new companion as they passed out into the rain.
“Guy? Oh, a decent sort, a bit of all right.”
Mr. John’s voice was husky. Dave guessed that he was a sheep-herder or perhaps a prospector, an educated man, now down on his luck. ”

“ The barkeep was not much older than Dave. “Hi’m a Jamaica gentleman, sah!”
A negro would always rather chuckle than quarrel. A glance into Dave’s alert, gray eyes rendered the black prudent. He smiled back, and before the evening was far advanced the two were friends. Jamaica admitted that jobs were plentiful, and Dave had visions of becoming personal assistant to a conquistador at one of the claims.
Contemptuously the young American surveyed the mob of Chinamen, Italians, Poles, and Kanakas, and the violently painted mestizos in the^ place. These folk were not what he sought ”

“ Calbuco nodded affably at Bruce and his daughter, “do they also sail on the steamer?”
“Assuredly.” Walstrom took it on himself to reply. “Mr. Bruce has information regarding the mineral deposits of the straits—most interesting information.”
And he looked at the Portuguese. Calbuco squirmed, thinking of the Isabella claim and the nuggets he had seen. He had never succeeded in bullying the information he wanted from the Englishman. Moreover, his conscience made him afraid. Imprisoning Bruce might be explained to the authorities ”