novel
by the mysterious German-English bilingual author B. Traven
, in which two penurious American
s of the 1920s join with an old-timer, in Mexico
, to prospect for gold
. The book was adapted successfully as a 1948 film of the same name
by John Huston
.
By the 1920s the violence of the Mexican Revolution
had largely subsided, although scattered gangs of bandits continued to terrorize the countryside. The newly established post-revolution government relied on the effective but ruthless Federal Police, commonly known as the Federales
, to patrol remote areas and dispose of the bandits.
Foreigners, like the three American prospectors who are the protagonists of the story, were at very real risk of being killed by the bandits.
The bandits, likewise, were given little more than a "last cigarette" by the army units after capture, even having to dig their own graves first.
Can you help a fellow American down on his luck?
If I was a native, I'd get me a can of shoe polish and I'd be in business. They'd never let a gringo. You can sit on a bench til you're three-quarters starved. You can beg from another gringo. You can even commit burglary. But try shining shoes in the street or peddling lemonade out of a bucket and your hash is settled. You'd never get another job from an American.
[to Curtin] Why not try gold diggin' for a change? Well, it ain't any riskier than waitin' around here for a break. And this is the country where the nuggets of gold are just cryin' for ya to take 'em out of the ground and make 'em shine in coins and on the fingers and necks of swell dames. Our money would last longer while we lived out in the open. The longer it lasts, the greater our chance of diggin' something up would be!
[about his winning lottery ticket] Just look at that fat, rich, printed number! That's the kind of sugar Papa likes. Oh, two hundred pesos! Welcome, sweet little smackeroos.
[to Curtin] This is an all-or-nothing proposition, ain't it? If we make a find, we'll be lightin' our cigars with hundred dollar bills. If we don't, the difference between what you put up and what I put up ain't enough to keep me from being right back where I was this afternoon, polishing a bench with the seat of my pants. Put 'er there, pard.
That bandit with the Gold Hat that rode alongside the train - I had my sights on him nice as you please, but the train gave a jolt and I missed him. Sure wish I'd got him.
I sure had some cockeyed ideas about prospectin' for gold. It was all in the finding I thought. I thought all you had to do was find it, pick it up, put it in sacks, and carry 'em off to the nearest bank.
Well sure! You're old...I'm young. I need dough and plenty of it.
You can't catch me sleepin'...Don't you ever believe that. I'm not that dumb. The day you try to put anything over on me will be a costly one for both of you...Any more lip out of you and I'll haul off and let ya have it. If ya know what's good for ya, ya won't monkey around with Fred C. Dobbs.
[about Cody] Fred C. Dobbs ain't a guy likes bein' taken advantage of - do the mug in, I say!