The Treasure of the Sierra Madre Page #2

scorpions and cockroaches.

The cots are only 50 centavos a night.

MANAGER:
Have another...

MAN:
jobs that were a dime a dozen

ain't to be had at all.

Streets are full of guys...

pushing each other over a meal.

HOWARD:
Gold in Mexico? Sure.

Not 10 days from here by rail.

The mountain's waiting for the right guy

to discover and take her treasure.

The question is. Are you the right guy?

Real bonanzas are few and far between.

They take a lot of finding.

Answer me this, will you?

Why is gold worth some $20 an ounce?

MAN #2:
I don't know. Because it's scarce.

A thousand men go searching for gold.

After six months one of them's lucky.

One out of the thousand.

His find represents not only his own labor

but that of 999 others to boot.

That's 6,000 months, 500 years...

scrambling over mountain,

going hungry and thirsty.

The gold is worth what it is 'cause of

the human labor that went into finding it.

MAN #2:
Never thought of that.

There's no other explanation.

Gold ain't good for nothing

except for making jewelry and gold teeth.

Gold's a devilish sort of thing.

You start out to tell yourself

you'll be satisfied with $25,000 worth.

So help me Lord and cross my heart.

Fine resolution.

After months of sweating yourself dizzy,

few provisions, finding nothing...

you finally come down to $15,000,

then $10,000.

Finally you say,

"Lord, let me just find $5,000 worth...

"and I'll never ask for anything more

the rest of my life."

MAN #2:
$5,000 is a lot of money.

In this joint it seems like a lot.

But if you made a real strike,

you couldn't be dragged away.

Even the threat of death wouldn't

keep you from adding $10,000 more.

$10,000, you'd want $25,000.

$25,000, you'd want $50,000.

$50,000, $100,000. Like roulette.

One more turn, you know.

Always one more.

It wouldn't be that way with me.

I swear, it wouldn't.

I'd take only what I set out to get.

Even if there was still $500,000 worth...

lying around, waiting to be picked up.

I've dug in Alaska

and Canada and Colorado.

I was in the British Honduras,

I made my fare back home...

and almost enough over

to cure me of the fever I'd caught.

Dug in California and Australia.

All over the world practically.

Yeah. I know what gold does

to men's souls.

MAN #2:
You talk as though

you struck it rich sometime, pop.

How about it?

Then what are you doing in here,

a down-and-outer?

That's gold. That's what it makes us.

Never knew a prospector yet

that died rich.

Make one fortune, he's sure to blow it

trying to find another.

I'm no exception to the rule.

Sure I'm a gnawed old bone now

but don't you guys think the spirit's gone.

I'm set to shoulder a pickaxe

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