Alvarez. And again, some folks say he's back with the Nitrate Company."

"After he sold them out?"

"Yes, but you see he's worth more to them now. He knows all the
Walker-Keefe secrets and Alvarez's secrets, too."

I expressed my opinion of every one concerned.

"It shouldn't surprise YOU," complained the captain. "You know the
country. Every man in it is out for something that isn't his. The pilot
wants his bit, the health doctor must get his, the customs take all your
cigars, and if you don't put up gold for the captain of the port and the
alcalde and the commandant and the harbor police and the foreman of the
cargadores, they won't move a lighter, and they'll hold up the ship's
papers. Well, an American comes down here, honest and straight and
willing to work for his wages. But pretty quick he finds every one
is getting his squeeze but him, so he tries to get some of it back by
robbing the natives that robbed him. Then he robs the other foreigners,
and it ain't long before he's cheating the people at home who sent him
here. There isn't a man in this nitrate row that isn't robbing the crowd
he's with, and that wouldn't change sides for money. Schnitzel's no
worse than the president nor the canteen contractor."

He waved his hand at the glaring coast-line, at the steaming swamps and
the hot, naked mountains.

"It's the country that does it," he said. "It's in the air. You can
smell it as soon as you drop anchor, like you smell the slaughter-house
at Punta-Arenas."