“Gold's a devilish sort of thing, anyway. You start out, you tell yourself you'll be satisfied with 25,000 handsome smackers worth of it. So help me, Lord, and cross my heart. Fine resolution. After months of sweating yourself dizzy, growing short of provisions, and finding nothing, you finally come down to 15,000, then ten. Finally, you say, "Lord, let me find just $5,000 worth and I'll never ask for anything more the rest of my life...Yeah, here in this joint it seems like a lot. But I tell you, if you was to make a real strike, you couldn't be dragged away. Not even the threat of miserable death would keep you from trying to add $10,000 more. Ten you'd want to get twenty-five, twenty-five you'd want to get fifty, fifty, a hundred. Like roulette. One more turn, you know. Always one more.“