Posted by Peter Ceresole on October 13, 2012 at 04:21:16 user PeterC.
In Reply to: Re: why bother with the ingot? posted by John Lambert on October 12, 2012 at 17:47:58:
Dick probably had had no experience with either gold or pyrites, so the relative lightness wouldn't have made him wonder.
Once again, the clue would be in the mind of AR, and his assertion that the characters took on a life of their own. Nancy would be fired by the traditional image of the 'gold ingot'. That's what was in pirate trunks; chunky things you held aloft in triumph, not boring old dust.
And most of all, it gave him some splendid story elements that would make for a good hundred extra pages of exciting action, especially when you count in the prairie fire, the accusations around the smoking furnace and the triumphant vindication- 'them pigeons' as the coach horns ring out in the valley. And, too, the coming good of Gnossie, cast as a villain throughout until he emerges as hero 'TIMOTHY!' The usual superb plotting by AR required all these thing to happen. Or not happen, as the case may be...