One day, after a week of prospecting, they met unexpectedly on the slope of an arroyo. It was late in the afternoon. “Hello, pardner,” exclaimed Cribbens as he came down to where McTeague was bending over his pan. “What luck?”
The dentist emptied his pan and straightened up. “Nothing, nothing. You struck anything?”
“Not a trace. Guess we might as well be moving towards camp.” They returned together, Cribbens telling the dentist of a group of antelope he had seen.
“We might lay off tomorrow, an’ see if we can plug a couple of them fellers. Antelope steak would go pretty well after beans an’ bacon an’ coffee week in an’ week out.”
McTeague was answering, when Cribbens interrupted him with an exclamation of profound disgust. “I thought we were the first to prospect along in here, an’ now look at that. Don’t it make you sick?”
He pointed out evidences of an abandoned prospector’s camp just before them—charred ashes, empty tin cans, one or two gold-miner’s pans, and a broken pick. “Don’t that make you sick?” muttered Cribbens, sucking his mustache furiously. “To think of us mushheads going over ground that’s been covered already! Say, pardner, we’ll dig out of here tomorrow. I’ve been thinking, anyhow, we’d better move to the south; that water of ours is pretty low.”
“Yes, yes, I guess so,” assented the dentist. “There ain’t any gold here.”
“Yes, there is,” protested Cribbens doggedly; “there’s gold all through these hills, if we could only strike it. I tell you what, pardner, I got a place in mind where I’ll bet no one ain’t prospected—least not very many. There don’t very many care to try an’ get to it. It’s over on the other side of Death Valley. It’s called Gold Mountain, an’ there’s only one mine been located there, an’ it’s paying like a nitrate bed. There ain’t many people in that country, because it’s all hell to get into. First place, you got to cross Death Valley and strike the Armagosa Range fur off to the south. Well, no one ain’t stuck on crossing the Valley, not if they can help it. But we could work down the Panamint some hundred or so miles, maybe two hundred, an’ fetch around by the Armagosa River, way to the south’erd. We could prospect on the way. But I guess the Armagosa’d be dried up at this season. Anyhow,” he concluded, “we’ll move camp to the south tomorrow. We got to get new feed an’ water for the horses. We’ll see if we can knock over a couple of antelope tomorrow, and then we’ll scoot.”
“I ain’t got a gun,” said the dentist; “not even a revolver. I—”
“Wait a second,” said Cribbens, pausing in his scramble down the side of one of the smaller gulches. “Here’s some slate here; I ain’t seen no slate around here yet. Let’s see where it goes to.”
McTeague followed him along the side of the gulch. Cribbens went on ahead, muttering to himself from time to time:
“Runs right along here, even enough, and here’s water too. Didn’t know this stream was here; pretty near dry, though. Here’s the slate again. See where it runs, pardner?”
“Look at it up there ahead,” said McTeague. “It runs right up over the back of this hill.”
“That’s right,” assented Cribbens. “Hi!” he shouted suddenly, “here’s a ‘contact,’ and here it is again, and there, and yonder. Oh, look at it, will you? That’s granodiorite on slate. Couldn’t want it any more distinct than that. God! if we could only find the quartz between the two now.”
“Well, there it is,” exclaimed McTeague. “Look on ahead there; ain’t that quartz?”
“You’re shouting right out loud,” vociferated Cribbens, looking where McTeague was pointing. His face went suddenly pale. He turned to the dentist, his eyes wide.
“By God, pardner,” he exclaimed, breathlessly. “By God—” he broke off abruptly.
“That’s what you been looking for, ain’t it?” asked the dentist.
“Looking for! Looking for!” Cribbens checked himself. “That’s slate all right, and that’s granodiorite, I know”—he bent down and examined the rock—“and here’s the quartz between ’em; there can’t be no mistake about that. Gi’ me that hammer,” he cried, excitedly. “Come on, git to work. Jab into the quartz with your pick; git out some chunks of it.” Cribbens went down on his hands and knees, attacking the quartz vein furiously. The dentist followed his example, swinging his pick with enormous force, splintering the rocks at every stroke. Cribbens was talking to himself in his excitement.
“Got you this time, you son of a gun! By God! I guess we got you this time, at last. Looks like it, anyhow. Get a move on, pardner. There ain’t anybody ’round, is there? Hey?” Without looking, he drew his revolver and threw it to the dentist. “Take the gun an’ look around, pardner. If you see any son of a gun anywhere, plug him. This yere’s our claim. I guess we got it this tide, pardner. Come on.” He gathered up the chunks of quartz he had broken out, and put them in his hat and started towards their camp. The two went along with great strides, hurrying as fast as they could over the uneven ground.
“I don’ know,” exclaimed Cribbens, breathlessly, “I don’ want to say too much. Maybe we’re fooled. Lord, that damn camp’s a long ways off. Oh, I ain’t goin’ to fool along this way. Come on, pardner.” He broke into a run. McTeague followed at a lumbering gallop. Over the scorched, parched ground, stumbling and tripping over sagebrush and sharp-pointed rocks, under the palpitating heat of the desert sun, they ran and scrambled, carrying the quartz lumps in their hats.
“See any ‘color’ in it, pardner?” gasped Cribbens. “I can’t, can you? ’Twouldn’t be visible nohow, I guess. Hurry up. Lord, we ain’t ever going to get to that camp.”
Finally they arrived. Cribbens dumped the
