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Updated: June 3, 2025
Cribbens resented their humor, and after they had passed, chewed fiercely on his mustache. "I'd like to make a strike, b'God! if it was only to get the laugh on them joshers." By noon they were climbing the eastern slope of the Panamint Range. Long since they had abandoned the road; vegetation ceased; not a tree was in sight.
He seemed more bewildered than frightened. "He's eatun some of that loco-weed that Cribbens spoke about," panted McTeague. "Whoa, there; steady, you." At length the mule stopped of his own accord, and seemed to come to his senses again. McTeague came up and took the bridle rein, speaking to him and rubbing his nose. "There, there, what's the matter with you?" The mule was docile again.
"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.
"Well," observed Cribbens, "we're on the top of the Panamint Range now. It's along this eastern slope, right below us here, that we're going to prospect. Gold Gulch" he pointed with the butt of his quirt "is about eighteen or nineteen miles along here to the north of us. Those hills way over yonder to the northeast are the Telescope hills." "What do you call the desert out yonder?"
"That's a smart looking valley," observed the dentist. "NOW you're talking straight talk," returned Cribbens, sucking his mustache. The valley was beautiful, wide, level, and very green. Everywhere were herds of cattle, scarcely less wild than deer.
"Two grains," he cried. "That'll run five dollars to the ton. Rich, it's rich; it's the richest kind of pay, pardner. We're millionaires. Why don't you say something? Why don't you get excited? Why don't you run around an' do something?" "Huh!" said McTeague, rolling his eyes. "Huh! I know, I know, we've struck it pretty rich." "Come on," exclaimed Cribbens, jumping up again.
Once or twice cowboys passed them on the road, big-boned fellows, picturesque in their broad hats, hairy trousers, jingling spurs, and revolver belts, surprisingly like the pictures McTeague remembered to have seen. Everyone of them knew Cribbens, and almost invariably joshed him on his venture. "Say, Crib, ye'd best take a wagon train with ye to bring your dust back."
For now at last McTeague was afraid. His plans were uncertain. He remembered what Cribbens had said about the Armagosa Mountains in the country on the other side of Death Valley.
"You're about finished?" continued Cribbens, pushing back. "Le's go out in the bar an' have a drink on it." "Sure, sure," said the dentist. The two sat up late that night in a corner of the barroom discussing the probability of finding gold in the Panamint hills. It soon became evident that they held differing theories.
He threw off the blankets, and, rising, climbed to the summit of the nearest hill and looked back in the direction in which he and Cribbens had travelled a fortnight before. For half an hour he waited, watching and listening in vain. But as he returned to camp, and prepared to roll his blankets about him, the strange impulse rose in him again abruptly, never so strong, never so insistent.
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