rise of the
mountain, turned at a sharp angle where a great live-oak grew, and held
level for nearly a quarter of a mile. Twice again the dentist left the
road and took to the trail that cut through deserted hydraulic pits. He
knew exactly where to look for these trails; not once did his instinct
deceive him. He recognized familiar points at once. Here was Cold
canyon, where invariably, winter and summer, a chilly wind was blowing;
here was where the road to Spencer's branched off; here was Bussy's
old place, where at one time there were so many dogs; here was Delmue's
cabin, where unlicensed whiskey used to be sold; here was the plank
bridge with its one rotten board; and here the flat overgrown with
manzanita, where he once had shot three quail.

At noon, after he had been tramping for some two hours, he halted at a
point where the road dipped suddenly. A little to the right of him, and
flanking the road, an enormous yellow gravel-pit like an emptied lake
gaped to heaven. Farther on, in the distance, a canyon zigzagged toward
the horizon, rugged with pine-clad mountain crests. Nearer at hand, and
directly in the line of the road, was an irregular cluster of unpainted
cabins. A dull, prolonged roar vibrated in the air. McTeague nodded his
head as if satisfied.

"That's the place," he muttered.

He reshouldered his blanket roll and descended the road. At last he
halted again. He stood before a low one-story building, differing from
the others in that it was painted. A verandah, shut in with mosquito
netting, surrounded it. McTeague dropped his blanket roll on a lumber
pile outside, and came up and knocked at the open door. Some one called
to him to come in.

McTeague entered, rolling his eyes about him, noting the changes that
had been made since he had last seen this place. A partition had been
knocked down, making one big room out of the two former small ones. A
counter and railing stood inside the door. There was a telephone on the
wall. In one corner he also observed a stack of surveyor's instruments;
a big drawing-board straddled on spindle legs across one end of the
room, a mechanical drawing of some kind, no doubt the plan of the
mine, unrolled upon it; a chromo representing a couple of peasants in a
ploughed field (Millet's "Angelus") was nailed unframed upon the wall,
and hanging from the same wire nail that secured one of its corners in
place was a bullion bag and a cartridge belt with a loaded revolver in