, 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 sage-brush 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 quartz fragments into a pan.

"You pestle her, pardner, an' I'll fix the scales." McTeague ground the
lumps to fine dust in the iron mortar while Cribbens set up the tiny
scales and got out the "spoons" from their outfit.

"That's fine enough," Cribbens exclaimed, impatiently. "Now we'll spoon
her. Gi' me the water."

Cribbens scooped up a spoonful of the fine white powder and began to
spoon it carefully. The two were on their hands and knees upon the
ground, their heads close together, still panting with excitement and
the exertion of their run.

"Can't do it," exclaimed Cribbens, sitting back on his heels, "hand
shakes so. YOU take it, pardner. Careful, now."

McTeague took the horn spoon and began rocking it gently in his huge
fingers, sluicing the water over the edge a little at a time, each
movement washing away a little more of the powdered quartz. The two
watched it with the intensest eagerness.

"Don't see it yet; don't see it yet," whispered Cribbens, chewing his
mustache. "LEETLE faster, pardner. That's the ticket. Careful, steady,
now; leetle more, leetle more. Don't see color yet, do you?"

The quartz sediment dwindled by degrees as McTeague spooned it steadily.
Then at last a thin streak of a foreign substance began to show just
along the edge. It w