rom all sides at once. It ceased; then, as McTeague took another
forward step, began again with the suddenness of a blow, shriller,
nearer at hand, a hideous, prolonged note that brought both man and mule
to an instant halt.

"I know what THAT is," exclaimed the dentist. His eyes searched the
ground swiftly until he saw what he expected he should see--the round
thick coil, the slowly waving clover-shaped head and erect whirring tail
with its vibrant rattles.

For fully thirty seconds the man and snake remained looking into each
other's eyes. Then the snake uncoiled and swiftly wound from sight
amidst the sagebrush. McTeague drew breath again, and his eyes once more
beheld the illimitable leagues of quivering sand and alkali.

"Good Lord! What a country!" he exclaimed. But his voice was trembling
as he urged forward the mule once more.

Fiercer and fiercer grew the heat as the afternoon advanced. At four
McTeague stopped again. He was dripping at every pore, but there was no
relief in perspiration. The very touch of his clothes upon his body was
unendurable. The mule's ears were drooping and his tongue lolled from
his mouth. The cattle trails seemed to be drawing together toward a
common point; perhaps a water hole was near by.

"I'll have to lay up, sure," muttered the dentist. "I ain't made to
travel in such heat as this."

He drove the mule up into one of the larger canyons and halted in the
shadow of a pile of red rock. After a long search he found water, a few
quarts, warm and brackish, at the bottom of a hollow of sunwracked mud;
it was little more than enough to water the mule and refill his canteen.
Here he camped, easing the mule of the saddle, and turning him loose
to find what nourishment he might. A few hours later the sun set in a
cloudless glory of red and gold, and the heat became by degrees less
intolerable. McTeague cooked his supper, chiefly coffee and bacon, and
watched the twilight come on, revelling in the delicious coolness of
the evening. As he spread his blankets on the ground he resolved that
hereafter he would travel only at night, laying up in the daytime in the
shade of the canyons. He was exhausted with his terrible day's march.
Never in his life had sleep seemed so sweet to him.

But suddenly he was broad awake, his jaded senses all alert.

"What was that?" he muttered. "I thought I heard something--saw
something."

He rose to his feet, reaching for the Winchester. Desolation lay s