r had gathered in the mud hole near which he had
camped. He watered the mule for the last time and wet the sacks around
the canary's cage. Then once more he set forward.

But there was a change in the direction of McTeague's flight. Hitherto
he had held to the south, keeping upon the very edge of the hills;
now he turned sharply at right angles. The slope fell away beneath his
hurrying feet; the sage-brush dwindled, and at length ceased; the sand
gave place to a fine powder, white as snow; and an hour after he
had fired the rifle his mule's hoofs were crisping and cracking the
sun-baked flakes of alkali on the surface of Death Valley.

Tracked and harried, as he felt himself to be, from one camping place to
another, McTeague had suddenly resolved to make one last effort to rid
himself of the enemy that seemed to hang upon his heels. He would strike
straight out into that horrible wilderness where even the beasts were
afraid. He would cross Death Valley at once and put its arid wastes
between him and his pursuer.

"You don't dare follow me now," he muttered, as he hurried on. "Let's
see you come out HERE after me."

He hurried on swiftly, urging the mule to a rapid racking walk. Towards
four o'clock the sky in front of him began to flush pink and golden.
McTeague halted and breakfasted, pushing on again immediately afterward.
The dawn flamed and glowed like a brazier, and the sun rose a vast
red-hot coal floating in fire. An hour passed, then another, and
another. It was about nine o'clock. Once more the dentist paused, and
stood panting and blowing, his arms dangling, his eyes screwed up and
blinking as he looked about him.

Far behind him the Panamint hills were already but blue hummocks on the
horizon. Before him and upon either side, to the north and to the east
and to the south, stretched primordial desolation. League upon league
the infinite reaches of dazzling white alkali laid themselves out like
an immeasurable scroll unrolled from horizon to horizon; not a bush,
not a twig relieved that horrible monotony. Even the sand of the desert
would have been a welcome sight; a single clump of sage-brush would
have fascinated the eye; but this was worse than the desert. It was
abominable, this hideous sink of alkali, this bed of some primeval lake
lying so far below the level of the ocean. The great mountains of Placer
County had been merely indifferent to man; but this awful sink of alkali
was openly and unreservedl