some sleep. You
can come or not."

He cleared away the hot surface alkali, spread out his blanket, and
slept until the next day's heat aroused him. His water was so low that
he dared not make coffee now, and so breakfasted without it. Until ten
o'clock he tramped forward, then camped again in the shade of one of
the rare rock ledges, and "lay up" during the heat of the day. By five
o'clock he was once more on the march.

He travelled on for the greater part of that night, stopping only once
towards three in the morning to water the mule from the canteen. Again
the red-hot day burned up over the horizon. Even at six o'clock it was
hot.

"It's going to be worse than ever to-day," he groaned. "I wish I could
find another rock to camp by. Ain't I ever going to get out of this
place?"

There was no change in the character of the desert. Always the same
measureless leagues of white-hot alkali stretched away toward the
horizon on every hand. Here and there the flat, dazzling surface of the
desert broke and raised into long low mounds, from the summit of which
McTeague could look for miles and miles over its horrible desolation.
No shade was in sight. Not a rock, not a stone broke the monotony of the
ground. Again and again he ascended the low unevennesses, looking and
searching for a camping place, shading his eyes from the glitter of sand
and sky.

He tramped forward a little farther, then paused at length in a hollow
between two breaks, resolving to make camp there.

Suddenly there was a shout.

"Hands up. By damn, I got the drop on you!"

McTeague looked up.

It was Marcus.

CHAPTER 22

Within a month after his departure from San Francisco, Marcus had "gone
in on a cattle ranch" in the Panamint Valley with an Englishman, an
acquaintance of Mr. Sieppe's. His headquarters were at a place called
Modoc, at the lower extremity of the valley, about fifty miles by trail
to the south of Keeler.

His life was the life of a cowboy. He realized his former vision of
himself, booted, sombreroed, and revolvered, passing his days in the
saddle and the better part of his nights around the poker tables in
Modoc's one saloon. To his intense satisfaction he even involved himself
in a gun fight that arose over a disputed brand, with the result that
two fingers of his left hand were shot away.

News from the outside world filtered slowly into the Panamint Valley,
and the telegraph had never been built beyond Keeler. At