“We might lay off to-morrow, an’ see if we can plug a couple of them fellers.  Antelope steak would go pretty well after beans an’ bacon an’ coffee week in an’ week out.”

McTeague was answering, when Cribbens interrupted him with an exclamation of profound disgust.  “I thought we were the first to prospect along in here, an’ now look at that.  Don’t it make you sick?”

He pointed out evidences of an abandoned prospector’s camp just before them—­charred ashes, empty tin cans, one or two gold-miner’s pans, and a broken pick.  “Don’t that make you sick?” muttered Cribbens, sucking his mustache furiously.  “To think of us mushheads going over ground that’s been covered already!  Say, pardner, we’ll dig out of here to-morrow.  I’ve been thinking, anyhow, we’d better move to the south; that water of ours is pretty low.”

“Yes, yes, I guess so,” assented the dentist.  “There ain’t any gold here.”

“Yes, there is,” protested Cribbens doggedly; “there’s gold all through these hills, if we could only strike it.  I tell you what, pardner, I got a place in mind where I’ll bet no one ain’t prospected—­least not very many.  There don’t very many care to try an’ get to it.  It’s over on the other side of Death Valley.  It’s called Gold Mountain, an’ there’s only one mine been located there, an’ it’s paying like a nitrate bed.  There ain’t many people in that country, because it’s all hell to get into.  First place, you got to cross Death Valley and strike the Armagosa Range fur off to the south.  Well, no one ain’t stuck on crossing the Valley, not if they can help it.  But we could work down the Panamint some hundred or so miles, maybe two hundred, an’ fetch around by the Armagosa River, way to the south’erd.  We could prospect on the way.  But I guess the Armagosa’d be dried up at this season.  Anyhow,” he concluded, “we’ll move camp to the south to-morrow.  We got to get new feed an’ water for the horses.  We’ll see if we can knock over a couple of antelope to-morrow, and then we’ll scoot.”

“I ain’t got a gun,” said the dentist; “not even a revolver.  I—­”

“Wait a second,” said Cribbens, pausing in his scramble down the side of one of the smaller gulches.  “Here’s some slate here; I ain’t seen no slate around here yet.  Let’s see where it goes to.”

McTeague followed him along the side of the gulch.  Cribbens went on ahead, muttering to himself from time to time: 

“Runs right along here, even enough, and here’s water too.  Didn’t know this stream was here; pretty near dry, though.  Here’s the slate again.  See where it runs, pardner?”

“Look at it up there ahead,” said McTeague.  “It runs right up over the back of this hill.”

“That’s right,” assented Cribbens.  “Hi!” he shouted suddenly, “Here’s A ‘contact,’ and here it is again, and there, and yonder.  Oh, look at it, will you?  That’s granodiorite on slate.  Couldn’t want it any more distinct than that.  God! if we could only find the quartz between the two now.”