“It’s no use, we can’t catch him, and we’re killing ourselves with thirst.  We got to take our chances.”  He drew his revolver from its holster, cocked it, and crept forward.

“Steady, now,” said McTeague; “it won’ do to shoot through the canteen.”

Within twenty yards Marcus paused, made a rest of his left forearm and fired.

“You got him,” cried McTeague.  “No, he’s up again.  Shoot him again.  He’s going to bolt.”

Marcus ran on, firing as he ran.  The mule, one foreleg trailing, scrambled along, squealing and snorting.  Marcus fired his last shot.  The mule pitched forward upon his head, then, rolling sideways, fell upon the canteen, bursting it open and spilling its entire contents into the sand.

Marcus and McTeague ran up, and Marcus snatched the battered canteen from under the reeking, bloody hide.  There was no water left.  Marcus flung the canteen from him and stood up, facing McTeague.  There was a pause.

“We’re dead men,” said Marcus.

McTeague looked from him out over the desert.  Chaotic desolation stretched from them on either hand, flaming and glaring with the afternoon heat.  There was the brazen sky and the leagues upon leagues of alkali, leper white.  There was nothing more.  They were in the heart of Death Valley.

“Not a drop of water,” muttered McTeague; “not a drop of water.”

“We can drink the mule’s blood,” said Marcus.  “It’s been done before.  But—­but—­” he looked down at the quivering, gory body—­“but I ain’t thirsty enough for that yet.”

“Where’s the nearest water?”

“Well, it’s about a hundred miles or more back of us in the Panamint hills,” returned Marcus, doggedly.  “We’d be crazy long before we reached it.  I tell you, we’re done for, by damn, we’re done for.  We ain’t ever going to get outa here.”

“Done for?” murmured the other, looking about stupidly.  “Done for, that’s the word.  Done for?  Yes, I guess we’re done for.”

“What are we going to do now?” exclaimed Marcus, sharply, after a while.

“Well, let’s—­let’s be moving along—­somewhere.”

“Where, I’d like to know?  What’s the good of moving on?”

“What’s the good of stopping here?”

There was a silence.

“Lord, it’s hot,” said the dentist, finally, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand.  Marcus ground his teeth.

“Done for,” he muttered; “done for.”

“I never was so thirsty,” continued McTeague.  “I’m that dry I can hear my tongue rubbing against the roof of my mouth.”

“Well, we can’t stop here,” said Marcus, finally; “we got to go somewhere.  We’ll try and get back, but it ain’t no manner of use.  Anything we want to take along with us from the mule?  We can——­”

Suddenly he paused.  In an instant the eyes of the two doomed men had met as the same thought simultaneously rose in their minds.  The canvas sack with its five thousand dollars was still tied to the horn of the saddle.