ek the shifts were changed. The second week McTeague's
shift worked in the daytime and slept at night. Wednesday night of this
second week the dentist woke suddenly. He sat up in his bed in the bunk
house, looking about him from side to side; an alarm clock hanging on
the wall, over a lantern, marked half-past three.

"What was it?" muttered the dentist. "I wonder what it was." The rest of
the shift were sleeping soundly, filling the room with the rasping sound
of snoring. Everything was in its accustomed place; nothing stirred. But
for all that McTeague got up and lit his miner's candlestick and went
carefully about the room, throwing the light into the dark corners,
peering under all the beds, including his own. Then he went to the door
and stepped outside. The night was warm and still; the moon, very low,
and canted on her side like a galleon foundering. The camp was very
quiet; nobody was in sight. "I wonder what it was," muttered the
dentist. "There was something--why did I wake up? Huh?" He made a
circuit about the bunk house, unusually alert, his small eyes twinkling
rapidly, seeing everything. All was quiet. An old dog who invariably
slept on the steps of the bunk house had not even wakened. McTeague went
back to bed, but did not sleep.

"There was SOMETHING," he muttered, looking in a puzzled way at his
canary in the cage that hung from the wall at his bedside; "something.
What was it? There is something NOW. There it is again--the same thing."
He sat up in bed with eyes and ears strained. "What is it? I don'
know what it is. I don' hear anything, an' I don' see anything. I feel
something--right now; feel it now. I wonder--I don' know--I don' know."

Once more he got up, and this time dressed himself. He made a complete
tour of the camp, looking and listening, for what he did not know.
He even went to the outskirts of the camp and for nearly half an hour
watched the road that led into the camp from the direction of Iowa Hill.
He saw nothing; not even a rabbit stirred. He went to bed.

But from this time on there was a change. The dentist grew restless,
uneasy. Suspicion of something, he could not say what, annoyed him
incessantly. He went wide around sharp corners. At every moment he
looked sharply over his shoulder. He even went to bed with his clothes
and cap on, and at every hour during the night would get up and prowl
about the bunk house, one ear turned down the wind, his eyes gimleting
the darkness. Fr