for signs,
prospecting. McTeague went up into the little canyons where the streams
had cut through the bed rock, searching for veins of quartz, breaking
out this quartz when he had found it, pulverizing and panning it.
Cribbens hunted for "contacts," closely examining country rocks and
out-crops, continually on the lookout for spots where sedimentary and
igneous rock came together.

One day, after a week of prospecting, they met unexpectedly on the slope
of an arroyo. It was late in the afternoon. "Hello, pardner," exclaimed
Cribbens as he came down to where McTeague was bending over his pan.
"What luck?"

The dentist emptied his pan and straightened up. "Nothing, nothing. You
struck anything?"

"Not a trace. Guess we might as well be moving towards camp." They
returned together, Cribbens telling the dentist of a group of antelope
he had seen.

"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