Once inside, the hot evening air turned to a cool dampness, and the
forest odors gave place to the smell of stale dynamite smoke, suggestive
of burning rubber. A cloud of steam came from McTeague's mouth;
underneath, the water swashed and rippled around the car-wheels, while
the light from the miner's candlesticks threw wavering blurs of pale
yellow over the gray rotting quartz of the roof and walls. Occasionally
McTeague bent down his head to avoid the lagging of the roof or the
projections of an overhanging shute. From car to car all along the line
the miners called to one another as the train trundled along, joshing
and laughing.
A mile from the entrance the train reached the breast where McTeague's
gang worked. The men clambered from the cars and took up the labor
where the day shift had left it, burrowing their way steadily through a
primeval river bed.
The candlesticks thrust into the crevices of the gravel strata lit up
faintly the half dozen moving figures befouled with sweat and with
wet gray mould. The picks struck into the loose gravel with a yielding
shock. The long-handled shovels clinked amidst the piles of bowlders and
scraped dully in the heaps of rotten quartz.
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