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. From time to time he would murmur:
"There's something. What is it? I wonder what it is."
What strange sixth sense stirred in McTeague at this time? What animal
cunning, what brute instinct clamored for recognition and obedience?
What lower faculty was it that roused his suspicion, that drove him out
into the night a score of times between dark and dawn, his head in the
air, his eyes and ears keenly alert?
One night as he stood on the steps of the bunk house, peering into the
shadows of the camp, he uttered an exclamation as of a man suddenly
enlightened.
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