He turned back into the house, drew from under his bed the
blanket roll in which he kept his money hid, and took the canary down
from the wall. He strode to the door and disappeared into the night.
When the sheriff of Placer County and the two deputies from San
Francisco reached the Big Dipper mine, McTeague had been gone two days.
CHAPTER 21
"Well," said one of the deputies, as he backed the horse into the shafts
of the buggy in which the pursuers had driven over from the Hill, "we've
about as good as got him. It isn't hard to follow a man who carries a
bird cage with him wherever he goes."
McTeague crossed the mountains on foot the Friday and Saturday of
that week, going over through Emigrant Gap, following the line of the
Overland railroad. He reached Reno Monday night. By degrees a vague plan
of action outlined itself in the dentist's mind.
"Mexico," he muttered to himself. "Mexico, that's the place. They'll
watch the coast and they'll watch the Eastern trains, but they won't
think of Mexico."
The sense of pursuit which had harassed him during the last week of his
stay at the Big Dipper mine had worn off, and he believed himself to be
very cunning.
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