All at once McTeague put down the
frying-pan.
"What's that?" he growled.
"Hey? What's what?" exclaimed Cribbens, getting up.
"Didn't you notice something?"
"Where?"
"Off there." The dentist made a vague gesture toward the eastern
horizon. "Didn't you hear something--I mean see something--I mean--"
"What's the matter with you, pardner?"
"Nothing. I guess I just imagined it."
But it was not imagination. Until midnight the partners lay broad awake,
rolled in their blankets under the open sky, talking and discussing and
making plans. At last Cribbens rolled over on his side and slept. The
dentist could not sleep.
What! It was warning him again, that strange sixth sense, that obscure
brute instinct. It was aroused again and clamoring to be obeyed. Here,
in these desolate barren hills, twenty miles from the nearest human
being, it stirred and woke and rowelled him to be moving on. It had
goaded him to flight from the Big Dipper mine, and he had obeyed. But
now it was different; now he had suddenly become rich; he had lighted
on a treasure--a treasure far more valuable than the Big Dipper mine
itself. How was he to leave that? He could not move on now. He turned
about in his blankets.
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