"Can't I
ever get rid of you? Ain't I EVER going to shake you off? Don' keep it
up this way. Show yourselves. Let's have it out right away. Come on. I
ain't afraid if you'll only come on; but don't skulk this way." Suddenly
he cried aloud in a frenzy of exasperation, "Damn you, come on, will
you? Come on and have it out." His rifle was at his shoulder, he was
covering bush after bush, rock after rock, aiming at every denser
shadow. All at once, and quite involuntarily, his forefinger crooked,
and the rifle spoke and flamed. The canyons roared back the echo,
tossing it out far over the desert in a rippling, widening wave of
sound.
McTeague lowered the rifle hastily, with an exclamation of dismay.
"You fool," he said to himself, "you fool. You've done it now. They
could hear that miles away. You've done it now."
He stood listening intently, the rifle smoking in his hands. The last
echo died away. The smoke vanished, the vast silence closed upon the
passing echoes of the rifle as the ocean closes upon a ship's wake.
Nothing moved; yet McTeague bestirred himself sharply, rolling up his
blankets, resaddling the mule, getting his outfit together again. From
time to time he muttered:
"Hurry now; hurry on.
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