Even the sand of the desert
would have been a welcome sight; a single clump of sage-brush would
have fascinated the eye; but this was worse than the desert. It was
abominable, this hideous sink of alkali, this bed of some primeval lake
lying so far below the level of the ocean. The great mountains of Placer
County had been merely indifferent to man; but this awful sink of alkali
was openly and unreservedly iniquitous and malignant.
McTeague had told himself that the heat upon the lower slopes of the
Panamint had been dreadful; here in Death Valley it became a thing of
terror. There was no longer any shadow but his own. He was scorched
and parched from head to heel. It seemed to him that the smart of his
tortured body could not have been keener if he had been flayed.
"If it gets much hotter," he muttered, wringing the sweat from his thick
fell of hair and mustache, "if it gets much hotter, I don' know what
I'll do." He was thirsty, and drank a little from his canteen. "I ain't
got any too much water," he murmured, shaking the canteen. "I got to get
out of this place in a hurry, sure."
By eleven o'clock the heat had increased to such an extent that McTeague
could feel the burning of the ground come pringling and stinging through
the soles of his boots.
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