McTeague - Frank Norris (great reads TXT) 📗

got to clear out. Where to? That’s the word, where to? I’ll go down to supper now”⁠—He went on whispering his thoughts aloud, so that they would take more concrete shape in his mind⁠—“I’ll go down to supper now, an’ then I’ll hang aroun’ the bar this evening till I get the lay of this land. Maybe this is fruit country, though it looks more like a cattle country. Maybe it’s a mining country. If it’s a mining country,” he continued, puckering his heavy eyebrows, “if it’s a mining country, an’ the mines are far enough off the roads, maybe I’d better get to the mines an’ lay quiet for a month before I try to get any farther south.”

He washed the cinders and dust of a week’s railroading from his face and hair, put on a fresh pair of boots, and went down to supper. The dining-room was of the invariable type of the smaller interior towns of California. There was but one table, covered with oilcloth; rows of benches answered for chairs; a railroad map, a chromo with a gilt frame protected by mosquito netting, hung on the walls, together with a yellowed photograph of the proprietor in Masonic regalia. Two waitresses whom the guests⁠—all men⁠—called by their first names, came and went with large trays.

Through the windows outside McTeague observed a great number of saddle horses tied to trees and fences. Each one of these horses had a riata on the pommel of the saddle. He sat down to the table, eating his thick hot soup, watching his neighbors covertly, listening to everything that was said. It did not take him long to gather that the country to the east and south of Keeler was a cattle country.

Not far off, across a range of hills, was the Panamint Valley, where the big cattle ranges were. Every now and then this name was tossed to and fro across the table in the flow of conversation⁠—“Over in the Panamint.” “Just going down for a rodeo in the Panamint.” “Panamint brands.” “Has a range down in the Panamint.” Then by and by the remark, “Hoh, yes, Gold Gulch, they’re down to good pay there. That’s on the other side of the Panamint Range. Peters came in yesterday and told me.”

McTeague turned to the speaker.

“Is that a gravel mine?” he asked.

“No, no, quartz.”

“I’m a miner; that’s why I asked.”

“Well I’ve mined some too. I had a hole in the ground meself, but she was silver; and when the skunks at Washington lowered the price of silver, where was I? Fitchered, b’God!”

“I was looking for a job.”

“Well, it’s mostly cattle down here in the Panamint, but since the strike over at Gold Gulch some of the boys have gone prospecting. There’s gold in them damn Panamint Mountains. If you can find a good long ‘contact’ of country rocks you ain’t far from it. There’s a couple of fellars from Redlands has located four claims around Gold Gulch. They got a vein eighteen inches wide, an’ Peters says you can trace it for more’n a thousand feet. Were you thinking of prospecting over there?”

“Well, well, I don’ know, I don’ know.”

“Well, I’m going over to the other side of the range day after t’morrow after some ponies of mine, an’ I’m going to have a look around. You say you’ve been a miner?”

“Yes, yes.”

“If you’re going over that way, you might come along and see if we can’t find a contact, or copper sulphurets, or something. Even if we don’t find color we may find silver-bearing galena.” Then, after a pause, “Let’s see, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Huh? My name’s Carter,” answered McTeague, promptly. Why he should change his name again the dentist could not say. “Carter” came to his mind at once, and he answered without reflecting that he had registered as “Burlington” when he had arrived at the hotel.

“Well, my name’s Cribbens,” answered the other. The two shook hands solemnly.

“You’re about finished?” continued Cribbens, pushing back. “Le’s go out in the bar an’ have a drink on it.”

“Sure, sure,” said the dentist.

The two sat up late that night in a corner of the barroom discussing the probability of finding gold in the Panamint hills. It soon became evident that they held differing theories. McTeague clung to the old prospector’s idea that there was no way of telling where gold was until you actually saw it. Cribbens had evidently read a good many books upon the subject, and had already prospected in something of a scientific manner.

“Shucks!” he exclaimed. “Gi’ me a long distinct contact between sedimentary and igneous rocks, an’ I’ll sink a shaft without ever seeing ‘color.’ ”

The dentist put his huge chin in the air. “Gold is where you find it,” he returned, doggedly.

“Well, it’s my idea as how pardners ought to work along different lines,” said Cribbens. He tucked the corners of his mustache into his mouth and sucked the tobacco juice from them. For a moment he was thoughtful, then he blew out his mustache abruptly, and exclaimed:

“Say, Carter, le’s make a go of this. You got a little cash I suppose⁠—fifty dollars or so?”

“Huh? Yes⁠—I⁠—I⁠—”

“Well, I got about fifty. We’ll go pardners on the proposition, an’ we’ll dally ’round the range yonder an’ see what we can see. What do you say?”

“Sure, sure,” answered the dentist.

“Well, it’s a go then, hey?”

“That’s the word.”

“Well, le’s have a drink on it.”

They drank with profound gravity.

They fitted out the next day at the general merchandise store of Keeler⁠—picks, shovels, prospectors’ hammers, a couple of cradles, pans, bacon, flour, coffee, and the like, and they bought a burro on which to pack their kit.

“Say, by jingo, you ain’t got a horse,” suddenly exclaimed Cribbens as they came out of the store. “You can’t get around this country without a pony of some kind.”

Cribbens already owned and rode a buckskin cayuse that had to be knocked in the head and stunned before it could be saddled. “I got an extry saddle an’