But suddenly he was broad awake, his jaded senses all alert.
“What was that?” he muttered. “I thought I heard something—saw something.”
He rose to his feet, reaching for the Winchester. Desolation lay still around him. There was not a sound but his own breathing; on the face of the desert not a grain of sand was in motion. McTeague looked furtively and quickly from side to side, his teeth set, his eyes rolling. Once more the rowel was in his flanks, once more an unseen hand reined him toward the east. After all the miles of that dreadful day's flight he was no better off than when he started. If anything, he was worse, for never had that mysterious instinct in him been more insistent than now; never had the impulse toward precipitate flight been stronger; never had the spur bit deeper. Every nerve of his body cried aloud for rest; yet every instinct seemed aroused and alive, goading him to hurry on, to hurry on.
“What IS it, then? What is it?” he cried, between his teeth. “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 cañóns 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. You fool, you've done it now. They could hear that miles away. Hurry now. They ain't far off now.”
As he depressed the lever of the rifle to reload it, he found that the magazine was empty. He clapped his hands to his sides, feeling rapidly first in one pocket, then in another. He had forgotten to take extra cartridges with him. McTeague swore under his breath as he flung the rifle away. Henceforth he must travel unarmed.
A little more water had gathered in the mud hole near which he had camped. He watered the mule for the last time and wet the sacks around the canary's cage. Then once more he set forward.