“We can catch him all right,” said the dentist. “I caught him once before.”
“Oh, I guess we can catch him,” answered Marcus, reassuringly.
Already the sense of enmity between the two had weakened in the face of a common peril. Marcus let down the hammer of his revolver and slid it back into the holster.
The mule was trotting on ahead, snorting and throwing up great clouds of alkali dust. At every step the canvas sack jingled, and McTeague’s bird-cage, still wrapped in the flour bags, bumped against the saddle-pads. By and by the mule stopped, blowing out his nostrils excitedly.
“He’s clean crazy,” fumed Marcus, panting and swearing.
“We ought to come up on him quiet,” observed McTeague.
“I’ll try and sneak up,” said Marcus; “two of us would scare him again. You stay here.”
Marcus went forward a step at a time. He was almost within arm’s length of the bridle when the mule shied from him abruptly and galloped away.
Marcus danced with rage, shaking his fists, and swearing horribly. Some hundred yards away the mule paused and began blowing and snuffing in the alkali as though in search of food. Then, for no reason, he shied again, and started off on a jog trot toward the east.