"To think," exclaimed Cribbens, as he drove the first stake, "to think those other mushheads had their camp within gunshot of her and never located her. Guess they didn't know the meaning of a 'contact.' Oh, I knew I was solid on 'contacts.'"
They staked out their claim, and Cribbens put up the notice of location. It was dark before they were through. Cribbens broke off some more chunks of quarts in the vein.
"I'll spoon this too, just for the fun of it, when I get home," he explained, as they tramped back to the camp.
"Well," said the dentist, "we got the laugh on those cowboys."
"Have we?" shouted Cribbens. "HAVE we? Just wait and see the rush for this place when we tell 'em about it down in Keeler. Say, what'll we call her?"
"I don' know, I don' know."
"We might call her the 'Last Chance.' 'Twas our last chance, wasn't it? We'd 'a' gone antelope shooting tomorrow, and the next day we'd 'a'—say, what you stopping for?" he added, interrupting himself. "What's up?"
The dentist had paused abruptly on the crest of a caсуn. Cribbens, looking back, saw him standing motionless in his tracks.
"What's up?" asked Cribbens a second time.
McTeague slowly turned his head and looked over one shoulder, then over the other. Suddenly he wheeled sharply about, cocking the Winchester and tossing it to his shoulder. Cribbens ran back to his side, whipping out his revolver.