Once or twice cowboys passed them on the road, big-boned fellows, picturesque in their broad hats, hairy trousers, jingling spurs, and revolver belts, surprisingly like the pictures McTeague remembered to have seen.
Everyone of them knew Cribbens, and almost invariably joshed him on his venture.
"Say, Crib, ye'd best take a wagon train with ye to bring your dust back." Cribbens resented their humor, and after they had passed, chewed fiercely on his mustache.
"I'd like to make a strike, b'God! if it was only to get the laugh on them joshers." By noon they were climbing the eastern slope of the Panamint Range.

Long since they had abandoned the road; vegetation ceased; not a tree was in sight.

They followed faint cattle trails that led from one water hole to another.

By degrees these water holes grew dryer and dryer, and at three o'clock Cribbens halted and filled their canteens.
"There ain't any TOO much water on the other side," he observed grimly.
"It's pretty hot," muttered the dentist, wiping his streaming forehead with the back of his hand.
"Huh!" snorted the other more grimly than ever.

The motionless air was like the mouth of a furnace.