The burro won't eat it, but I wouldn't trust the others." A new life began for McTeague.

After breakfast the "pardners" separated, going in opposite directions along the slope of the range, examining rocks, picking and chipping at ledges and bowlders, looking for signs, prospecting.

McTeague went up into the little canyons where the streams had cut through the bed rock, searching for veins of quartz, breaking out this quartz when he had found it, pulverizing and panning it.
Cribbens hunted for "contacts," closely examining country rocks and out-crops, continually on the lookout for spots where sedimentary and igneous rock came together.
One day, after a week of prospecting, they met unexpectedly on the slope of an arroyo.

It was late in the afternoon.

"Hello, pardner," exclaimed Cribbens as he came down to where McTeague was bending over his pan.
"What luck ?" The dentist emptied his pan and straightened up.