The whole east, clean of clouds, flamed opalescent from horizon to zenith, crimson at the base, where the earth blackened against it; at the top fading from pink to pale yellow, to green, to light blue, to the turquoise iridescence of the desert sky.
The long, thin shadows of the early hours drew backward like receding serpents, then suddenly the sun looked over the shoulder of the world, and it was day.
At that moment McTeague was already eight miles away from the camp, going steadily eastward.

He was descending the lowest spurs of the Panamint hills, following an old and faint cattle trail.

Before him he drove his mule, laden with blankets, provisions for six days, Cribben's rifle, and a canteen full of water.

Securely bound to the pommel of the saddle was the canvas sack with its precious five thousand dollars, all in twenty-dollar gold pieces.

But strange enough in that horrid waste of sand and sage was the object that McTeague himself persistently carried--the canary in its cage, about which he had carefully wrapped a couple of old flour-bags.
At about five o'clock that morning McTeague had crossed several trails which seemed to be converging, and, guessing that they led to a water hole, had followed one of them and had brought up at a sort of small sundried sink which nevertheless contained a little water at the bottom.
He had watered the mule here, refilled the canteen, and drank deep himself.