McTeague stripped off his woollen shirt, and even unbuttoned his flannel undershirt, tying a handkerchief loosely about his neck.
"Lord!" he exclaimed.

"I never knew it COULD get as hot as this." The heat grew steadily fiercer; all distant objects were visibly shimmering and palpitating under it.

At noon a mirage appeared on the hills to the northwest.

McTeague halted the mule, and drank from the tepid water in the canteen, dampening the sack around the canary's cage.
As soon as he ceased his tramp and the noise of his crunching, grinding footsteps died away, the silence, vast, illimitable, enfolded him like an immeasurable tide.

From all that gigantic landscape, that colossal reach of baking sand, there arose not a single sound.