ugliness.

There is gold in Nevada, but Lin and Honey did not find it. Prospecting
of the sort they did, besides proving unfruitful, is not comfortable. Now
and again, losing patience, Lin would leave his work and stalk about and
gaze down at the scattered men who stooped or knelt in the water. Passing
each busy prospector, Lin would read on every broad, upturned pair of
overalls the same label, "Levi Strauss, No. 2," with a picture of two
lusty horses hitched to one of these garments and vainly struggling to
split them asunder. Lin remembered he was wearing a label just like that
too, and when he considered all things he laughed to himself. Then,
having stretched the ache out of his long legs, he would return to his
ditch. As autumn wore on, his feet grew cold in the mushy gravel they
were sunk in. He beat off the sand that had stiffened on his boots, and
hated Obo, Nevada. But he held himself ready to say "East" whenever he
saw Honey coming along with the bottle. The cold weather put an end to
this adventure. The ditches froze and filled with snow, through which the
sordid gravel heaps showed in a dreary fashion; so the two friends
drifted southward.

Near the small new town of Mesa, Arizona, they sat down again in the
dirt. It was milder here, and, when the sun shone, never quite froze. But
this part of Arizona is scarcely more grateful to the eye than Nevada.
Moreover, Lin and Honey found no gold at all. Some men near them found a
little. Then in January, even though the sun shone, it quite froze one
day.

"We're seein' the country, anyway," said Honey.

"Seein' hell," said Lin, "and there's more of it above ground than I