When they had followed the Strip around until they were leaning at a 35-degree angle, the girl seemed to lose her nerve. She stopped and stood gripping the guide rope with both hands. The boy said something to her, but she shook her head. He'd have to show his superiority now by going on, but it wouldn't be for much farther, Johnson was willing to wager. The boy took three more steps and paused. Then his body bent in the middle and he was sick. He'd had enough. Both turned and hurried back. The crowd of tourists, watching or waiting their turn, cheered. In a few minutes, Johnson knew, the kid would be thinking of himself as a hero. Suddenly Johnson straightened up, having spotted a new arrival, who gripped a tan brief-case tightly under one arm, buying a ticket. He had bulky shoulders and a black beard. Johnson's man had come. When he saw the bearded man go out with the next bunch to brave the Strip, Johnson rose and walked rapidly to the entrance. Elbowing his way through, with a murmured apology, he joined the waiting group. A thin-faced odd-job man opened the rope gate and they shuffled through. The group must have walked fifty paces, with the bearded man well up in front and Johnson somewhere in the middle, before Johnson's stomach sent him its first warning of unrest. Most of those ahead had stopped and Johnson threaded his way carefully past them. Another twenty-five steps and he left the others behind. All except the bearded man. He neither paused nor looked back. Johnson's stomach had drawn up into a tight knot now, and his head was beginning to feel light. There was a faint ringing in his ears. By the time he reached the end of the guide rope, nausea was creeping up from his stomach and into his throat. This was as far as it was supposed to be safe to go; the advertising literature had it that here was the point of no return. Up ahead his quarry was walking half doubled over, weaving back and forth, as though he were intoxicated. But he did not pause. Johnson turned to look back, and felt his breakfast fighting to come up. From his perspective, the ground and the spectators watching him had swung to a position almost perpendicular to him. He felt that he was about to slide off into space. A wave of vertigo swept over him, his legs folded and he fell to the ground--sicker than he had ever been before in his life. Now he knew why the man ahead never looked back. For a moment Johnson wondered whether he should give up. But, even as he debated, tenacity pulled him to his feet and forced him on. And now something new was added to his vast discomfort. Tiny twinges of pain, like small electric shocks, began shooting up his legs, increasing in intensity with each step he took. The pain built up until the rusty taste of blood in his mouth told him that he had bitten into the flesh of his lower lip.