“It ain’t no use, kid! You know, the old back is pretty bad. Why don’t you beat it, though? There is a chance you might make it if you went alone. We’ve been here a whole week. They’ll never find us now.” Lefty rose with an air of impatience and walked away, extremely hurt over the other man’s suggestion that he quit. “Aw, don’t be a chump!” Steve raised himself with much difficulty and rested his entire weight upon his elbow. He lifted the index finger of his other hand and motioned to the boy. “Come here, Lef,” he called, “I didn’t mean to hurt you!” Phelps turned back and sat down once more beside the other man, fanning him with his hat and brushing away some flies. “You know that runnin’ backward stuff?” Steve began. “I’m sorry that I razzed you, kid. Don’t let anybody ever ride you again. Say, it’s hot, ain’t it? I wish I had some water!” Lefty reached for the canteen and held it up to the boy’s mouth but it was empty. “There’s a pool over behind them trees,” Steve said, “I can hear it tricklin’ sometimes. Maybe the water ain’t bad there.” Lefty picked up his helmet and raised himself to his feet. In a moment, he had disappeared behind the bushes, leaving the wounded man a helpless victim once more to the biting ants that again began to crawl over his hands and face. The mechanic found the pool, but like the other small outlets of water about them, this one too was stagnant with filth and slime. Without hesitation, he waded into the mud, bending over and looking at the bad water, then brushing away the scum from the top and filling his helmet to the brim. Once more beside his friend, Phelps proceeded to bathe the boy’s head in the lukewarm water as Graham opened his eyes and pleaded for a drink. “You can’t have that stuff, Steve; it’s filthy.” “I don’t care,” the boy begged. “Please gimme some!” Feebly, the wounded man forced Lefty to relent and allow him to sip the stagnant liquid from the helmet. Completely resigned to the hopeless Fate that had enveloped them, Phelps lifted the helmet to his lips, deciding to quench his own parched thirst, irrespective of whatever the consequences might be. Steve caught this action on the other man’s part just in time to knock the helmet from Lefty’s hand, spilling the remains on the ground before them. “No, you don’t!” he warned. “That stuff can’t hurt me any more, but you——” He fell off into a coma without finishing his sentence. Lefty gazed down upon him and picked up his helmet, slowly fanning the boy as he once more went into a deep sleep. At approximately the same time, Panama’s plane came to a landing at the flying base. He lifted his goggles and brushed the oil and dirt from his face with a soiled handkerchief, then turning to the ground man standing beside the fuselage, ordered: “Fill her up full this time!”