As he strode forward the poor boy whistled “Marching Thro’ Georgia” to keep up his spirits. But the tune soon wavered and died out. His lips were too dry and cracked to make whistling anything but a painful process. Thereafter he trudged along in silence. Soon a rosy flush appeared in the east, and before long the sun rushed up and it was a new day. But to Jack the coming of the sun meant fresh disappointment. He had hoped that with daylight he might perceive some house, however rough, or at least a road he could follow. But none appeared. He mounted to the highest bit of rocky land he could find in the vicinity in the hope that the elevation might aid him in surveying the country. It did give him a wider outlook, it is true, but the extended range of vision brought no glad tidings of civilization to the boy. Nothing but that same dreary expanse of brush, yuccas, sand and rocks met his eye. Jack set his teeth grimly. He faced the truth now squarely and without flinching. Unless by some miracle a human being came that way he was doomed. There was no evading the fact. Already his thirst had passed the uncomfortable stage and had become a mad craving for water. He tried cutting the yucca stalks and extracting some moisture from them. But though they yielded some acrid juice, it did little to assuage his pangs. It was about a mile from the spot where he had mounted the little hill that Jack’s collapse came. For some time before he had been certain that his mind was acting strangely. He was distinctly conscious of another self, a second Jack Merrill walking by his side. He talked wildly to this visionary being. His talk was like the ravings of a boy in a high fever. So weak had he become that the last mile had taken more than an hour to traverse. Hardly conscious of what he was doing, the boy had toiled doggedly on. But as the sun grew higher his strength grew less. At last his knees fairly buckled under him and he sank down in that stony, sun–bitten place, utterly incapable of further locomotion. “It is the end,” he muttered, through scorched and blackened lips, as he sank, “oh, great heavens, it is the end!” The sun beat pitilessly down on his form as it lay there in that shadeless expanse. Tiny lizards darted in and out among the scanty, dusty brush and glanced speculatively at him with their tiny bright eyes. High in the burning blue vault of the sky a buzzard paused in its ceaseless wheelings, and, gazing down, saw that motionless form. By the magic that summons these birds of prey the sky above Jack’s still form was soon filled with them. For a time they swung round and round; but gradually the boldest, from mere dots high in the air, became great black–winged birds with foul looking heads of bare red flesh and hideous curved beaks. First one and then another dropped to the ground a short distance from the boy’s form. They hopped in a curious flopping fashion about him.