"Come on, then!" said Rhoda. "You see that queer bunch of cholla yonder? Let's get as far as that before we stop again!" With a great effort, DeWitt gathered himself together and, fixing his eyes on the fantastic cactus growth, he plodded desperately through the sand. At the cholla bunch, Rhoda pointed to a jutting lavender rock. "At that we'll rest for a minute. Come on, John!" John's sick eyes did not waver but his trembling legs described many circles in their journey to the jutting rock. Distances were so many times what they seemed that Rhoda's little scheme carried them over a mile of desert before DeWitt sank to his knees. "I'm a sick man," he said huskily as he fell in a limp heap. Nothing could have appeared more opportunely than this new hardship to take Rhoda's mind off her misery of the night. Nothing could have brought John so near to her as this utter helplessness brought about through his toiling for her. She looked at him with tears of pity in her eyes, while her heart sank with fright. She knew the terrible danger that menaced them. But she closed her lips firmly and looked thoughtfully at the mite of water that remained to them. Then she held the canteen to DeWitt's lips. He pushed it away from him and in another moment or so he rose. Rhoda, fastening their hopes to another distant cholla, led the way on again. But she too was growing a little light-headed. The distant cactus danced grotesquely and black spots flitted between her and the molten iron over which, her fancy said they traveled. Suddenly she laughed crazily: "'Twas brillig, and the slythy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe!" DeWitt laughed hoarsely. "That's just the way it looks to me, Rhoda. But you're just as crazy as I am." Rhoda jerked herself together and tried to moisten her lips with her swollen tongue. "We must take it turn about. When you are crazy I must try to be sane!" "Good idea!" croaked DeWitt, "only I'm crazy all the time!" "'O frabjous day! Calloo! Collay! He chortled in his joy!'" Rhoda patted his hand. "Poor John! Oh, my poor John! I was not worth all this. You may not have an Apache's strength, but your heart is right!" Two great tears rolled down her cheeks. DeWitt looked at her seriously. "You aren't as dry as I am. I haven't enough moisture in me to moisten my eyeballs, let alone cry! I am so cracked and dry that you will have to soak me in the first spring we come to before I'll hold water." Rhoda laughed weakly and John turned away with a hurt look. "It's not a joke!" he said.