How long they were, in their staggering, circuitous course, in reaching their goal of cholla, Rhoda never knew. She knew that each heavy foot, tingling and scorched, seemed to drag her back a step for every one that she took forward. She knew that she repeatedly offered the last of their water to John and that he repeatedly refused it, urging it on her. She knew that the pulp of the barrel cactus that she tried to chew turned to bitter sawdust in her mouth and sickened her. Then suddenly, as she struggled to refocus her wandering wits on the cholla, it appeared within touch of her hand. Afraid to pause, she adopted a new goal in a far mesa, and clutching DeWitt's unresponsive fingers she struggled forward. And so on and on toward a never nearing goal; now falling, now rising, now pausing to strive to hush Dewitt's cracked voice that wandered aimlessly through all the changes of verse that seemed to his delirium appropriate to the occasion. It seemed to Rhoda that her own brain was reeling as she watched the illimitable space through which they moved. John's voice did not cease. "Alone! Alone! All, all, alone! Alone on a wide, wide sea! So lonely 'twas that God himself, Scarce seemed there to be!" "Hush, John! Hush!" pleaded Rhoda. "Alone! Alone! All, all alone!" repeated the croaking voice. "But I'm with you, John!" Rhoda pleaded, but DeWitt rambled on unheeding. The way grew indescribably rough. The desert floor became a series of sand dunes, a rise and fall of sea-like billows over which they climbed like ants over a new-plowed field. In the hollow of each wave they rested, sinking in the sand, where, breathless and scorching, the air scintillated above their motionless forms. At the crest of each they rested again, the desert wind hurtling the hot sand against their parched skins. Frequently John refused to rise and Rhoda in her half delirium would sink beside him until the mist lifted from her brain and once more the distant mesa forced itself upon her vision. "Come, John, we will soon be there. We can't keep on this way forever and not reach some place. Please come, dear!" "'He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul--'" "Perhaps there will be water there! O John, dear John, if you love me, come!" "I don't love you, little boy! I love Rhoda Tuttle. "O for a draught of vintage that hath been Cooled a long age in deep delved earth!" "Please, John! I'm so sick!" The man, after two or three attempts, staggered to his feet and stood swaying. "God help me!" he said. "I can do no more!" "Yes, you can, John! Yes, you can! Perhaps there is a whole fountain of water there on the mesa!" The glazed look returned to DeWitt's eyes. "'Or the pitcher be broken at the fountain,'" he muttered, "'or the wheel broken at the cistern--or the pitcher broken at the fountain, or the wheel--'" Rhoda threw her arm across her eyes.