"What?" Higgins shook his head. "What have I been saying?" "Nothing. Come on." "I guess it's got me, Payne," said the engineer as they rested at noon. "The fever is in my head too. I'm seeing ice and snow and things like that." "Come on; keep moving." Payne could barely talk, but he drove himself and his companion relentlessly. He no longer troubled to look ahead in hope of beholding a change in the land. The weary futile task of placing one mat before the other occupied him entirely. And suddenly he found himself pushing head foremost into a hedgelike thicket of brush and stopped weakly. "One of those damn islands," mumbled Higgins. "Got to go round it." "To the right; come one," whispered Payne. He did not trouble to look up. "Awful big island." "Yes." "_Awful_ big." Payne halted. He looked up. He rubbed his eyes. "Hig," he whispered, "look at it." Drunkenly Higgins put out his hands toward the sharp-pointed leaves. "I'm gone, Payne. I see palmetto scrub." "Hig--it--isn't an--island!" Higgins sat down on a mat and covered his face with his hands. "I thought I could stick with you, Payne, but I'm no good," he panted. "Head's gone all to pieces. I hear a creek clucking away, and all----" "Do you hear it too?" "What! You gone, too, Payne?" "In there?" cried Payne, pointing into the scrub. "Do you hear water running? My God! Hig, there's solid land, there's----" He hurled himself into the midst of the swordlike points of the scrub. Higgins, made suddenly sane by his companion's apparent madness, stumbled after, pleading, cajoling. Neither realized what happened during the next seconds. Their first realization of the truth came as they grappled at the brink of a rivulet, Payne striving to drink, Higgins pleading with him to remember it was salt. The struggle sobered them. Higgins let go. "Do you see it, too, Payne? Do you see a creek?" Payne's reply was to scoop up a handful of water and carry it to his lips. "Yes, I see a creek," he replied. Higgins followed his example. He splashed his head in the clear, cool water, running clean and fresh through a limestone channel from its source in the Everglades. Payne did likewise. Then each drank a sparing sip of the precious stuff and sat down to sip carefully and at intervals until the torture of thirst had left them. "The buzzards?" cried Payne, looking in vain for the grisly watchers. Higgins grinned. "They're awful wise birds, those fellows. They've turned back." They remained by the creek until they were rested, forded it and went on. The ground now was hard and dry. They found themselves in a sparse pine forest where walking was easy. By nightfall they were out on an open prairie, and at midnight they came to the trading post at Legrue. The trader blinked as he responded to their knocks. In response to Payne's request for information as to the nearest telegraph office he stared stupidly.