Adam was compelled to curtail his activities. He did not suffer greatly from the heat, but he felt its weakening power. Ever his blood seemed at fever heat. Early in the mornings and late in the evenings he prepared simple meals, which, as the days dragged on, were less and ever less partaken of by his companions and himself. During the midday hours, through the terrible heat, he lay in the shade, sweltering and oppressed, in a stupor of sleep. The nights were the only relief from the immense and merciless glare, the bearing down of invisible bars of red-hot iron. Most of these long hours of darkness Adam lay awake or walked in the gloom or sat in the awful stillness, waiting for he knew not what. But that he waited for something he knew with augmenting dread. When the full blast of this summer heat came, Virey changed physically and mentally. He grew thin. He walked with bowed shoulders. His tongue protruded slightly and he always panted. Every day he ate less and slept less than on the day before. He obeyed no demands from Adam and took no precautions. His sufferings would have been less and his strength would have been greater had he refrained from exposing himself to the sun. But he reveled in proofs of the nature of Death Valley. And if Virey had ever worn a mask in front of Adam he now dropped it. Indeed he ignored Adam, no longer with scorn or indifference, but as if unaware of his presence. Whenever Adam wanted to be heard by Virey, which desire diminished daily, he had to block his path, confront him forcefully. Virey was given over wholly to his obsession. His hate possessed him body and soul. And if it had ever been a primitive hate to destroy, it had been restrained, and therefore rendered infinitely cruel, by the slow, measured process of thought, of premeditation.