The stories he had heard from Jim and Haney constantly haunted him. He could not drive them away. In imagination he saw himself lying on the white, hot sands with open mouth, protruding tongue, black face and sightless eyes. The picture sent a thrill of horror through him and moved his dizzy, flagging brain to fresh resolution. He stumbled on through the blazing, parching, cruel heat, sometimes falling and lying motionless for a time, then pulling himself up and going on with will newly braced by the fear that he might not rise again. Once he sank, groaning, his courage quite broken, and mumbled to himself that he could go no farther. As he fell the loud whirr of a rattlesnake sounded from the bush of greasewood beside him. Instinctive fear instantly mettled his nerves and he sprang up and leaped away from the hidden enemy. The fear of this danger, of which he had not thought before, steadied his brain once more and helped him bend his will unyieldingly to the task of going on and on and on, forever and forever, through the burning, blasting heat. Often he turned from his course and wandered aimlessly about in wrong directions, forgetting for a time his objective point and remembering only that he must keep going. Once he came upon human bones, with shreds of clothing lying about, and stood staring at them, his eyes held by the fascination of horror. Finally he forced himself to move on, and after he had tramped through the scorching sand for a long time, he found himself staring again at the bleaching skeleton. Through his heat-dazed brain the thought made way that the fascination of this white, nameless thing had cast a spell upon him and had drawn him back to die here, where his bones might lie beside these that had whitened this desert spot for so many months. Perhaps this poor creature's soul hovered over his death place and in its loneliness and desolation had fastened ghoulish talons into his and would pin him down to die in the same spot. The idea took instant possession of his bewildered mind and filled him with such quaking fear and horror that he turned and ran with new strength and speed, as if the clawing, clamoring ghost were really at his heels.