"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.
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