"It's salt, you know."
"Oh, yes. 'At's so."
They crept on.
"Don't care if it is salt; I'm going to have some water," said Higgins suddenly. "Look at those damn buzzards back there. They know it's salt. Gimme Old Betsy, Payne, and I'll knock one of 'em down, and then we'll——"
"Higgins!"
"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.