He steadied Rip as they got down off the rock, but he staggered and stumbled along in spite of Westy’s help.
But they went on fairly well until noontime, when Rip’s fever got worse. Even with Westy’s arm around him he seemed not to be able to manipulate his legs any more.
They would go a few steps and his knees would bend under and his head sink forward on his chest. Westy felt it was really cruel to make him go on in that condition—but they were so near and neither of them could stand another night without water. The heat also was getting unbearable as the day wore on.
THEY WOULD GO A FEW STEPS AND HIS KNEES WOULD BEND UNDER.
Westy’s hunger by now was so terrible that his body seemed to have become numb from the continual suppression. His arm instinctively tightened about Rip as he thought of it, but the younger boy roughly pushed him aside and with an almost maniacal expression on his face, leaped ahead for twenty feet or more and then fell face downward.
Westy ran forward. Kneeling beside him, he raised his head up to his lap.
Rip was unconscious.
CHAPTER XXXIV—WHEN IGNORANCE WAS BLISS
The evening of the day that Rip had gone to the lake with Westy following in his wake, Mr. Wilde and Billy returned to the cabin, thoroughly tired and their clothes dripping wet.