Chapter XXXIII: Just a Few Hours to Go

It was too dark to distinguish who the owner of the eyes happened to be. All Westy could see was the outline of a head, shoulders and paws resting on the rock’s edge.

He realized after the first shock passed that whatever kind of an animal it was, it wouldn’t do for him to betray fear.

He stayed perfectly rigid in the same position as when he had raised slightly on his elbow and first saw the eyes. The animal sniffed the air but never moved--keeping an attitude of being ready to spring in a second.

Westy could see by the head and shoulders that the animal was a good size; possibly a puma whose lair was in the haunted forest. What luck they escaped him there.

While these thoughts flashed through his mind he returned the stare, never letting his eyes stray an inch from that pair of veritable live coals. He concentrated every nerve and muscle, his own large dark eyes accentuated by their hollowness set in the thin white haggard face.

His arm was asleep and his body shook from the pressure on the nerve in his elbow, but still he stuck bravely. He was thankful that Rip was sleeping so quietly--his breathing could hardly be detected and Westy prayed that he wouldn’t move.

Finally the animal sniffed the air again and moved its head. It withdrew one paw--then the other and the head disappeared under the rock.

It wasn’t until Westy heard the heavy body on its thick padded feet plodding toward the forest that he finally relaxed--exhausted. He didn’t have the strength to look and make sure. The events of the last few days had used up too much vitality--he wanted sleep and didn’t care where the animal went.

When he awakened the sun was shining in his face and Rip’s old familiar cry was ringing in his ears.

“Water! Just--drop--water!”

It fairly made his heart ache to hear him and he sprang up. Rip was still warmly covered by the leaves, but his eyes looked without seeing anything.

“We’ll get water now, very soon! Do you hear? We have to go on a bit first.”

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.

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.