water in her hand, trickled it between the dry lips. She was not even aware of Starbuck when he left.

She made a bed of leaves for the man's head and studied him. The denim trousers suggested village life, but she never suspected otherwise. The face still appealed to her, strong in appearance despite the fever, yet not overbearing. She hoped the youth would recover. "This is fantastic," Diane said aloud. "It may take days before he recovers ... or dies." She thought of calling to Starbuck before he retreated beyond earshot, but her pride forbade that.

Shrugging and making herself as comfortable as she could, she bathed the man's flushed face with water.

Day and night, the touch of the ground, the cool water which bathed him, the patient hands which kept the blood flowing through his swollen joints—all became as unreal to Johnny Hope as the shadowy remembrance of some half-forgotten nightmare. His lucid moments were few: there was this person, face unseen but comforting; there was a little food and all the water he wanted; and there was the fever which came and departed, leaving an icy chill behind.

Once Johnny mumbled, "Go away. You'll catch it yourself." And there was laughter, soft-murmuring, feminine, he thought. Was the woman insane to expose herself so?

The fever retreated stubbornly, in no great hurry to depart. The lucid moments became more frequent and of longer duration. The girl was beautiful.

There came a time when Johnny sat up weakly, his back propped against the bole of a tree. The face smiled at him. He willed the toes of his left foot to move and watched them wiggle. He could just barely feel them.

With long, easy strokes, the girl massaged his legs. Acutely conscious of her now, Johnny was embarrassed. "I'm all right," he said. He struggled to sit up but as yet had no real control over his limbs.

The girl placed the flat of her palm against his chest and pushed gently, easing him back against the tree. "You stay still," she told him. "You'll be up and around in a day or so, but don't hurry things."

"I ought to thank you. You're crazy. Why did you expose yourself like this? Why...."

He watched her as she sat before him and drew her legs up, knees thrust up. He saw the slim bronzed line of her calves and the metallic silver of knees.

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