icks--

"I'll go on," said Denton, "and send back help. You come after."

"To Mollyhay!" said I.

This far I reckon we'd hung onto ourselves because it was serious. Now
I began to laugh. So did Denton. We laughed and laughed.

"A damn long way
To Mollyhay."

said I. Then we laughed some more, until the tears ran down our cheeks,
and we had to hold our poor weak sides. Pretty soon we fetched up with
a gasp.

"A damn long way
To Mollyhay,"

whispered Denton, and then off we went into more shrieks. And when we
would sober down a little, one or the other of us would say it again:

"A damn long way
To Mollyhay,"

and then we'd laugh some more. It must have been a sweet sight!

At last I realised that we ought to pull ourselves together, so I
snubbed up short, and Denton did the same, and we set to laying plans.
But every minute or so one of us would catch on some word, and then
we'd trail off into rhymes and laughter and repetition.

"Keep him going as long as you can," said Denton.

"Yes."

"And be sure to stick to the beach."

That far it was all right and clear-headed. But the word "beach" let
us out.

"I'm a peach
Upon the beach,"

sings I, and there we were both off again until one or the other
managed to grope his way back to common sense again. And sometimes we
crow-hopped solemnly around and around the prostrate Schwartz like a
pair of Injins.

But somehow we got our plan laid at last, slipped the coins into
Schwartz's pocket, and said good-bye.

"Old socks, good-bye,
You bet I'll try,"

yelled Denton, and laughing fit to kill, danced off up the beach, and
out into a sort of grey mist that shut off everything beyond a certain
distance from me now.

So I kicked Schwartz, he felt in his pocket, threw a gold piece away,
and "bought a little more walk."

My entire vision was fifty feet or so across. Beyond that was grey
mist. Inside my circle I could see the sand quite plainly and Denton's
footprints. If I moved a little to the left, the wash of the waters
would lap under the edge of that grey curtain.

If I moved to the right, I came to cliffs. The nearer I drew to them,
the farther up I could see, but I could never see to the top. It used
to amuse me to move this area of consciousness about to see what I
could find. Actual physical suffering was beginning to dull, and my
head seemed to be getting clearer.

One day, without any apparent reason, I mov