By the time the trio arrive at the next waterhole, the symptoms of the flu Peter has unwittingly passed on to the bush boy are beginning to show in the latter. He begins to worry and decides he must tell the children he needs a burial platform to keep bad spirits from his body and to keep the snakes from "molesting his body" after his death. Peter is gathering firewood, and so to avoid interrupting a man at work, the bush boy seeks Mary, who is bathing. The bush boy doesn't see a bath as something private; he arrives at the pool and Mary is terrified, threatening the bush boy with snarls and a rock. He is confused and becomes depressed, believing that he will not have his burial platform.