.

I don't know how Jerry could have thought of so many things; for it
was he who thought of very carefully breaking the bottom off the
root-beer bottle and using it for a cup. Of course the bottom might
have cracked all to pieces, but it was quite heavy and Jerry was
very careful. It came off wonderfully well, though rather jaggy.
Jerry tried to grind the cutty edges off by rubbing them against the
rock, but it didn't work. Then we remembered being very thirsty once
on a long picnic-walk ages ago, and Father wrapping his handkerchief
around the top of the tin can the soup had come in and giving us a
drink at a pump. So we knew that we could do that with the broken
bottle. Jerry dodged out into the rain through the tide-pools and
came back after a while with some water.

"I couldn't get much," he said, "because the place I found was very
shallow, but I can go again."

I remembered reading in books that you mustn't give much water to
fever-stricken people in any case. We lifted Greg's head up,--that
is, Jerry did, while I held the root-beer bottle glass, and said:

"Here's the drink, Gregs, dear."

It was very hard to tell what I was doing, and some of the water
trickled over the handkerchief and down the front of Greg's jumper.
But he drank the rest, and said: "Thank you very much" in the same
careful voice.

"Oh, I wish he wouldn't be so blooming polite!" Jerry said sharply,
as we were laying Greg back again, and I felt something wet and warm
splash down on my wrist. But I didn't tell Jerry I'd felt it.

CHAPTER X

If I wrote volumes and volumes I couldn't begin to tell how long
that night seemed. It was longer than years and years in prison; it
was as long as a century. I think Jerry slept a little, and perhaps
I did, too, for when I peered out at the cave entrance again there
were two or three bluish, wet stars in the piece of sky I could see,
and the rain-sound had stopped. Jerry was huddled up at my feet with
his dear old head propped uncomfortably against me. He was snoring a
little, and somehow it was the nicest sound I'd ever heard. Greg's
hand was still in mine, and it was not very hot.

Dawn always disappoints me a little. You think it's going to be
perfectly gorgeous, and then it's usually nothing but one cold,
pinkish streak, and the shadows all going the wrong way. But when I
saw a faint wet grayness beginning to creep along the horizon beyond
the Headland, I thought it was the most wond