She jerked awake
again. Cochrane ordered her vexedly to make herself comfortable. She
stretched out beside the wall of wood that Cochrane had made. She said
quietly:
"While we're looking for food tomorrow morning, we'd better keep our
eyes open for a place to build a house."
She closed her eyes.
Cochrane kept watch through the dark hours. He heard night-cries in the
forest, and once toward dawn the distant volcano seemed to undergo a
fresh paroxysm of activity. Boomings and explosions rumbled in the
night. There were flickerings in the sky. But there were fewer temblors
after it, and no shocks at all.
More than once, Cochrane found himself dozing. It was difficult to stay
in a state of alarm. There was but one single outcry in the forest that
sounded like the shriek of a creature seized by a carnivore. That was
not nearby. He tried to make plans. He felt bitterly self-reproachful
that he knew so few of the things that would be useful to a castaway.
But he had been a city man all his life. Woodcraft was not only out of
his experience--on overcrowded Earth it would have been completely
useless.
From time to time he found himself thinking, instead of practical
matters, of the astonishing sturdiness of spirit Babs displayed.
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