"Head feeling as big as a bushel basket, but I'm otherwise normal, I
guess. What happened to me?"
He told me about the crack on the head from the falling tree-top. "You
were knocked out by the blow, and when you came to, you were wandering
a bit in your mind and talked too much. It was making it rather awkward
for Conetta--the things you were saying--so I took the liberty of
giving you a small sleeping-shot with the emergency needle."
"Thanks," I yawned. "The next thing to being able to do a good turn for
yourself is to have a kind friend at your elbow to do it for you. I
feel as though I had slept the clock around. What makes it so quiet?"
"Nobody at home," he answered evasively. "Professor Sanford has formed
a class in natural science, and it is out doing field stunts."
"Otherwise?" I queried.
"Otherwise foraging for breakfast. It has come, Dick. We didn't get
action swiftly enough last night to save the few provisions there were
left in the commissary, and the seas made a clean sweep. Tell me a
few of the natural-history things that you and the other survivors of
the _Mary Jane_ must have learned while you were trying to keep from
starving to death after your shipwreck."