БИЛЕТ №15

3. Mind the text“The Banks of Sacramento” by J. London and with the help of the questions describe the events in 10-15 sentences.

1. What was “old” Jerry in charge of?

2. Who knocked at the door of Jerry's house one morning when “old” Jerry was away?

3. Why did Mr. and Mrs. Spillane have to cross the river?

4. What was Jerry’s plan?

Young" Jerry was a fourteen-year-old boy with red hair, blue eyes and freckled skin. Together with his father "old" Jerry, he lived on the bank of the Sacramento in California. "Old" Jerry was an old sailor who had been given a job at the Yellow Dream mine and was in charge of the ore cables that ran across the river. One morning "young" Jerry was alone in the cabin. His father had gone to San Francisco and was not to be back till next day. It was raining heavily all the morning, and Jerry decided not to go out. At one o'clock, a man and a woman came in. They were Mr. and Mrs. Spillane, ranchers who lived a dozen miles back from the river.They had got to get across as Mrs. Spillane’s father had been badly wounded in an explosion; he was dying. Jerry hesitated because he had worked the cable many times, but only with the help of his father. At last he agreed. Jerry slowly and carefully let the car go, and the drum began to go round and round. Jerry carefully watched the cable passing round the drum. Suddenly the

cable stopped. Something had gone wrong.

The boy examined the drum closely and found nothing the matter with it. Probably it was the drum on the other side that had been damaged. Nothing remained but to cross over to the other side by the Yellow Dragon cable some distance up the river. To his surprise, he found the drum in perfect working order. From this side the car with the Spillanes was only two hundred and fifty feet away. So he shouted to the man to examine the trolley of his car. Mr. Spillane answering cry in a few moments was she was all right.Nothing remained but the other car which hung somewhere beyond Spillane's car.

Jerry made a large loop round the cable with the rope on which the empty car was hanging. Then he swung out over the river, sitting in the rope loop and began pulling himself along the cable by his hands. He repaired the other car. Mr. and Mrs. Spillane were saved.