"Go on!" exclaimed the other, looking interested.
"The rain's stopped!" Jack explained.
"Well, I declare, if that isn't true for you, Jack!" cried Jimmy; "and to think that after me waiting for hours to be the first to tell the joyful tidings, I had to get thinking so deeply about our affairs that I clean forgot all about it. But it may not last. Sometimes there's a break, and then the old storm comes back again, worse nor ever."
"Clouds zey be break right now, over zere," and Francois, who had just come in from the sheltered nook where watch was kept, pointed as he spoke toward the southwest, where the storm had been coming from.
"Oh! if that's the case," added Jimmy, thinking it best to cheer up, "I'll take back what I said. And let's hope a lot of this water'll soak away before we have to put our best foot forward again in the morning."
"I suppose we'll have to eat again," remarked Frank.
"Please don't force yourself," Jimmy told him. "It's a bad plan to eat when you don't feel like it. And, by the same token, your loss will be our gain."
It was a good thing that the scouts could joke among themselves, even when facing desperate conditions. They had enough of gloom around them without allowing it to seize upon their spirits.
By this time their stock of food was getting down to such a low ebb that there was little choice when it came to preparing a meal. True, Jimmy would run over a long list of things that appealed especially to his clamorous appetite; but after all was said and done, it might be noticed that each meal was very much a repetition of those that had gone before.
Indeed, even at that, no one would have complained of the sameness of their food, if only the supply looked more promising.