Dan made no reply. The two boys pushed on through the slanting rain without meeting or being passed by a car. Finally, soaked and muddy, they reached the filling station.
An attendant, seeing them coming, flung open the office door.
“You look like a couple of drowned rats,” he laughed. “Here, shed those coats before you flood the place!”
Brad and Dan stripped off their slickers and wiped their dripping faces with a coarse towel which the attendant brought from one of the rest rooms. Then they sat down by the electric heater to outwait the rain.
“This is a regular cloudburst,” the filling station attendant remarked, watching the rain pelt against the window. “Worst storm we’ve had this summer.”
“May we use your telephone?” Dan requested.
“Sure. Go ahead. It’s your nickel.”
Dan dialed Mr. Hatfield’s number, intending to tell the Cub leader that he and Brad had taken refuge at the filling station.
There was no answer. Actually, the Cub leader at the moment was driving to the logging road. Alarmed by the intensity of the storm, he had lost no time in setting forth to pick up the Cubs.
Unable to reach Mr. Hatfield, Dan next telephoned his own home where his mother answered.