Chub and Roy groaned in unison.
But they didn’t paint the boat the next day, as it happened; nor for many days afterward. For when they awoke in the morning it was raining hard and by the time breakfast was over with it had settled down into a regular torrent. Going for Harry was quite out of the question. They passed the morning as best they could, remaining, for the most part, in the tent. They were glad enough for the ditch which surrounded them, for if it hadn’t been there they’d have had to sit in water. Even as it was little rivulets crept over the banks of the ditch and meandered across the floor. Roy was the only one of the three who wasn’t thoroughly bored by the middle of the afternoon. He was at work on his map of the island, becoming so absorbed in the task of tracing his lines on the big sheet of paper he had purchased for the purpose that he forgot all about the weather. Once it became necessary to verify a portion of his map, and he donned his thickest sweater and went around to Turtle Point, unheeding the ridicule of the others. By supper-time he had finished it, and although there were many criticisms offered he was very proud of it.
After supper Billy Noon came over to visit them, and they were heartily glad to see him. There was no camp-fire that night, for they had thoughtlessly left their store of wood exposed and there wasn’t enough dry fuel, beside what was needed for the stove, to make any kind of a blaze. Billy was in the best of spirits and this affected the spirits of the others favorably. He shed a yellow oilskin coat and hung it from a tent-pole under the single flickering lantern.
“Well, how goes it to-night, boys?” he asked.
“Oh, we’ve been bored to death all day,” answered Dick. “I never saw such weather!”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Billy. “I like a day like this once in awhile. I like to get out and feel the rain. Where’s Miss Emery to-night?”
They explained that the weather had been too bad for her to come.
“I see,” said Billy. “Well, what have you been doing to pass the time?”
“Reading,” sighed Dick, “and playing two-handed euchre. Roy has been making a silly old map all day and wouldn’t say a word. Show him your map, Roy.”