That morning, Pee-wee tried his hand at griddle-cakes, while his patrol leader gazed wistfully on. They were not half bad. And when you come right down to it, coffee out of tin cans, and griddle-cakes not too delicate, form a toothsome repast on a dull, rainy morning, when the drops patter down on your cosy little shelter and the little fire burns merrily outside, and the landscape is hazy and you have no forks or spoons. If you go to having forks and spoons you will spoil it all. [Illustration: Pee-wee and Townsend watched the chipmunk.] CHAPTER XIII A SCOUT IS POLITE They liked it so much lolling under their little tent in the rain that they lingered there till noon-time. The water trickled down the little knoll and they were as dry as if surrounded by an elaborate drain ditch. It is fascinating doing nothing and just watching the rain; that is, it is when you are camping and in no particular hurry. Their talk was as it should have been, aimless, bantering, idle. They told Ford jokes by the dozen. Pee-wee told about Temple Camp. They discussed the great relay race. For fully half an hour they watched a beetle trying to climb up a wet, slippery leaf. They watched this beetle and found it diverting. They stood an olive bottle some yards from their shelter and, sitting in the doorway of the tent, threw pebbles at it. They counted the drops that fell slowly, one after another, from a limb. Oh, the things they did were very important. They put a griddle-cake directly under the dropping point to see if in time the drops would bore a hole through it. But a chipmunk came and took the griddle-cake and they watched him eat it. Every now and then they wondered if it was going to clear and told some more Ford jokes. They watched a busy little glutton of a bird hopping about and pulling worms out of the ground and they wondered how he knew just where to plunge his bill in. They even went out to see if there were holes in the ground, but there were none. Then they told ghost stories. At last, about three o’clock in the afternoon the rain ceased to fall, though the sky continued dull and threatening. “Now’s our time to make the break if we’re going to,” said Townsend. “We can’t make Catskill to-day, no matter what. The roads will be horrible. What do you say? Shall we move on?” “It’s nice here,” said Pee-wee. “It is nice,” said Townsend. “I tell you what let’s do,” said Pee-wee; “I’ll throw this stone at the bottle and I’ll try to hit it; see? If it hits we stay and if it misses we go, and I hope it hits, because I’d rather stay. We didn’t play mumbly-peg yet; we can do that.”