"I guess you're right," I said, "but, anyway, I'm willing to try twenty, if you say so." No fellow could ever say _I_ was a quitter. CHAPTER XXVIII TELLS ABOUT HOW DAME NATURE CHANGED HER MIND Maybe you'll laugh at that stopping a shower with sodas. But once on my way home from school I stopped in Vander's Drug Store to get a soda, and wait for the rain to stop. When I was finished it hadn't stopped, so I got another soda--a strawberry. Even after that the rain didn't stop and I was just going to start out anyway, when a man who was in there said, "Why don't you try one more?" So I did--a pineapple--and by the time I had finished that, the rain had stopped. So that proves it. But that day I'm telling you about, I guess it wouldn't have stopped even if we had stayed in Catskill a couple of hours drinking sodas. We sat on one of the benches in the waiting room of the wharf where the Albany boats stop, and watched it rain. It was so thick that we could hardly see across the river. Merry Christmas, didn't it come down! We saw the big day boat go up and all her lights were burning, it was so dark on the river. I guess we waited a couple of hours. "It's all on account of the old what's-his-name, St. Swithin," I said. "I bet he was the head of an umbrella trust." Bert said, "Oh, I don't know, I kind of like rain. It's all part of the scout game." That was just like him, he had some use for everything. I guess it must have been about supper time when it held up enough for us to start across. Anyway, I know I was hungry. But that was no proof it was supper time. Sometimes I've been hungry in the middle of the night. I guess St. Swithin stopped to have his supper; anyway, it began pouring again as soon as we got across. "Anyway, we got the letters mailed," I said; "what do I care? Let it rain." "I'm willing," Bert said, "as long as we can't stop it." We were both feeling good, even if we were wet. "Suppose Lieutenant Donnelle writes and says he doesn't know anything about the money?" I said. Because now the excitement of getting the letters ready and all that was over, I began to feel a little shaky. Bert said, "Well, if it's a case of _supposing_, suppose we start home." We hiked it back the same way we had come, all the way in a pelting rain. It came down in sheets--and pillowcases. When we hit into the old creek bed, the water was running through it just the same as if it was a regular creek. It was right up to the top of the bushes that grew there and dragging them sideways, as it rushed along. "Well, what do you know about that?" I said. Bert just stood looking at it and then he said, "That's no rain water." "Sure it is," I said; "what else do you suppose it is?" "Something's wrong," he said. All of a sudden he reached in through the wet bushes and pulled something out. "Look at that," he said. It was a sort of a little college pennant on a stick. "Those fellows went to Catskill didn't they?" Bert asked me, kind of quick.