"And now," said Miss
Amesbury, "let's sing one good night song and then roll into bed. We
want to be up early in the morning and continue our voyage. There's a
heap of 'exploraging' for us to do."

Some time during the night Sahwah was aroused by a gentle pattering
noise on her rubber poncho. "It's raining!" she exclaimed to Hinpoha,
her sleeping partner.

Hinpoha stirred and murmured drowsily and immediately lay still again.

"It's raining _hard_!" cried Sahwah, now wide awake.

One by one the others began to realize what was happening, and burrowed
down under their ponchos, only to emerge a few moments later half
smothered.

"Everybody lie still," called Sahwah, "and keep your blankets covered.
Hinpoha and I will go out and bring up canoes for shelters."

As she spoke she reached for her bathing suit, which was down under the
poncho, and wriggled into it. Hinpoha, still half asleep, but
mechanically obeying Sahwah's energetic directions, got into her bathing
suit and wriggled out of the bed, drawing the poncho up over her pillow
and blankets.

The two sped down to the shore, where the canoes were drawn up on the
rocks, and hastily turning one over sideways and packing all their
provisions under it, they carried the other two back to the camping
ground and inverted them over the head-ends of the beds, their ends
propped up on stones, where, tilted back at an angle which shed the
water off backward, they made an admirable shelter. Underneath these
solid umbrellas the pillows of the girls were as dry as though indoors,
and the ponchos protected the blankets. Let the rain come down as hard
as it liked, these babes in the wood were snug and warm. As though
accepting their challenge to get them wet, the drops came thicker and
faster, until they pounded down in a perfect torrent, making a merry din
on the canoes as they fell.

"It sounds as if they were saying, 'We'll get you yet, we'll get you
yet, we'll get you yet,'" exclaimed Migwan.

Sahwah and Hinpoha, snugly rolled in once more, began to sing "How dry I
am." The others took it up, and soon the woods rang with the taunting
song of the Winnebagos to the Rain Bird, who replied with a heavier gush
than ever. Thunder began to crash overhead, lightning flashed all about
them, the great pines tossed and roared like the sea. But the
Winnebagos, undismayed, made merry over the storm, and gradually dropped
off to sleep again, lulled by the pattering of the raindrops