so haven't I got a right to
be?" I tried to answer him, but there was a loud noise and he couldn't
hear and then, all of a sudden, I woke up and I knew the noise was
thunder and Skinny wasn't there at all. Anyway, it made me feel kind of
creepy and I was glad when I saw him at breakfast.

All that morning it rained and most of the scouts stayed in their tents
and cabins. Some of them played basketball in the pavilion. Three
fellows from the Boston troop went out fishing, but they had to come in
it was raining so hard.

Before dinnertime, Uncle Jeb called some of us to move the mess boards
into the pavilion, because it was beginning to blow from the east and
the awnings and thatch roofs over the mess boards didn't keep the rain
off, because it blew sideways. Out on the lake the water was churning
up rough with little white caps. Jiminy, I never saw it like that
before.

It was so dark and rainy that a fellow couldn't read even; anyway _I_
couldn't because, oh, I don't know, I felt queer kind of. A lot of us
sat on the wide porch of the pavilion--the side facing the lake. It was
wide enough so the rain didn't come in and wet us as long as we stayed
way back near the windows. We sat in a long row with our chairs tilted
back. It was nice there.

Somebody said, "That spring-board looks lonely sticking out into the
lake; look how the drops jump off it, just like fellows diving."

"Not much of a day for the race," Doc Carson said.

"What race?" Pee-wee shouted.

"The human race," Doc said; "no sooner said than stung."

We were just starting to jolly Pee-wee, because that's our favorite
indoor sport, when somebody said, "There's one of the gold dust twins
out; he must be crazy."

"He comes from Maine," another fellow said; "I guess he's a maniac."

But anyway, it was no joke, that was sure. Away over near the other
side of the lake we could see the canoe bobbing up and down and it
seemed to be coming toward us.

"Only one of them is in it," I said.

"And that's one too much on a day like this; that pair are sure nutty,"
Doc said.

But just the same the canoe came along and one of those campers was
sitting in the stern paddling it. He was having a pretty hard job, I
could see that, but maybe it wasn't as dangerous as it looked, because
if you know how to manage a canoe it's better than an old tub of a boat
in bad weather.

"He's making it all right," one of the fellows said; "he's game, that's
sure."

Pretty