ough,' returned the Raven. 'Now roll yerself up,
an' go to bye-bye. It'll be broad daylight soon. Most likely the rain
will stop at sun-up.'

Day was breaking, but grey and chill, and the rain still poured down in
lines which scarcely slanted. The scouts, however, were quite warm,
for there was no wind, and the leaping fire sent ample heat into the
nook where they lay.

Dick placed his haversack for a pillow, and laid his head on it. The
sleep he had been fighting off descended on him in power, and he knew
no more until Chippy shook his arm and aroused him at five o'clock.

His eyes opened on a very different scene from that he had last gazed
upon. The rain was over; the morning was bright with glowing sunshine;
the new-bathed country looked deliciously fresh and green; a most balmy
and fragrant breeze was blowing; and in copse and bush a hundred birds
were singing, while the lark led them all from the depths of the blue
sky.

'What a jolly morning!' cried Dick.

'Aw' right, ain't it?' grinned the Raven. 'The rain stopped a little
arter four, an' the sun come out, an' it's been a-gettin' better an'
better.'

Suddenly Dick looked up. The blankets had gone. Chippy laughed.

'Look behind,' he said.

Dick looked, and saw that the Raven had been very busy. He had built a
fresh fire with a heap of glowing embers from the old one; the billy
had served him as an improvised shovel. Over this fire he had erected
a cage of bent sticks, and the blankets were stretched on the framework
and drying in style; the steam was rising from them in clouds.

'That's great,' said his chum; 'I wondered more than once in the night
what we should do with sopping wet blankets.'

'They'll be all right in a while again.' And the Raven gave them a
turn. 'Now we've got to wire in and hunt up a brekfus.'

Dick turned out the haversack which held the food they had left, but it
made a very poor apology for a meal.

'I could put that lot in a holler tooth, an' never know I'd had aught,'
said Chippy. 'This scoutin' life mek's yer uncommon peckish.'

'Rather,' cried the Wolf, who was as hungry as the animal after which
his patrol was named; and the two boys began to scout for their last
wild, free breakfast-table.

CHAPTER XLIX

DIGGING A WELL

The two scouts crept along the edge of the coppice, eye and ear on the
alert. They were hoping to surprise a rabbit in a play-hole, but
though they saw plenty of rabbits scut