The Camp Fire Girls on the edge of the desert

Soon after sunrise the next day the Camp Fire party planned to leave the big ranch house.

Mr. and Mrs. Gardener had already assured them that their camping outfit had been sent on ahead the day before to the borders of Cottonwood Creek, so there need be no delay when the campers arrived. One of Mr. Gardener’s own men had it in charge and, as soon as the expedition joined him, would aid in the choice of a camping site. Water, one must remember, was the great problem in Arizona and they must, therefore, select a place near a clear creek.

It was not yet daylight when Bettina Graham first opened her eyes the morning after their arrival, and yet she felt completely rested. She was sleeping beside Peggy, while on the opposite side of the room were Gerry Williams and the Russian girl, Vera Lageloff.

“Camping also makes strange bedfellows,” Bettina thought with the quiet sense of humor so few people realized she possessed. She was not homesick—life at present held too many fascinating possibilities—but it was natural that she should begin thinking of her own home in Washington, and more especially of her own suite of rooms. They had been recently refurnished—as a birthday gift from her father—in pale grey and rose color, with the furniture of French oak.

Bettina appreciated that she had known nothing but the fair side of life—that it was almost a weakness of her father’s to do more for her than she even desired. Senator Graham was not ashamed of his own humble past and the hard struggle of his boyhood; but, like many another self-made man, for this reason he wished his family to have every indulgence. Yet, although the close bond of sympathy was between Bettina and her father and Tony and his mother, Senator Graham did not wish his daughter to know only the life of luxury and self-indulgence.

Therefore, it was he who had been most in favor of the western camping experiment. Bettina was to long remember his saying that he wished her “to find herself” and that this one must do away from one’s own family.

In camping with so wealthy and famous a woman as Polly Burton there would be scarcely any great hardships to be endured. The new Sunrise Camp Fire girls were in more danger of having life made too easy for them rather than too difficult. Yet there might be circumstances now and then which would require good sense and courage to overcome. And, most of all, Bettina needed to see the practical side of every-day life.

“It was so like Polly O’Neill to get together such an extraordinarily unlike group of girls, but I had hoped Polly O’Neill Burton might have better judgment,” Betty Graham had lamented to her husband and daughter, half in earnest and half amused.

But when her husband assured her that this was one of the particular reasons why he wished Bettina to form one of the group, Mrs. Graham, suddenly remembering his humble origin, had been wisely silent.

Therefore, before setting out on their western trip, Bettina had firmly made up her mind to do her best to be friendly with the entire group of Camp Fire girls. And, on waking this first morning of their arrival, she was in a measure reproaching herself for her lack of effort on the journey.

Then unexpectedly Bettina sat upright in bed, feeling that she must get out of doors at once. She needed to breathe the fresh air in order to get rid of a stupid impression which had just taken hold of her.

All her life Bettina had been given to odd fancies—impressions which annoyed her mother deeply, and which she herself considered strange and uncomfortable. Just at this moment, for instance, and in the midst of her good resolution, Bettina had been assailed by a kind of presentiment. She had a feeling, which was part mental and part physical, that among the four girls in the room—for Vera and Gerry Williams were sleeping opposite herself and Peggy—one of the four of them, either consciously or unconsciously would bring misfortune upon the others.

Yet, even as she thought this, Bettina was embarrassed and ashamed and, in the gray light of the early morning, she felt her cheeks flushing.

But deny or be ashamed of the fact as she would, nevertheless it was true that Bettina Graham, ever since she was a little girl, had a curious fashion of knowing certain events were to take place before they occurred.

She moved over now to the edge of the bed. Then a faint noise disturbed her.

Turning, she saw that Gerry Williams had also awakened and was half way out of her bed. She could just faintly see her delicate outline—the pretty tumbled light hair and smiling blue eyes.

Bettina made a slight sign to her and began quietly to dress. A few moments later the two girls slipped out and went downstairs and out of doors.

It was not dark now, for daylight was breaking. Guided by a sound they heard, the girls went to the left of the big ranch house. And there, tied to hitching posts, were half a dozen burros with women’s saddles on them; also a pair of little gray mules packed like camels of the desert with great loads hanging from their backs and extending out on either side.

A young man was bending over arranging one of these packs.

He looked up surprised as the two girls came toward him. He was dressed like the usual western cowboy, with the big hat and flannel shirt and his trousers ending inside his riding boots. He must have been about twenty-one.

Gerry smiled at him.

“This must be our caravan. I wonder if I can manage to ride? I never have in my life.”

The young man lifted his hat.

“This is the Sunrise Camp Fire outfit. I am glad to meet some of its members at such an hour.”

He pointed toward the east where the sun was now rising above the horizon.

“Perhaps I may be able to show you how to ride, as I am to be your guide.”

In reply, Gerry laughed and Bettina shook her head.

“No, I think not,” Gerry returned. “Mrs. Burton told us that she had engaged an elderly man and his wife to be our guide and cook. She wrote to secure them weeks ago.”

The young man did not reply.

But an hour afterwards Mrs. Burton, who never remembered having gotten up so early since the long-ago Sunrise Camp Fire days, was engaged in argument on this same subject.

“But, my dear Mr. and Mrs. Gardener, surely you can see this young man is impossible, no matter how trustworthy he may be or how excellent a knowledge of the country he may have!” She gave a semi-tragic shrug of her shoulders. “You may not have considered that I am to have six young girls in my camp and one only a little older, besides myself and my maid. And now to hear we are to have an ex-college youth to look after us when I wished a man of fifty at least! You know yourself, Mrs. Gardener, that anything may happen.”

Mrs. Burton was standing beside her host and hostess at one side of the big ranch house veranda at six o’clock that same morning. She looked very fragile and young herself in comparison. For, although Mrs. Gardener was not tall, she made up in breadth what she lacked in height.

She now patted Mrs. Burton’s shoulder, as if she had been a child needing encouragement.

“Nonsense, my dear; the young man will do you no harm. Husband and I are sorry that the man and wife we engaged for you disappointed us. But getting help of any kind out here is a problem. Besides, it’s better that those Camp Fire girls of yours should do their own cooking. This one young man cannot do any mischief when there are so many of you. His tent will be far enough away not to make him a nuisance, and yet you can get hold of him when you need him. But you must remember that husband and I are near and ready to be of whatever service we can.”

The fact that the new Sunrise camp would be anywhere from ten to twenty miles away did not suggest itself to Mrs. Gardener as representing distance, so little do people in the western states consider space. Then she broke into cheerful little good-natured chuckles.

“Were you planning, Mrs. Burton, to be a kind of Mother Superior, and run a nunnery in our Arizona wilderness? You’ll find it pretty hard work to hide those girls out here where girls are scarce. If they had not been, how do you suppose I would have gotten my good-looking husband?”

Then Polly turned in despair to Mr. Gardener.

“Your wife is an incorrigible woman. But at least tell me who this young man is, his name, and why you think he can be trusted as a safe protector for eight lone women? Really, you must find me a proper person, Mr. Gardener. Your young man will have to guide us today, since there is no one else, but in a few days—say, in a week—you’ll get somebody else?”

Mrs. Burton looked so young and so alarmed at the responsibilities she had assumed that Mr. Gardener nodded his head reassuringly.

“Certainly, I’ll find some one else for you in time, if you prefer. But Terry Benton is all right. He got tired of school and came out here to work for me and has been with me on the ranch for a year. He is a pretty nervy fellow to undertake this job, I think, and he wouldn’t except to accommodate me.” Mr. Gardener deliberately winked a very large, childlike blue eye. “I had to produce some one to keep my word. But I tell you I am nervous about Terry. There are enough girls to take care of themselves.”

Polly was uncertain whether she wanted to laugh or cry. Being a Camp Fire guardian under the present circumstances was not an easy position. Really, she had not anticipated the things that could happen.

“And you actually called our new guide, Terry, Mr. Gardener. You know that means he is an Irishman. Don’t contradict me. Being Irish myself, I shall know when I see him, anyhow. I expect to have a good many problems with my Camp Fire girls, but the Irish problem I won’t have.”

Then, as Mrs. Burton turned away, she said, not aloud but to herself:

“Besides, Terry rhymes with Gerry, or will rhyme with some one else. I wish there were no young men in Arizona for the next few months.”

As a matter-of-fact, Gerry did require a a good deal of assistance in the long trek to find a suitable camping place. But, then, the new guide’s labors were of various kinds. He rode ahead on a lank, ugly-looking pony, his long legs trailing almost to the ground and followed at uncertain intervals by the girls and Mrs. Burton.

Now and then several of them would change from the backs of the burros to the solitary farm wagon, which carried their provisions and always Marie, who had wept once more at the thought of mounting a burro.

Polly was finding her maid all the problem Sylvia had insisted she would be. But there were three seats in the wagon, beside the place of the boy who was driving, and the other two were sufficient when the girls or their guardian grew tired. The little gray pack mules—Tim and Ina—trotted behind the wagon.

Certainly the Camp Fire caravan party formed an odd picture as they trailed across the ranch. Yet they fitted into the scenery through which they were passing. Over the same trail in bygone days many other women had traveled. Today the girls were wearing their regulation Camp Fire dresses, only instead of skirts they wore khaki trousers and leather leggings and soft hats. Each girl had her hair braided and hanging down for greater convenience.

At first they only followed the ranch roads through great fields of purple clover and then through several acres of peach orchard. But at last they came to a wilder country near the outskirt of the big ranch. Here they were nearing the neighborhood of the Painted Desert.

Short stretches of sand, yellow with flowering bunches of rabbit brush or gray with the ice plant, showed here and there. Then a mesa suddenly arose many feet above the desert and often covered with grass, or a verdant bit of valley showed further on.

Riding ahead, the new guide frequently pointed out objects of interest—a giant yucca tree, or queer animals scooting to their burrows. But never once did he betray his nationality by a single speech—not even by a light in his eye.

And, whenever she could remember, Mrs. Burton watched the young man narrowly. Yet it was hard for her to play chaperon when there was so much she wished to see and understand. And, really, Terry did seem to be a nice fellow.

An hour after the Camp Fire party had eaten lunch and recommenced their journey, they discovered their possessions waiting in the neighborhood of Cottonwood Creek and watched over by one of Mr. Gardener’s men. Several weeks ago Mr. and Mrs. Burton had purchased the necessary camping outfit and sent them on ahead to be taken care of at the ranch.

So, the wagon joining the procession, the entire party journeyed on for another two hours.

It was Peggy Webster who finally selected the ideal mesa for the new camp, and as much for sentiment as any other reason. She was riding ahead when she chanced to see a mesa about twenty feet high, with a group of pine trees growing upon it and a portion of the ground covered with soft pine needles.

Giving the reins of her burro to Bettina, Peggy climbed alone up the steep side, in which there were jagged steps of sandstone inlaid with agate.

The Camp Fire party halted below. Some miles beyond they could faintly see the outline of giant cliffs.

Mrs. Burton followed her niece, finding the view from this particular spot beautiful beyond words.

“May we have our camp here if we can find water near?” Peggy entreated. “We can see the sunrise over the hills, and this is to be a new Sunrise camp.”

And Polly Burton nodded absently, thinking of another camp fire.

At the moment they were in the wonderful plateau country of Arizona and near the Painted Desert, which has no connection with the great Arizona desert to the south. Encircling them halfway around were giant hills and cliffs. The air was so clear one could see many miles. Small wonder that the restless Spanish adventurers of the sixteenth century came here to search for the seven lost cities of Cibola!

A little later Terry Benton reported that clear water was not far away, and the other girls followed their guardian and Peggy to the top of their enchanted mesa.

A stream emptied into Cottonwood Creek, whose water was too muddy for the campers to use, but would serve for their horses. The creek was only a short distance away. Then the pine trees would be a shelter from the midday heat.

By nightfall the Sunrise Camp Fire tents were pitched. The men did the heavier part of the work, but the girls used their camp fire knowledge as never before in their simpler camping experiences.

Besides, they were inspired by the wonderful air and the romantic beauty of the country about them.

It turned out that Peggy Webster and Vera Lageloff were natural leaders in outdoor work. Peggy, because she had a great deal of common sense and no hesitation in telling the others what to do. Vera, however, worked with such quiet intensity that inevitably one sought to keep up with her.

Although, laboring with her hands as she had not in many years, Mrs. Burton observed that all the girls were doing their share of the work, except Sally Ashton. Sally appeared to be one of the charming, lazy people who take life easily. And there was no time to reproach anyone today.

There were two large sleeping tents for the Camp Fire girls and a smaller one for their guardian, who preferred being alone at night, except for the presence of the devoted Marie. Then there was the kitchen, or general utility tent, in case rain should make cooking or domestic work outdoors impossible.

However, the array of tents seemed unnecessary, for rain seldom falls in the early summer in northern Arizona. And that first night everybody slept out of doors, except Marie.

They brought out their blankets and there, on the top of the mesa, lay down under the stars. The night was too clear to fall asleep at once.

Terry Benton and the man and boy, who had assisted in bringing the outfit and provisions to camp, found a place in the cottonwood grove below the mesa, within call but out of sight of the Camp Fire party.

To have learned to know and understand this group of girls it would have been interesting to have been able to read what was going on in their minds on this first wonderful Arizona night out of doors. But who of us is not thankful that our thoughts at least are our own?