CHAPTER XIV
Antagonisms
Dinner was finished and yet it was early evening.
Over in the west the sunset was flaming the sky with the brilliant colors of this land of clear atmospheres.
Seated in a group about a smouldering outdoor fire were eight girls—seven of them in ceremonial camp fire costumes and one of them dressed as an Indian. Curious that the Indian girl should be the fairest of them all!
Her pale yellow hair was fixed in the elaborate fashion of the Hopi maidens, with great loops over each ear, her dress of white. About her throat were several strings of uncut turquoise. The dress itself was made of a single piece of woolen cloth—really a white blanket—with a deep border of bright blue and red at the bottom and at the top. Around her waist was a white belt and on her feet soft white moccasins, with strings of white leather wound about her legs almost to the knees until she looked as if she were wearing white top boots.
Dawapa was also in her ceremonial costume, as she was the guest of the Camp Fire girls. At the moment she was deftly fashioning a baho, or feather prayer plume. The other girls were watching her with interest.
They were at some distance back from the fire with the evening wind blowing the smoke away to the northwest among the blue peaks of the San Francisco hills and the gorges of the Grand Canyon.
Gerry Williams was sitting next to Dawapa, with Sally Ashton on her other side, Sally’s brown head resting against Gerry’s shoulder and her lids closing now and then over her big brown eyes. She looked like a sleepy, sweet-tempered doll.
Opposite were Vera and Bettina, and in front Alice, Peggy and Ellen. They had broken their usual Camp Fire circle formation in order the better to observe their guest.
Their Camp Fire guardian was not with them at the moment, having gone to her tent after dinner. It seemed better, now and then, to Polly that she leave the girls alone.
On the ground beside Dawapa was a large round basket, flat like a tray and woven in red and green grasses, with a disk inside to represent the sun.
In spite of the lateness of the hour, as it was still sufficiently light, Alice and Ellen and Vera were working at their own weaving. Since her arrival two days before, the Indian girl had been teaching the Sunrise Hill Camp Fire club to improve their hand craft in more than one way. Although Dawapa was not yet an artist to equal her mother, her skill in basketry, in silver work and more especially in pottery had awed the American girls. It was one thing to be a modern Camp Fire girl, no matter how successful in the obtaining of the green honors, and another to have been born to the life of the camp and the inheritances of generations of hand workers.
“What is that pretty thing you are making used for, Dawapa?” Gerry asked, glancing up from her own pretty hands, which were idly crossed in her lap, toward the other still fairer girl. Gerry did not seem to be making a great effort to add to her Camp Fire honors and thus attain to a higher membership.
The Indian girl was almost abnormally shy and timid—or at least she appeared timid to the Camp Fire girls. But she had been to a government school and spoke a fair amount of English.
“We plant our prayer plumes on the altar when we pray to the Indian Gods,” she answered gently, with a faraway look in her light blue eyes. “Our first prayer is for good thoughts—then that our children may be wise and strong, and that the God of the Sky may be glad of us.”
Gerry laughed. It was odd how few things seemed to strike her as serious.
Alice Ashton frowned. She was not pleased at her younger sister’s intimacy with Gerry, of whose history they knew almost nothing.
“That is lovely, Dawapa; thank you for telling us,” she returned, wondering if the Indian girl would feel that they had less good manners than her own people. “After that, do you not pray for something you especially wish for—the thing you most desire?”
Alice spoke earnestly and the other girls remained silent. Perhaps there was not one among them who did not cherish a secret wish; perhaps for some simple, material possession, or perhaps an ambition which only the future could gratify.
But Dawapa only nodded her head and did not reply.
Gerry leaned over.
“Oh, if that prayer plume thing brings one good luck, give it to me?” she demanded, reaching over and making an attempt to take the baho from the Indian girl’s hand.
But Dawapa held to it firmly.
“Don’t do that, Gerry,” Bettina Graham said hastily and with a note of authority. “Dawapa told you that the prayer plume is a part of the Indian religious ceremony.”
After all, Bettina Graham was her mother’s daughter, and courtesy and good breeding had been the rule of her life. She did not dislike Gerry; indeed, she had not paid a great deal of attention to her, but occasionally something in the other girl’s behavior offended her almost unconsciously.
And, in a way, Gerry knew and resented this. In fact, she had immediately decided that what Bettina’s friends called shyness was only hauteur, due to her father’s prominence and her own social position.
At Bettina’s speech she now flushed angrily, but drew away from the Indian girl. Then she laughed a faintly mocking, insinuating laugh.
“I beg your pardon; I had forgotten what a convert you have become to ‘the poor Indian.’”
Just exactly what Gerry meant by this stupid speech, Bettina did not appreciate. However, she did know that it was her intention to be rude.
“You have extraordinarily bad manners, Gerry. I wonder if it is because you do not know better?” Bettina returned quietly. By this time she was also angry, but she had a self-possession which gave her the advantage. Yet, the moment her sentence was finished, Bettina regretted it. Among the new Sunrise Hill Camp Fire club this was the first open quarrel, and the other girls were looking uncomfortable. Bettina had not meant to make her accusation so sweeping. Having lost her temper, she had simply said more than she should, as most of us do under similar circumstances. Moreover, Bettina felt a little stab at realizing that Gerry would doubtless tell her side of their difficulty to their Camp Fire guardian. In Bettina’s mind there was little doubt whose part she would take.
“You are hateful, Bettina,” Sally Ashton murmured, still a little sleepily. She had not listened carefully to what had been said, but wished to announce herself as Gerry’s champion. The truth was that Alice had recently lectured her younger sister on the subject of their intimacy, and Sally intended to show how utterly unimpressed she was by family advice.
If Gerry intended continuing the quarrel she did not say anything more at this instant. For, glancing up, she had seen that Mrs. Burton had come out of her tent and was walking slowly towards them.
Bettina also had seen her and was a little puzzled that Gerry did not make the best of her present opportunity. Then she concluded that Gerry was a little ashamed, as she herself was, over their childish lack of self-control. Perhaps next day there would be a chance to straighten things out when they were alone, particularly as they were expecting guests to arrive at their camp fire at any moment.
“Our visitors have not yet appeared, have they?” Polly asked a moment later, as she sat down next to her niece.
Straightway Gerry kissed her hand to their Camp Fire guardian across the intervening space, looking as sweet and unruffled as if nothing unpleasant had occurred.
Really, by this time only Peggy showed any especial expression of annoyance. Peggy simply refused at all times to pretend to any state of mind she did not feel. Although she had not spoken, recognizing that she had no part in Bettina’s and Gerry’s quarrel, none the less was she ruffled.
Recognizing this fact, but not understanding the cause, Polly slipped her arm affectionately through Peggy’s and held her close for a moment. She could feel the girl grow less rigid; see her expression change and soften. There was no doubting the sincerity of the devotion between the niece and aunt, even if now and then they did not entirely approve of each other’s actions. Mrs. Burton, however, had not the faintest idea that Peggy would at any time oppose her in a matter of importance. Perhaps she had grown too accustomed to believing in her own charm and unconsciously in the influence of her own success. So far no one appreciated the fact that Peggy Webster was one of the few people who absolutely had to think for herself, and to be faithful to the truth and to justice as she saw it.
“Terry Benton’s note to me said he wished to bring half a dozen other friends with him tonight, so that was rather an unnecessary question on my part,” Mrs. Burton went on, wondering why the group of girls remained so silent and constrained, and glancing with more attention from one face to the other.
Some little time before, Mrs. Burton had been compelled to surrender the idea that she could order her Sunrise Hill Camp Fire club as if it were a nunnery and she the Mother Superior. At least, this was the accusation which Mrs. Gardener had certainly made on their arrival. Really, Polly had only wished to keep clear of entanglements. But Terry Benton, although not permitted to remain as guide, had manifested no ill feeling. Indeed, ever since he had been a more or less frequent visitor at camp, bringing an occasional friend with him. He and Gerry and Sally seemed to have formed a kind of three-cornered friendship.
Tonight, however, was the first time that he had suggested bringing so many visitors at one time. But Terry had written to say he had a friend from the East who had just arrived at the Gardener ranch and wanted to call. There were also four or five western fellows who declined to be put off any longer.
Therefore Mrs. Burton had acquiesced and written to say she and the Camp Fire girls would be glad to see them. After all, she remembered how important a part their boy friends had played in her own Camp Fire days. Perhaps it was a sign of age to have expected other girls to be different. Anyhow, Mrs. Burton had the grace to laugh at herself after submitting to the inevitable. And she was now first to spy their expected guests.
But the moment after, Sally also had seen them and jumping quickly to her feet, all her sleepiness vanished, began waving a yellow scarf.
The newcomers made an effective picture, riding in single file along the trail which led from the Gardener ranch. Although the sun was not entirely down, the moon had risen and was showing faintly in the opposite sky. Later would be revealed, the Pleiades which the Indian calls the time of the sweet influences.
The young men were wearing rough-rider costumes. Observing Sally’s signal, Terry Benton, who was leading the line of march, rose in his saddle and saluted. The next instant six other men followed suit and together they halloed across the desert the long, curious cry of the western cowboy.
But the girls had also risen in a picturesque group about their camp fire, calling back in return the now world-famous camp fire cheer:
Ten minutes later, leaving their burros below fastened to the trees near Cottonwood Creek, Terry and his friends, after climbing the mesa, came directly toward Mrs. Burton. And before Terry could introduce any one of them, a young man held out his hand.
“I have met you before, Mrs. Burton. You remember you said I could not be a member of your Camp Fire club? Well, I have done the next best thing, I am a visitor at the Gardener ranch. Benton and I are old friends, and when he wrote me of what was going on out here, I guessed the rest. Besides Mrs. Webster and Mrs. Graham confessed. I think they want a first-hand report of Miss Bettina and Miss Peggy from me.”
But Peggy had by this time joined her aunt.
“Ralph Marshall; how extraordinary to see you out here! You are the very last person I would ever have dreamed of. I thought, after your visit to us, you were to stay on and study scientific farming with father.”
“Oh, well, I have concluded to be a ranchman instead,” Ralph returned, smiling and shaking hands with Peggy.
Peggy was pleased to see him. He had been a guest at their place several times while she was growing up and was really a charming fellow, if a little spoiled by his father’s wealth. Then his people were friends of Bettina’s mother and father, as well as of her own.