“There’s our camp site,” he said, beaming, “and we’ve made it with a good hour of daylight left.”
“Thank goodness we made it at all!” Janet said vigorously, voicing the relief most of them felt. “I’ll be as stiff as a board tomorrow.”
“I was going to suggest that we camp all day tomorrow,” Virginia added. “It looks like a nice spot, water and everything.”
“As you say,” Tom said cheerily. “Let’s get going, Jim, down to our camp site. I want to get settled and smell something cooking over the fire.”
It took them about ten minutes to work their way down to the little stream and when they descended from their horses there was a chorus of groans. All of them were stiff from their positions in the saddle. It was worse because it was the first time most of them had ever ridden all day.
“Get the tents up first,” Virginia proposed. “You and Jim can do that, Tom, while we gather some wood for a fire.”
After Tom and Jim had unsaddled the horses they set about erecting the girls’ tents. It was not long before a fire was crackling cheerily and bacon was spitting in a frying pan over the blaze.
Directly the tents were erected and the girls’ beds made with a blanket spread over pine boughs, Valerie lay down utterly worn out. Gale brought her supper and then left her alone to fall asleep early and get as much rest as she could. The others gathered about the campfire, despite their weariness, to talk and to sing songs. Tom had his harmonica and it seemed the fire gave him inspiration for he played until the others begged for mercy.
As Gale and Phyllis lay down on their bed of boughs in the tent with Valerie, a coyote howled dismally in the distance. From afar came an answering cry.
“I’ll never get used to that noise if I stay here a hundred years,” declared Phyllis. “It will keep me awake all night.”