So was Fancy Gray, though she was not aware of the honor till afterward, admitted to the full comradeship of the Pintos. It was a victory. Many had, with the same ignorance as to what was happening, suffered an ignominious defeat. Fancy's election was unanimous.
And for this once, in gratitude for his discovery, Mr. Gay P. Summer, The Scroyle, was suffered to inflict himself upon the coterie of the Pintos.
There were other honors in store for Fancy Gray.
Piedra Pinta is two hours' journey from San Francisco to the north, in Marin County—a land of mountains, virgin redwood forests and trout-filled streams. One takes the ferry to Sausalito, crossing the northern bay, and rides for an hour or so up a little narrow-gage squirming railroad into the canyon of Paper Mill Creek; and, if one has discovered and appropriated the place, it is a mile walk up the track and a drop from the embankment down a gravelly, overgrown slope, into the camp-ground. Here a great crag rears its vertically split face, hidden in beeches and bay trees. At its foot a flattened fragment has fallen forward to do service as a fireplace. Beyond, there are more boulders in the stream, which here widens and deepens, overhung by clustering trees. Save when an occasional train rushes past overhead, or a fisherman comes by, wading up-stream, the place is secret and silent. Opposite, across the brook, an oat-field slopes upward to the country road and the smooth drumlins beyond. A not too noisy crowd can here lie hugger-mugger, hidden from the world.
To Piedra Pinta that next Saturday they came, bringing Fancy Gray, a smiling captive, with them. The men bore blankets and books; the women food and dishes enough for a picnic meal. They came singing, romping up the track, big Benton first with the heaviest load. In corduroys and jeans, in boots and flannel shirts they came. Little Elsie, like a girl scout, wore a rakish slouch hat trimmed with live carnations, a short skirt, leggings, a sheath knife swinging from her belt. Mabel had her own pearl-handled revolver. The rest looked like gipsies.
They slid down the bank and debouched with a shout into the little glade. Fancy entered with vim into the celebration. Not that she did any useful work, that was not her field; she was there chiefly as a decoration and an inspiration. She had dressed herself in khaki. Her boots were laced high, her sombrero permitted a shower of tinted tendrils to escape and wanton about her forehead. She found fragrant sprays of yerba buena and wreathed them about her neck.
It was all new and strange to her, all delightful. She had seen the artificial side of the town and knew the best and worst of its gaiety; but here, in the open for almost the first time, she breathed deeply of the primal joys of nature and was refreshed. Her curiosity was unlimited; she played with earth and water, fire and air. She unbuttoned the collar of her shirt-waist and turned it in, disclosing a delicious pink hollow at her throat. She rolled up her sleeves, displaying the dimples in her elbows. At the preparations for the dinner she was an eager spectator, and when the meal was served, smoked and sandy, and the bottles were opened, all traces of the fairy in her disappeared; she was simple girl. She ate like a cannibal and ate with glee.
The shadows fell. The nook became dusky, odorous, moist; the rivulet rippled pleasantly, the ferns moved lazily in the night airs. The moon arose and gave a mysterious argent illumination. The going and coming ceased, the shouting and lusty singing grew still. The blankets were opened and spread at the foot of the rock. Dougal and Elsie took their places in the center and, the men on one side and the girls on the other, they lay upon the ground and wrapped themselves against the cooling air. The fire was replenished and its glare lighted up the trees in planes of foliage, like painted sheets of scenery.
They lay down, but not to sleep. Dougal's coffee, black and strong, stimulated their brains. The talk ran on with an accompaniment of song and jest. One after another sprang up to sing some old-time tune or to recite a familiar, well-beloved poem; the dialogue jumped from one to the other. Some dozed and woke again at a chorus of laughter; some sat wide-eyed, staring into the fire, into the darkness, or into one another's eyes.
Maxim was prodigious. He blared forth rollicking airs, he did scenes from La Bohème, posturing picturesquely against the flame, his long black locks sweeping his face. Starr improvised while they listened, rapt. Benton climbed high into a beech tree and there, invisible, he recited Cynara and quoted The Song of the Sword, while Dougal jeered and fed the blaze. Mabel listened entranced and appreciative, and ventured occasionally on one more long, dull story—her tale always growing melodramatically exciting, as the attention of her listeners wandered. Elsie sat and smiled and smiled, wide awake till three.