“To be opened when we reach Arizona,” announced Grace, placing her trunk key in her purse, smiling at her friends with that rare smile that so attracted people to her.
Quite a party was at the station to see the outfit off next morning, though naturally the crowd was neither so great nor so boisterous as when, upon her arrival home from the war, Grace Harlowe had been literally carried from the train to her home, a heroine, not in theory, but in fact, as the crosses of war of two nations, pinned to her blouse, bore evidence.
Farewells were waved from car windows, the tall maples and spreading elms of Haven Home melted into the distance as the journey toward the setting sun was begun.
“Somehow I have a feeling that this vacation of ours is not to be an unalloyed sweet summer’s dream,” sighed Elfreda Briggs, settling herself resignedly for the journey.
CHAPTER II
ON THE OVERLAND COACH
“OH, girls, I’ve made a perfectly marvelous discovery,” cried Grace Harlowe as she burst into the parlor of the hotel at Globe, Arizona, on the morning following their arrival from the east.
“Which means, watch your step, Overton Unit,” reminded Elfreda Briggs. “What is the nature of your discovery, a long lost brother or something of that sort?”
“My discovery is a genuine old Deadwood stagecoach,” Grace informed her companions.