“I wish I could believe it,” muttered Nora Wingate.
The outfit started out, led by Lieutenant Wingate, who took a circuitous route to reach the Apache Trail, in order to avoid the steep ascent that they would have encountered had they taken a more direct course to the trail.
The eyes of the Overton girls were sparkling. For the moment they had forgotten their troubles, forgotten the peril-laden mysteries of the Apache Mountains, forgotten all but the glorious morning, and the wonders that lay all about them.
The first halt made was at the Great Forest of Sahuaro, a forest of giant cacti which flourishes all through the Apache and other mountain regions in that immediate section. Some of these great, awkward plants are all of fifty feet high, and from their spiny, fluted trunks issue branches which almost equal the trunks in diameter.
Crowning this weird, ungainly invention of nature is a brilliant red waxen flower of great beauty.
“That is the state flower of Arizona,” Grace informed her companions, pointing to the sea of red that stretched away for a long distance. “I propose that we dismount, have our luncheon here and chat for an hour or so.”
“Motion carried,” cried Emma, slipping from her saddle.
Ponies were tethered, and while Hippy was seeking water “for man and beast,” as he expressed it, the girls got out their mess kits and rations. Grace built a little cook fire, and, in remarkably short time, the mess call was heard at the edge of the cactus forest, while the ponies nibbled at what they found.
“I’ve been thinking,” began Hippy, “that—”
“Marvellous,” murmured Emma.