“Surely, Bab, it’s a long walk, all right. But why introduce the Indians?”
The girls were climbing up the steep path ahead of the wagon. Bab laughed. “Oh, I read somewhere,” she explained, “that the Indians used to sell their land that way. Suppose you and I were early settlers, who were trying to purchase this hillside from the Indians. They would tell us we could have, for a fixed sum, as much land as we could cover in the ‘long walk.’ That would mean that we were to walk along quietly from sunrise to sunset, sitting down occasionally to smoke a pipe of peace, to break bread, and to drink water. That reminds me, are we ever going to break bread again? I am starving!”
But Ruth was not sympathetic at the moment. “It is curious,” she replied. “These mountains are so full of Indian legends, we shall think, hear and dream of nothing but Indians in the next few weeks. The names of all the places around were once Indian. I suppose we shall do almost everything except see an Indian. The last of them has vanished from here. Oh, Bab, do look at Aunt Sallie!”
Miss Stuart had forgotten her fright. Fortunately, she did not realize how absurd she appeared.
“Ruth!” she called from her throne on the wagon seat. “Here is a perfectly good place for our lunch. There is water near and view enough, I am sure. I must be given food before I am taken another step up these hills. I am famished!”
The party found a clear space in the woods. In a short time Naki had built a fire of pine twigs, and Ceally had a giant pot of coffee boiling over it. Its delicious perfume mingled with the fresh mountain air.
“I declare I haven’t been so hungry since I was a girl,” Miss Sallie avowed. She was seated on a log, with a sandwich in one hand and a cup of coffee on the ground by her. Her hat was on one side of her head, and her pompadour drooped dejectedly, but Miss Sallie was blissfully unconscious. The color in her cheeks shone as fresh and rosy as the tints in the cheeks of any other of “The Automobile Girls.”
Mollie flitted around like the spirit of the woods. Nothing could induce her to keep still. “Do let me get the water,” she coaxed the guide. Like a flash she was off and back bearing a heavy bucket. “Here, Ruth,” she volunteered, pouring a stream of water into the tiny silver cup that Ruth always carried. Ruth was just in time. With a jump to one side, she escaped, but the splash descended on unsuspecting Bab, who Was nibbling a doughnut.
In her ardor at playing waitress in the woods Mollie had turned her bucket upside down. Instead of dispensing nectar, this little cup-bearer to “The Automobile Girls” had nearly drowned one of them.
“It’s a blessed thing you are my sister,” cried Bab.