They were gathering up such tools and accessories as could not be left around on the grounds over night, and incidentally gathering up themselves, when the clap-clap-clippity-clap of horse’s hoofs was heard coming over the hills.
The road was narrow, merely a way driven into a road by the campers’ use, and as the car with the Bobbies’ fathers and the newly organized camp troop carefully picked their way out into the broader thoroughfare, Peg, the girl rider, came into sight.
“There she is!” Grace gave the usual announcement, and this time the girls had opportunity for a close-up view of the interesting, original Girl Scout of Tamarack Hills.
She pulled her horse up to allow the cars to pass, and it seemed to the Scouts that she deliberately tossed her head up in a defiant pose that turned her face away from them. But in spite of this they obtained a good view of the rider.
She wore a suit, the origin of which would be at once proclaimed “Western.” The divided skirt was of brown leather with that picturesque fringe slashed in, so markedly popular in pictures of Mexican or Southwestern girl riders, her blouse “matched horribly,” as Cleo put it, for while it was Indian in design, and also carried the slashed fringe, the material was common khaki, well washed out and deplorably faded. It might have been part of a boy’s play suit, for it seemed in no way related either to the girl or to her leather riding skirt.
Her hat was broad brimmed and of tan felt—still another shade of the various browns, and again suggesting another inception. It looked a “whole lot like the Boy Scouts’ hat,” whispered Grace.
Surprising to relate, this girl had neither the popularly featured “bronze, red nor sunny hair,” and it was dark, black actually; nor did it curl the least bit, for what fell over the ears (it was cropped very short) glistened even in the twilight.
All this was observable because in the narrow road the cars were almost stopped, and Peg’s horse nosed right up to Cleo, with a very friendly whinnie.
“Dads might think we are looking for that sort of thing,” whispered the conservative Louise. And if to be camp Scouts should mean “that sort of thing,” her caution, just then, seemed warranted.