The girls wished to express the species of flora and pictures of birds which they had secured for their scout records, consequently they secured a box and carefully packed the plants and pressed flowers, as well as the quantities of mineral samples, and the many, many snapshots taken throughout the trip.
They had pictures of the black-throated song-sparrows, which, winter as well as summer, in this section of the country never cease their sweet music; the mountain blue-bird; Bullock’s oriole and the Arizona hooded oriole; humming-birds, threshers, cardinals and warblers. Then there were the dusky grouse, known as the pine-hen, because it feeds upon the pine-nuts of the pinyon; the Alpine three-toed woodpecker; the white-crowned sparrow; the greve, mallard, blue-winged teal, the coot, shoveller, ruddy and pintailed ducks; besides these were the whitefaced ibis, the sora, the stilt, the American avocet, and many, many other birds. In fact, the girls had added two hundred and forty different kinds of resident birds to their lists for the scout records. Of course, many of these had been mentioned already in their records of birds in the Rockies, and in the Atlantic Coast States; but the environment and scenery of New Mexico and Arizona were so unusual that the photographs taken of the birds made them seem very different from those they had of the same birds in other localities.
To their floral records they had added the odd species of the cactuses, among which were the hedgehog, fish-hook, barrel-cactus, nigger-head, candy-cactus, the rainbow and the pin-cushion. The variety of chollas, which some people class as a cactus, were the prickly pears, the ball cholla, the common cholla, with its gorgeous flowers of red, pink, white, and yellow; there were the jumping cholla with flowers a light rose shade, also many unnamed species with beautiful flowers.
Among the interesting plants which were photographed and sampled, was the ocatillo, which looks like a clump of gray sticks from ten to twenty feet high, but with such long thorns their whole length that it is known as the “Devil’s Claw.” The night blooming cereus was a flower which the scouts gathered in the desert on one of their camping trips. In the Grand Cañon they found the rare phacelia, with flowers of a pale violet color. Similar to the phacelia were the borages with their yellow flowers in clusters upon rough, hairy stems. There were the neivetas, the Sactato Gordo, the comb-seed and the stick-seed; gorgeous poppies, primroses, magnificent sunflowers and the Arizona dandelion. As the girl scout troop was named after the dandelion, they took a deep interest in these western dandelions which were very attractive. The plant has feathery bright green leaves, tinged a deep red, and the flowers are very beautiful.
They had also gathered many queer kinds of flowers on the mesas, too numerous to mention individually. So many remarkable species were added to their records that it is doubtful if any other girl scout in the country could compete with their collection.
Finally the boxes were insured and shipped to Elmertown, and then came the last night around the camp fire at Grand Cañon.
“Gilly, when we are away from this fairy-land it will all seem like a dream to me,” said Betty, sighing.
“At least it will be a pleasant dream, won’t it?” asked he.
“Oh, yes, indeed! I wish it might go on for another summer,” replied Betty, eagerly.
“That’s one topic I’ve been discussing with the Captain: whether Julie will make enough money out of that book she proposes to publish, to take us all on another trip to the west next summer,” ventured Mr. Gilroy, jokingly. But he had no idea of how near the truth he had ventured when he spoke of Julie’s book. That was the subject she had eagerly discussed with Burt, and he had told her that her writing was the kind which would interest a publisher. Hence she was determined to try the field of literature soon after she got home.