"What are you looking forward to, Enid?" asked Shirley. "Joy wants to see the cowboys, I want to rest and Kit wants to see Dad and Ma Patten."
"I want to see what my western home is like. It's so good to have a home, girls," Enid replied, and the girls gave her a tender smile, remembering the experiences on Campers' Trail.
"And I suppose Bet wants some wild adventure," teased Joy. "Problems to solve, great deeds to be done!"
"Oh, I'm not so sure. Maybe I'll be a cowgirl and learn to ride like Kit, and rope a steer like her friend, Seedy Saunders. There are heaps of things I'd like to do. I'd like to meet a western bad man that you read about."
"If you want that, Bet, you'll have to go to the movies. Western bad men are a thing of the past," Kit answered decidedly. "In the early days, Lost Canyon was a wild place but now it's the most peaceful spot in the world."
"Just my luck!" pouted Bet. "I did want to catch a western bad man, single handed, and turn him over to justice."
The girls laughed. They were each looking forward to something different, some particular plan or desire of her own, as far apart as they could possibly be, yet these five girls had bound themselves together, one for all and all for one.
Two summers ago, Bet Baxter, Joy Evans and Shirley Williams had first met Kit Patten, the homesick western girl. They had formed a little club that took its name from Colonel Baxter's estate, Merriweather Manor, a delightful old mansion on the Hudson with its romantic story of Revolutionary days when Lady Betty Merriweather reigned in its stately rooms. Her story inspired the girls to find adventure in life and to be true to their highest ideals.
In the story The Merriweather Girls and The Mystery of the Queen's Fan, these four girls solved the problem of the stolen fan. They had tense moments when it seemed as if they had failed, but they held on and won out.
The next year a new member was added to their club. In The Merriweather Girls, On Campers' Trail, they found Enid, then known as Tilly, The Waif of the Woods. The girls with quick thinking, daring and devotion were able to discover the girl's parents, and as a proof of their gratitude, Judge Breckenridge and his wife had invited them on this lovely vacation trip to Arizona.