"There they are, Seedy! They're safe!" Tommy's voice trembled with emotion. The mountain | storms still terrified the boy, although he had experienced so many of them.
By the time the girls reached the house, the strain they had undergone was beginning to wear off and they were able to laugh at their adventure. That all except Joy, who shuddered whenever she thought of it and turned pale when the women asked excited questions.
"I hate these mountains," whispered Joy to Shirley. "I wish I were going home tomorrow!"
"Why, Joy Evans, you know you don't." Shirley put her arm around the frightened girl. "You're having a grand time here, and the fun is just beginning. You're not going to quit over the first unpleasant thing that happens to you. That's not playing the game. What would Lady Betty Merriweather do?"
Joy laughed in spite of herself. "We always used to ask that question when we were in Lynnwood. Lady Betty meant a lot to us, didn't she? I guess she wouldn't have cried and taken on the way I did down there on the cliff."
"Do you remember," said Shirley softly, "how Lady Betty rode through the night to help her wounded husband? That was bravery!"
"But that was so long ago. The Revolutionary War seems like a story and not real life," Joy said with a toss of her head. "Maybe it didn't happen at all."
Lady Betty Merriweather had been the first owner of the Merriweather Estate, Bet's home on the Hudson, and from an old picture of her that adorned the great entrance hall of the Manor, the girls had come to feel that she was their friend and companion, an ideal for them to live up to.
"Anyway," continued Joy, "she liked horses. And I don't. And I don't like their old cactus plants with their sharp needles that seem to jump at you. And the sun is cruel. It bites. And even the mountains look hard and angry as if they wanted to do you a mean turn.—And that storm! Did you ever see anything more terrifying? I thought the day of judgment had come. I don't believe Lady Betty would have been any braver than I was. Well, not much braver!"
Shirley laughed softly. "Joy dear, how you exaggerate things! Arizona is wonderful. Did you ever see such glorious sunsets? I'm crazy about them."