“Peggy!” one of the girls called warningly.
For Vera Lageloff had seen her safely reach a flat surface about ten feet from the plateau below. She had walked out to the edge of it and there stood poised for a moment with her back to the sun. Her pose was as virile and graceful as that of a young boy.
Then, before the watchers exactly realized her purpose, she had crouched and sprung from the ledge. For the instant she was in the air she was a figure of bronze and crimson. The moment had struck the earth, she was merely Peggy Webster, in a khaki Camp Fire costume with a red band about her black hair and a little out of breath from her plunge.
“There I have been wondering if I could accomplish that feat ever since I arrived in this stone age country,” she announced penitently, appearing more ashamed of her performance than proud.
“Well, as long as you are gratified and still alive, Peggy, I only request that you never make the same attempt again,” Betty Graham returned, her color returning swiftly, now that her momentary nervousness had passed. For she had come away from her task of guarding the fire just in time to behold the other girl’s act.
“Really, since we came West, Peggy dear, I am becoming more and more convinced that the Fates never intended you for a feminine person,” she went on. “There is never any guessing what reckless thing you may do next. I am afraid an accident may happen to you.”
While she was speaking, Bettina Graham had taken her seat on the ground and had begun pouring the hot water into a tea-kettle of generous size.
Peggy now dropped down beside her.
“Don’t say I am masculine, please, Bettina; I do so hate a masculine woman. Your last remark was only a more polite way of expressing the same unpleasant idea. Why don’t you say instead that I am ‘Seraphita?’ She is Balzac’s charming character—half girl, half boy, neither and both. When I am in favor with Tante she has a way of declaring me another Seraphita.”
“Besides your sudden plunge might have frightened Billy,” Vera Lageloff interrupted, not realizing how her speech betrayed the interest usually uppermost in her mind.