CHAPTER IV
The Camp and Temperamental Excursions
This summer in California for the first time the Sunrise camp was located near the sea.
After several days of investigating the countryside, in the meanwhile using the little mission town of Capistrano as their headquarters, the travelers discovered what they considered the ideal situation further south along the coast.
Near the border of one of the immense ranches for which southern California is famous they came upon a little stream of water flowing inside a channel. The channel had been deepened in order that the supply might last through the dry season. Not far away stood a small frame house. In harvest times the laborers on the ranch occupied this small house as a lodging for the night when the distance made it impossible for them to return to their own homes.
By a piece of rare good fortune Mrs. Burton was able for almost a nominal sum to rent this little place for her sister and herself.
The shack was lightly built, the roof formed of dried palm branches laid the one upon the other until the effect was like a thatched roof, although neither so warm nor so secure. Since it never rains during the summer in southern California, one requires only protection from the sun and wind. Near the house the camp-fire tents were set up in the form of a crescent.
Behind them the ranch stretched on for miles, a thousand-acre carpet of small green plants. For, as Marta Clark remarked when they were traveling down the state, it appeared as if California were preparing to provide the world with one gigantic bean feast.
Several hundreds of yards away the beach was silver and purple and rose with the sea verbena and ice plants which spread like a colorful embroidery over the sands. Here and there were tiny coves and clumps of rocks.