So, personally, she would like to have befriended Se-kyal-ets-tewa far more than she was at present doing. But the idea of Bettina’s befriending him was not the same thing. For Mrs. Burton considered that Bettina’s mother would have objected to any possibility of an intimacy between her daughter and any young man not in her own social position. Betty herself had been in love with Anthony Graham before he was a person of the least importance; but grown people have a way of forgetting the facts in their own lives. However, Polly may have been mistaken in her theory of Bettina’s mother’s point of view. In writing, she had never mentioned the young Indian, except in a casual fashion, and never that Bettina appeared more interested in him than any one of the other girls. Indeed, she had not thought this herself until Gerry’s suggestion to her.
After all, was Gerry behind the present situation? Would Mrs. Burton have paid any attention to Tewa’s simple speech or to his frank show of concern, except for Gerry’s past innuendos? So slight a thing can arouse human suspicion in this unstable, all too human, world.
However, as a matter of justice, Mrs. Burton was not aware that Gerry’s speech had any influence upon her.
And, unfortunately, Bettina’s present coldness was not only bestowed upon Tewa but upon the Camp Fire guardian as well. She was angry and hurt over what appeared to her a nonsensical and arbitrary attitude.
But she said nothing to any one of what had taken place—not even to Peggy—and Mrs. Burton said nothing either.
If Bettina had known, however, there was some one else watching her—the last person whom she would ever have dreamed of. This was the Indian girl, Dawapa.
Dawapa was staying with the Camp Fire girls at their Arizona camp. Occasionally she went home to old Nampu’s house, but only to return within a few hours. She was an odd creature—a skilful artist—knowing how to make beautiful pottery; a weaver of wonderful baskets—a clever worker in brass and silver, but with little other sense. The new Sunrise Camp Fire girls had learned a great deal of hand craft from their Indian guest. However, she was unlike the ordinary Indian girl. Indeed, she had never had many companions among the members of her own race. They were gay and energetic, laughing and chattering among themselves, with jokes and quarrels and interests much like any other race of girls.
But something about Dawapa had kept her apart from them. She was morbidly shy and timid, and yet in a way she had a curious pride about herself, feeling that her fair skin and hair set her above other Indian maidens. Besides, her mother, Nampu, was rich, her pottery having gone all over the world to be placed in museums in far countries, revealing the possibilities in art of the American Indian.
So in her way Dawapa was vain, as many shy people are vain without being suspected of it by other people. And she had decided that she wished to be betrothed to the young Indian chieftain, Se-kyal-ets-tewa. For it was thus Dawapa thought of him. His American ideas, his college education, did not interest her. She believed that, like all good Indians, he would return to his own people and take up the work of his father—a kiva chief, when his college days were past.
To an American girl this attitude of Dawapa’s may seem a strange one, as she was only between sixteen and seventeen years old. But there was nothing extraordinary in it; the Indian girl marries young, and in the Hopi country it is the girl who proposes marriage. Also the children belong to their mother’s clan.