Then he led the way, the Sunrise Camp Fire party of course following.
Waiting for them a little out of sight was an old-fashioned stage-coach drawn by a pair of fine horses.
The driver, who was Mr. Gardener, the wealthy owner of Sunset Ranch, assisted by the dwarf station master piled all the girls’ luggage on top the stage; the heavier trunks were to be sent for later.
Then the coach started down a long, straight road facing the west.
The sky was a mass of color far more vivid and brilliant than an eastern sunset. Beyond, almost pressing up into the clouds, were the distant peaks of extinct volcanoes. It was as if they had once flung their molten flames up into the sky and there they had been caught and held in the evening clouds.
It does not seem credible that eight women can remain silent for three-quarters of an hour, and yet the Camp Fire party was nearly so. Then they drew up in front of a big one-story house with a grove of cottonwood trees before it.
On the porch waiting to receive them stood Mrs. Gardener, the wife of their driver and the owner of the ranch house and the great ranch itself, near whose border the Camp Fire party expected to pitch their tents.
CHAPTER VIII
At The Desert’s Edge
Soon after sunrise the next day the Camp Fire party planned to leave the big ranch house.
Mr. and Mrs. Gardener had already assured them that their camping outfit had been sent on ahead the day before to the borders of Cottonwood Creek, so there need be no delay when the campers arrived. One of Mr. Gardener’s own men had it in charge and, as soon as the expedition joined him, would aid in the choice of a camping site. Water, one must remember, was the great problem in Arizona and they must, therefore, select a place near a clear creek.