Then, as Mrs. Burton turned away, she said, not aloud but to herself:
“Besides, Terry rhymes with Gerry, or will rhyme with some one else. I wish there were no young men in Arizona for the next few months.”
As a matter-of-fact, Gerry did require a a good deal of assistance in the long trek to find a suitable camping place. But, then, the new guide’s labors were of various kinds. He rode ahead on a lank, ugly-looking pony, his long legs trailing almost to the ground and followed at uncertain intervals by the girls and Mrs. Burton.
Now and then several of them would change from the backs of the burros to the solitary farm wagon, which carried their provisions and always Marie, who had wept once more at the thought of mounting a burro.
Polly was finding her maid all the problem Sylvia had insisted she would be. But there were three seats in the wagon, beside the place of the boy who was driving, and the other two were sufficient when the girls or their guardian grew tired. The little gray pack mules—Tim and Ina—trotted behind the wagon.
Certainly the Camp Fire caravan party formed an odd picture as they trailed across the ranch. Yet they fitted into the scenery through which they were passing. Over the same trail in bygone days many other women had traveled. Today the girls were wearing their regulation Camp Fire dresses, only instead of skirts they wore khaki trousers and leather leggings and soft hats. Each girl had her hair braided and hanging down for greater convenience.
At first they only followed the ranch roads through great fields of purple clover and then through several acres of peach orchard. But at last they came to a wilder country near the outskirt of the big ranch. Here they were nearing the neighborhood of the Painted Desert.
Short stretches of sand, yellow with flowering bunches of rabbit brush or gray with the ice plant, showed here and there. Then a mesa suddenly arose many feet above the desert and often covered with grass, or a verdant bit of valley showed further on.
Riding ahead, the new guide frequently pointed out objects of interest—a giant yucca tree, or queer animals scooting to their burrows. But never once did he betray his nationality by a single speech—not even by a light in his eye.
And, whenever she could remember, Mrs. Burton watched the young man narrowly. Yet it was hard for her to play chaperon when there was so much she wished to see and understand. And, really, Terry did seem to be a nice fellow.