Their Camp Fire guardian was not with them at the moment, having gone to her tent after dinner. It seemed better, now and then, to Polly that she leave the girls alone.
On the ground beside Dawapa was a large round basket, flat like a tray and woven in red and green grasses, with a disk inside to represent the sun.
In spite of the lateness of the hour, as it was still sufficiently light, Alice and Ellen and Vera were working at their own weaving. Since her arrival two days before, the Indian girl had been teaching the Sunrise Hill Camp Fire club to improve their hand craft in more than one way. Although Dawapa was not yet an artist to equal her mother, her skill in basketry, in silver work and more especially in pottery had awed the American girls. It was one thing to be a modern Camp Fire girl, no matter how successful in the obtaining of the green honors, and another to have been born to the life of the camp and the inheritances of generations of hand workers.
“What is that pretty thing you are making used for, Dawapa?” Gerry asked, glancing up from her own pretty hands, which were idly crossed in her lap, toward the other still fairer girl. Gerry did not seem to be making a great effort to add to her Camp Fire honors and thus attain to a higher membership.
The Indian girl was almost abnormally shy and timid—or at least she appeared timid to the Camp Fire girls. But she had been to a government school and spoke a fair amount of English.
“We plant our prayer plumes on the altar when we pray to the Indian Gods,” she answered gently, with a faraway look in her light blue eyes. “Our first prayer is for good thoughts—then that our children may be wise and strong, and that the God of the Sky may be glad of us.”
Gerry laughed. It was odd how few things seemed to strike her as serious.
Alice Ashton frowned. She was not pleased at her younger sister’s intimacy with Gerry, of whose history they knew almost nothing.
“That is lovely, Dawapa; thank you for telling us,” she returned, wondering if the Indian girl would feel that they had less good manners than her own people. “After that, do you not pray for something you especially wish for—the thing you most desire?”
Alice spoke earnestly and the other girls remained silent. Perhaps there was not one among them who did not cherish a secret wish; perhaps for some simple, material possession, or perhaps an ambition which only the future could gratify.