“We have come to look for you, Bettina. Tante was afraid you and Mr. Marshall might be lost.” For Polly was ‘Tante’ to all of the Camp Fire girls who were the daughters of her old friends, as well as to her own niece.
The fact was, however, that she had not suggested to Sally to look for Bettina and Ralph—the suggestion had come from Gerry. And Gerry had not mentioned Bettina. She had simply told Terry Benton that she had not yet met his eastern friend, and did he suppose that Ralph had already run away?
So Terry and Sally had good-naturedly set off to find him.
Sally’s explanation had been the only excuse she could think of at the moment, since, under the circumstances, she did not wish to mention Gerry’s name. She was not really bad-tempered or deceitful; it seemed impossible that any daughter of Esther and Dick Ashton’s could be! But the fact was that Sally was like a pretty, soft kitten. She did not wish her pleasures interfered with, and if they were she was capable of a scratch. Moreover, she had fallen very much under the influence of an older girl who had experiences of life which Sally considered extremely fascinating. And at present Gerry’s power was perhaps stronger than the Camp Fire’s.
Bettina and Ralph both got up hastily. The four of them were about to move away when, unexpectedly and almost simultaneously, their attention was attracted by the silhouette of a figure coming alone along the western trail from the desert to the ranch, running with extraordinary swiftness.
But at some distance off he stopped and stood perfectly still, gazing in the direction of the mesa.
“An Indian—and a stunning one!” Ralph exclaimed in surprise and excitement. Having only just arrived in Arizona, he had not yet learned to take the appearance of an Indian upon the scene as a matter of course.
And the figure below was a fine one—nearly six feet in height, with broad, slender shoulders, perfectly erect, the head thrown back, motionless as a man in bronze.
“Oh, that is our Indian, or Tante’s or Bettina’s,” Sally replied teasingly. “However, I ought not to speak of him disrespectfully, for he is the son of an Indian chief and a chief himself, I believe, when he happens to be at home from college. Really, he does seem to be an unusual fellow.”
“There are several of these Indian students at my college,” Ralph remarked. “Queer contrast their existence must offer, if they return to their own people in the holidays.”