But as soon as she staggered up she heard a voice beside her saying quietly:
“Don’t try to talk for a moment, Mrs. Burton, please. The air is still bad. It may hurt your throat.”
And Polly saw that Ellen Deal had come directly to her. The next moment she had brought a camp chair and was gently forcing her into it.
Polly was pleased and touched. She had not devoted as much attention to Ellen as she had to some of her other guests. For one thing, Ellen was older and seemed to have one of the slight natures it is hard to be intimate with at first. However, she believed that Ellen must have fine qualities, else the severe Dr. Sylvia Wharton would never have been so anxious for her to be one of the party. And later, perhaps, she would have her chance.
“You are very good; there is nothing the matter with me,” Mrs. Burton murmured, and then frowned and smiled apologetically at the same time. For her voice apparently seemed to have departed and she was absurdly weak. But, then, she must remember that she had originally come to Arizona because this very trouble made her acting impossible.
However, the Camp Fire girls really appeared more entertained than frightened by what they had undergone.
“I feel rather like a kitten that has been left out over night,” Sally remarked. “My fur is all ruffled.” She sat blinking her big soft brown eyes and shaking her brown hair, which was in a mass of brown fluff over her shoulders. If Sally had dreamed how much she did make people think of a kitten, perhaps she would not have said this. Yet she did know, since “kitten” had been her father’s name for her ever since she was a tiny child.
At present Alice was entirely concerned with her younger sister.
“You are sure you are all right, dear? I was so worried about you. As the storm blew across us I was thankful to remember you had gained five pounds since we arrived at the Camp Fire,” Alice said, speaking with such an appearance of solemnity that it was difficult to decide whether she was joking. But, then, as growing too fat was Sally’s particular horror in life, she was of course teasing her in the usual elder sister fashion.
Sally pretended not to hear.