Part 14 (1/2)
The girls laughed heartily, and the echo of their voices came back to them from the walls of the canyon.
But soon they left the large stream and rode up over the mountain.
Tommy had his heart set on reaching Sombrero b.u.t.te, a high and inaccessible peak shaped like a huge cowboy hat, that rose above a flat-topped mountain. On reaching the foot of the b.u.t.te, the young people drew rein and dismounted.
”I'm glad to be on the ground again!” Joy exclaimed with a heavy sigh.
”I don't care for horseback riding very much.”
”What do you like, Joy? I mean in the way of sports. What do you like to do more than anything else?” asked Enid Breckenridge.
”I like dancing. I'm not as much of an outdoor girl as the rest of you. I go along, not because I like it, but I like the company. Now it's different with dancing, I could dance all day and all night.”
”She's the ladylike member of The Merriweather Girls' Club,” smiled Bet with an affectionate glance toward Joy. ”She's a b.u.t.terfly. As for me, I can't imagine why Fate played me such a mean trick as to send me into the world a girl, when I'd just love to have been a boy.” Bet shot out the words with a vicious snap.
”Say, you girls don't know when you're well off.” There was a wistful note in Tommy's voice. ”People expect so much more of boys and are never satisfied with what we do, while you girls have your paths strewn with roses.”
”Listen to him talk!” exclaimed s.h.i.+rley. ”I guess we girls have to struggle to live.”
”And what girl wants her path strewn with roses anyway?” demanded Bet in disgust. ”I want to have to fight my way, I want to do worth-while things. Right now, if I were a boy, I'd try to climb Sombrero b.u.t.te.”
”Would you really do a silly thing like that, Bet Baxter?” asked Joy seriously. ”I mean it. Tell me just why you'd do it?”
”I don't know why, but I'd do it because it would seem like a big thing to do. It would be hard work and when I accomplished it, I could always say, 'I climbed Sombrero b.u.t.te'.”
”That's not much of an ambition. I should call that simply foolhardy!”
Joy could never understand such a desire. It was too far away from her own temperament.
”Then,” continued Bet, ”I'd travel. I'd discover things, I'd find a new continent or a river or something. I'd like to go to South Africa and dig for diamonds. That would be romantic.”
Joy laughed. ”Now I can half-way understand that. Diamonds are worth while. If you were a man, whom would you bestow those diamonds on?”
”You--most likely. Men who do big things always fall hard for a handful of fluff like you,” returned Bet, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng dangerously.
”And there you'd show your good sense,” Joy smiled in a provoking way.
”I almost wish you were a man, Bet.”
As everybody laughed Bet soon regained her poise. Such flare-ups were frequent with Bet, a sudden flash of fire and then calm. The girls understood her and did not resent her bursts of impatience.
Tommy Sharpe leaned over and picked up a small stone from the ground, exclaiming: ”Look here, girls, while you're talking of discovering things, I find a treasure.”
”What is it?” cried Bet grasping Tommy's closed hand. ”Let me see?”
”An arrowhead!” Kit burst out contemptuously. ”Not much of a discovery in that. I'm sick and tired of arrowheads.”
”Why, I think it's wonderful to find one!” Bet examined the little sharpened piece of flint. ”I wish I could find one.”
”I'll let you have this one,” Tommy offered.
”No, that wouldn't be the same. To make it a real treasure I must find one myself,” answered Bet as she looked longingly at the stone.
The girls began to search the ground for arrow-heads, but s.h.i.+rley was the only successful one and even her find was a doubtful treasure as it had a large nick in it.