Mrs. Webster sat down beside her son, giving a suppressed sigh of relief. Billy seemed so much better, although he had been at the new Sunrise Camp but little over a week.

A short time before the Sunrise Hill Camp Fire party, who had been for several months living in a group of tents on the borders of the Painted Desert, had moved on to the neighborhood of the Grand Canyon. They were now in camp not far from the famous Angel Trail.

But before they were fairly settled a letter had arrived from Mrs. Webster saying that she would like to join the Camp Fire party and wished to bring along her two sons, Dan and Billy Webster.

There was no possibility of declining to welcome the newcomers, for it was Billy’s serious illness which had made a western trip necessary and forced his father’s consent to their joining his aunt’s camping party.

However, the campers were extraordinarily well pleased and particularly Polly Burton. For if her beloved Mollie were with her, surely her difficulties as Camp Fire guardian were over. She and Mollie were so unlike they were complements to each other.

“Fact is when we are together, Mollie mine, we have all the virtues and leave none to be desired,” Polly O’Neill, who was now Mrs. Richard Burton, had more than once announced to her twin sister.

And Mollie had laughed as she always did, accepting the speech as only one of her gifted sister’s absurdities. For, in spite of her Polly’s genius, her opinions never made much impression upon Mrs. Webster.

Nevertheless, perhaps on this point she was not altogether wrong. Already, since Mrs. Webster’s coming, the group of Camp Fire girls unconsciously were under the spell of its truth. There were some to whom Mollie Webster represented the influences which they needed and desired. She was far more motherly than her sister and loved to fuss and worry over each girl’s health and appetite. Yet, in her gentler fashion, she was really more exacting than Mrs. Burton, as such apparently yielding natures often are.

Already Alice Ashton and Vera Lageloff felt more closely drawn to Mrs. Webster—Vera, because she was Billy’s mother and had been her friend before she met Mrs. Burton.

With Alice Ashton the circumstances were different. For one thing, Alice felt that her Aunt Mollie took her more seriously and had a real respect for her intellectual interests and abilities. She could not always be perfectly certain that the other Camp Fire guardian was not sometimes a little amused by her ambitions.

Vera and Alice were both engaged in serving Mrs. Webster with tea. A moment later Bettina and Peggy walked over and stood on either side of Mrs. Burton.

“To what on earth, Tante, did you expect us to hitch that wretched beast?” Bettina demanded. “Peggy did finally manage to tie him to a cliff but it required an extraordinary amount of talent.”

Laughing, Mrs. Burton slipped one hand inside Peggy’s and the other in Bettina’s.

“Sorry, children, but I could not persuade Mollie to come with me in any other way and I did want her to see this wonderful view. You know how she hates walking, but perhaps we may get her into better habits while she is in the West with us. Look down there. The distance is tremendous, isn’t it? and yet this is only one of the smaller canyons—not the Grand Canyon. The roaring of the water sounds as far beneath as if it were the River Styx. But don’t get so close to the edge, Bettina. I thought looking down great heights made you feel uncomfortable.”

“Some one jumped or fell over this cliff the other day,” Peggy announced. “Ralph Marshall told me that the man had been a guest at the hotel where he is staying.”

Mrs. Burton shivered, drawing back in her usual impressionable fashion.

“Don’t tell us any gruesome details, please, Peggy dear. Remember it is the wonder and beauty of nature we must think of, and not its terribleness.”

Afterwards the woman and two girls were silent for a little while, each pursuing her own train of thought and each admiring in her fashion the marvelous spectacle before them.

It was as if a sunset had been inverted and its colors dropped down inside the cliffs, using the stones for clouds to hold the lights. Farther down, the walls of earth grew dark and finally a black stream ran between them.

A little later Mrs. Webster called to her sister and the two girls to join her. They then returned at once to the rest of the group and for half an hour sat there laughing and talking. For their background they had one of the most ancient dwellings of the human race ever found upon the earth, and their foreground was a portion of one of the great wonders of the world.

Nevertheless the Camp Fire party talked chiefly of their own affairs. After all, human beings are seldom vitally interested for long in anything save themselves and their own kind.

But, by and by, Mrs. Burton arose.

“Please hurry, everybody, we must get back to camp as soon as possible,” she suggested. “We forget that now September is here the days are getting shorter. I for one have not the courage to be lost in this part of the world. Moreover I have something to tell you when we reach camp which may surprise you.”

CHAPTER II
White Roses

The new camping site was by far the most beautiful the Sunrise Camp Fire club had ever occupied, even bearing in mind all its former history.

With wagons and their burros the girls, Mrs. Burton, and their guide had followed a trail leading from the old site near the Painted Desert to the new. They had preferred the long trek, although the nearby railroad would have covered the distance in a few hours.

Yet in this part of the country how easy it is to forget modern civilization if one will, since half a century ago the Grand Canyon itself was still unexplored.

Here their tents were pitched in a portion of the world’s garden, while only a short distance away was the most gigantic wonder in stone.

In less than three-quarters of an hour the little party of seven, who had been drinking tea, arrived at their present home, involuntarily stopping a few yards from the tents for the purpose of enjoying the picture before them. They had come through half a mile of pine forest after leaving the neighborhood of the cliffs and now found themselves encircled by pines on all sides. In only a few places was there a clearing through which one could get a vista of the far horizon, but in one of these clearings the new Sunrise camp had pitched their white tents.

In front of the tents the grass was soft and thick and of a deep bluish green. To the left a miniature hill was broken by a narrow fissure down which a tiny, clear stream trickled into a small lake below that was only a little larger than a big circular mirror. As a matter of course the pool had been christened the “Wishing Well.” The name is indeed time honored, but then wishing is perhaps the oldest and at the same time the youngest occupation in the world.

A few scrub trees and bushes grew along the ground between the pines, yet the air was altogether filled with the pine tang and fragrance. In many nearby places there were the brilliant early autumn flowers of the western plateaus.

As a beacon light to the home-comers, as well as for domestic reasons, a large fire was burning at a safe distance from the tents. Through the trees the sunset colors turned the scene to rose and gold.

For the moment there chanced to be no one in sight save Marie Papin, Mrs.