Sundown Girl — Ann Boyle

Azimuths, alidades, anemometers -- the words were "Greek" to Carlie Alcott, the new fire lookout at Sundown Mountain Tower. The tower, though, was the perfect place to get away from it all -- "all," in Carlie's case, meaning Michael Trent, who had refused to make her a partner in a business she had helped him start. Stung by the rejection, Carlie was determined to prove that she could "make it" in what was basically a man's job. While genial, openly-admiring young ranger Doug Gentry was eager enough to help her succeed, his ruggedly-handsome boss, Steve Sherman, was exasperatingly skeptical. And when Carlie learned she was expected to follow in the giant footsteps of "The Sundowner" -- a legend on the mountain -- she knew it wasn't going to be easy. What she couldn't know was that somewhere along the line it would stop being a challenge she had accepted out of hurt pride and become a "labor of love".

Azimuths, alidades, anemometers -- the words were foreign to Carlie Alcott. But she was determined to be the “latest replacement” as lookout for Sundown Mountain Lookout Tower. And to become the second-best lookout the tower had ever had. She could never hope to replace “The Sundowner,” who, from all accounts, had been a paragon of perfection, but she could prove that a girl could hold down the job as well as most men.

Carlie was licking her wounds over Michael Trent's bringing in a partner whom she had never even seen -- when she herself had looked forward to being that partner. Hadn't she helped Michael build up the firm from practically nothing?

The ladder-like flight of steps leading up to the square little room that was to be Carlie's home for the summer made her dizzy at first. Everything about her new job made her nervous and jumpy. And Forest Ranger Steve Sherman -- the Chief -- did not make matters any easier. No did his assistant, pleasure-loving Doug Gentry, who was supposed to teach Carlie how to sight a “smoke” and how to make weather reports, but would rather gobble all her cookies and be sympathetic to her problems.

How Carlie wins her spurs as a lookout makes enjoyable reading in this story of a girl who, in trying to get away from emotional entanglements, finds herself surrounded by eligible men.