we travel around in their wagon; it's easier than walking. I have been prospecting for gold in this region lately. Would you let me have a look over your ranch before I move on? You may be grazing your cattle above a gold mine this minute – it's what the old man did who once owned Cripple Creek."
The man's eyes glowed with the peculiar fanatical glow of the gold-seeker and Jack felt a thrill of excitement as she watched him, but she shook her head sensibly. And at this moment Jim Colter appeared strolling along the path toward them from the stables back of the Lodge. His hands were in his pockets and he was whistling cheerfully, with an inquiring expression in his friendly blue eyes. The newcomer did not see him.
"Want any help with your animals, stranger?" Jim inquired hospitably, as he came over to where Jack and her companion were standing.
The other man swung slowly around at the sound of a new voice.
Without replying he stared; stared at Jim so long that Jack wondered what had happened to keep him from answering. Then she glanced at Jim – he was behaving as strangely as their visitor; his jaw had dropped and his eyes darkened, and if it had been anybody but Jim Colter, Jack might have thought the overseer of the Rainbow Ranch frightened.
"Is your name Jim Colter?" the new man inquired curiously. "I think I have seen you before, yet I don't recollect your name. I'm Joe Dawson; 'Gypsy Joe' is what I'm called out here. Funny name for a man who once hailed from one of the first families in 'Ole Virginie.'"
Jim picked up a bucket of water from the ground, in order to gain time. "Suppose you join the other girls now, Jack," he suggested mildly. "It may be this stranger and I have met before and will have a few questions to ask one another. Anyhow, I think the girls need you with them."
Jack moved off obediently and discovered Olive having her fortune told. She was kneeling before the old gypsy with one hand resting in the woman's wrinkled palm.
"You are not one of these little missies. You are of another brood and another fortune," the old crone announced calmly. "I don't say I am able to place you, but you don't rightly belong here."
Olive's cheeks flushed indignantly and she dropped her lids quickly over her surprised eyes. "I don't see why you think I am different from the others. I am one of the ranch girls," she exclaimed earnestly.
The fortune teller smiled and lightly ran one aged finger around the line of Olive's delicately pointed chin and about her long, almond-shaped black eyes. "I don't think you are different, child; I know it," she replied sternly. "It ain't no use to try to deceive me. I can see, too, that life ain't going to be a bed of roses for you. Some one is standing near us right now who is going to exercise a strong influence over your fate. Many times she will help you to happiness, but once she will cause you great sorrow. She may never know it, for you will never tell her, but remember – I warn you – 'years alone will wipe away your tears.'"
The gypsy lifted her small, black, haunting eyes with as calm an assurance as though she had been one of the three ancient sisters of fate and stared long and imperiously at Jacqueline Ralston. Jack bit her lips and returned the woman's gaze steadfastly.
"If you mean that I shall ever bring sorrow upon my friend, you are very much mistaken," she protested defiantly, putting her arm lovingly about Olive. "If you intend to make up such hateful and untrue stories you shan't tell any more of her fortune."
But the gypsy gave not the slightest heed to Jack's remonstrance; making a weird sign across the palm of Olive's hand the old woman mumbled a verse of poetry, the girls straining forward to hear:
"'Criss, cross, shadow and loss;
Shrouded in mystery,
The first of your history!
Here there is light, there dark once again.
Happiness comes, but after it pain —
Yet your name shall be found and a fortune untold
Shall make for your feet a rich pathway of gold.'"
Olive smiled tremulously, drawing away her hand. "I don't believe I care to have my future foretold in poetry," she protested. "Won't you tell Miss Ralston hers? Perhaps you may give her a better fate."
The fortune teller did not like the scornful curve to Jack's full red lips nor the doubting, half-amused expression of her eyes. The woman had recognized at once that this girl was not to be so easily influenced as gentle Olive, nor as merry Jean, nor as the littlest maiden with the two blond pigtails. She was even more difficult than the oldest girl of them all, for Ruth had made no effort to conceal her surprise at the queer jumble of truth and fiction that had come forth in the account of Olive's history.
Obediently Jack put forth her strong, shapely hand, but the woman did not touch it, although her shrewd, half-closed eyes never wandered from the girl's face.
"Be on your guard. You don't wish other people to do anything for you," the gypsy spoke low and warningly. "I know you like to help them, but you are too proud to want to be helped. Some day something you little expect is going to happen to you that will make you have to depend on other people for a long, long time." All at once the woman's harsh manner changed and she gazed at her listener more kindly. "You are fond of this ranch and would like to spend your whole life on it, wouldn't you?" she questioned keenly.
Silently Jack bowed her head.
"You won't," the fortune teller went on solemnly; "you will travel over a great part of the world and you may settle in a strange land. Anyhow, I can see that you'll marry and have sons and – "
Jack blushed resentfully and the gypsy's beady eyes twinkled, for she was a good enough judge of character to guess the elder Miss Ralston's views on matrimony, merely by observing her pride and reserve. It was true that Jack had vowed to the other girls a hundred times that nothing and nobody could induce her to marry; she had more important things to do.
"Dear me, granny, haven't you something pleasant to tell somebody?" Jean interposed, coming forward for her turn in the game.
The gypsy frowned severely. "I can tell only the truth," she protested in an important tone. "But you need not worry yet about your future, young lady, for you don't take things so seriously as these other two girls. Life is more of a joke to you; only see that you don't carry your joking too far."
Jean pouted, jerking away her hand, and Ruth, who was particularly fond of Jean, interrupted the old crone. "Tell our smallest girl's future now, auntie; she is sure to have only good luck," she interceded.
The gammer smiled. Frieda had taken the gypsy girl's baby and was cuddling it like a wax doll, its tiny birdlike face contrasting oddly with her pretty plumpness.
"The youngest lady shall have a fortune like an apple pie, it shall be so trim and neat and nice and good to look at and to taste, with plenty of sugar and kisses in it," the old woman chuckled good naturedly, glancing kindly at happy Frieda.
Ruth turned quickly around and smiled. At this moment Jim Colter came stalking across the yard toward them, with the strange gypsy at his heels, and Ruth supposed he wished to hear the girls' fortunes. But Jim did not appear interested and looked at Ruth so queerly that she was afraid he was angry.
"Shall I tell you your future now, Miss?" the gypsy woman demanded slyly, talking to Ruth, but discerning all of Jim's six feet of shyness and troubled emotion at the same time. "I can see a great change coming in your life, Miss," the fortune teller went on quickly. "You can feel it stirring in you now, but you won't give up to it. You are going to take a long trip and you are going to – "
Whatever the gypsy meant to say
