lightly. "And, Ruth, there
is the old woman who told us our fortunes. She said you were going on a
journey, and sure enough you are! I wonder if any other of her
predictions will come true. She told us such a jumble of things and most
of it was such utter nonsense that I can't remember half of them."

Ruth leaned over toward the front seat: "Have you any idea why those
people are staying around in this neighborhood, Mr. Jim?" she asked,
using her new name for him for the first time.

"No," Jim answered truthfully, beaming approval of his title.

An hour or so afterwards Jack and Olive were riding ahead of the wagon
looking for a suitable place to strike camp for the night. There was no
water near, but a tiny clump of trees offered a certain shelter, and
they went toward it. From a cluster of bushes a western bluebird, which
is bluer than all others, rose up and soared over the girls' heads,
homing toward its nest in the trees. It was a wonderful darting ray of
splendid color against the orange glow of the setting sun.

Olive clapped her hands softly. "O Jack, do let's get Jim to pitch our
tent here for the night. That was a bluebird that flew across our path,
and it's a good omen: 'the bluebird for happiness'--don't you remember
the play Ruth read us?"

CHAPTER VIII

ALONG THE ROAD

For a week the caravan party moved on. They had gotten away from the
railroad and were following an ancient trail which wound southward to
the timber-lands of the Yellowstone, passing through valleys and canyons
and over upland summits, now faint and grass-grown, now lost in the sand
drifts, but always reappearing and always re-discovered by Jim's trained
eyes. The journey across the state was to last several weeks, and the
caravaners were in no hurry to accomplish it.

One morning Ruth came to the tent door, dressed before any of the girls.
She stood for a moment looking about her and then waved her hand to Jim,
who was chopping a big log of wood that Carlos had dragged into the camp
the night before. "Mr. Jim," she called, "do you think there is any
special need of our traveling to-day? The girls and I have been talking
things over and we think that we and the horses need a rest. This is
such an enchanting place, anyhow, I feel this morning I would like to
spend my life here."

Jim stalked over to the tent, with his face as radiant as the morning.
He had his arms full of wood, and the string of shining fish over his
sho