or their bad behavior, but sometimes they catch their
legs in the traps and nearly pull them off." Jack flushed, but neither
Jean nor Olive smiled at her; they knew that she was like a boy in many
ways and was too good a sportsman to want anything to suffer
unnecessarily.

The girls crossed the creek at a spot where the water was lowest; the
spring rains had fallen and it was quite deep in many places. They rode
in silence along the familiar path that followed the creek bed, each, in
her own way, yielding her senses to the influence of the enchantment
that the rare summer morning had created.

Click! click! A curious noise came from somewhere farther down the bed
of the creek; it seemed to sound from behind a huge rock that rose up
alongside the stream and split into a small ravine. Click! click! The
sound was repeated.

Jack reined in her pony so suddenly that Jean almost ran into her. "What
was that?" Jack asked quickly, but Jean put her finger cautiously to her
lips and signaled for silence.

Click! click! click! The echo was louder and more puzzling, and Jack
slid softly off her horse, threw the reins to Olive and crept along the
path until she came to the far side of the great rock. The noise was
more distinct, but still she could see nothing; then she clambered up
the rock and peered over. A man stood with a little hammer in his hand,
chipping out small pieces of stone; a big pan filled with sand and
gravel and water from Rainbow Creek was resting on the ground by his
side.

A little murmur of surprise escaped Jack, and the intruder glanced up at
her; he had been so intent on his work and so sure of not being
discovered at that hour of the morning that he had not been disturbed by
Jack's approach.

"So it is you, is it?" he said calmly. "I hope you don't mind my having
a few pieces of these rocks as a souvenir of my visit to your ranch. I
know you and your overseer objected to my prospecting for gold about
here. That is the reason I pretended to drive away last night."

Jack at once recognized the speaker as the driver of the gypsy caravan
of the day before. "I don't see how I am going to prevent your having
the stones and pebbles now that you have already taken possession of
them," she answered indifferently. "But please don't let our overseer
find you lurking about, or he will be dreadfully angry."

The stranger laughed and shrugged his shoulders carelessly, and Jack
noticed that he seemed very sure of