Alaire shuffled the deck, and Blaze cut the cards.  Sure enough, he exposed the queen of spades.

“What did I tell you?  There’s the bearded lady herself!  Now I’ll shuffle and you cut.”

Alaire smilingly followed directions; she separated the deck into three piles, after which Jones interpreted the oracle.

“You got a good fortune, Miz Austin.  There’s a light man comin’ to your house, danger, and—­marriage.  You’re goin’ to marry a light man.”

Alaire’s laughter rang out unaffectedly.  “Now you see how utterly absurd it is.”

“Maybe it is, and maybe it ain’t.”  From another pocket Jones drew a small volume entitled The Combination Fortune-Teller and Complete Dictionary of Dreams.  Alaire reached to take it, and the book dropped to the floor; then, as she stooped, Blaze cried:  “Wait!  Hit it three times on the floor and say, ’Money!  Money!  Money!’”

As Alaire was running over the pages of the book, one of Blaze’s ranch-hands appeared in the door to ask him a question.  When the fellow had gone his employer rose and tiptoed after him; then he spat through his crossed fingers in the direction the man had taken.

“Now what does that mean?” Alaire inquired.

“Didn’t you see?  He’s cross-eyed.”

“This is too occult for me,” she declared, rising.  “But—­I’m interested in what you say about Mr. Strange.  If the Mexicans tell him so much, perhaps he can tell me something.  I do hope you have no more misfortunes.”

“You stay to supper,” Blaze urged, hospitably.  “I’ll be in as soon as that tarantula’s gone.”

But Alaire declined.  After a brief chat with Paloma she remounted Montrose and prepared for the homeward ride.  At the gate, however, she met Dave Law on his new mare, and when Dave had learned the object of her visit to Jonesville he insisted upon accompanying her.

“You have enough money in those saddle-bags to tempt some of our very best citizens,” he told her.  “If you don’t mind, I’ll just be your bodyguard.”

“Very well,” she smiled; “but to make perfectly sure of our safety, cross your fingers and spit.”

“Eh?” Seeing the amusement in her eyes, he declared:  “You’ve been talking to Blaze.  Well, last night I dreamed I was eating chestnuts, and he told me I was due for a great good fortune.  You see, there’s something in it, after all.”

“And you must be the ‘light man’ I discovered in the cards.  Blaze declared you were coming to my house.”  They jogged along side by side, and Law thanked his lucky stars for the encounter.

“Did Blaze tell you how he came to meet the Stranges?”

“No.  He only said they had brought him bad luck from the start.”

Dave grinned; then, in treacherous disregard of his promise to Jones, he recounted the tale of that disastrous defeat on the beach at Galveston.  When he had finished the story, which he ingeniously elaborated, Alaire was doubled over her saddle.  It was the first spontaneous laugh she had had for days, and it seemed to banish her worries magically.  Alaire was not of a melancholy temperament; gaiety was natural to her, and it had required many heartaches, many disappointments, to darken her blithe spirit.