One day a nutting party, including our four friends, set forth on their way up White River. At the mouth of Fall Creek was a gypsy camp, and the young folks stopped to have their fortunes told. The camp consisted of a dozen covered wagons, each containing a bed, a stove, and cooking utensils. To each wagon belonged a woman who was able and anxious to foretell the future for the small sum of two bits. Our friends selected the woman who was oldest and ugliest, those qualities having long been looked upon as attributes of wisdom. Rita, going first, climbed over the front wheel of the ugliest old woman's covered wagon, and entered the temple of its high priestess. The front curtain was then drawn. The interior of the wagon was darkened, and the candle in a small red lantern was lighted. The hag took a cage from the top of the wagon where it had been suspended, and when she opened the door a small screech owl emerged and perched upon the shoulders of its mistress. There it fluttered its wings and at short intervals gave forth a smothered screech, allowing the noise to die away in its throat in a series of disagreeable gurgles. When the owl was seated upon the hag's shoulder, she took from a box a half-torpid snake, and entwined it about her neck. With the help of these symbols of wisdom and cunning she at once began to evoke her familiar spirits. To this end she made weird passes through the air with her clawlike hands, crying in a whispered, high-pitched wail the word, "Labbayk, labbayk," an Arabian word meaning "Here am I." Rita was soon trembling with fright, and begged the hag to allow her to leave the wagon. "Sit where you are, girl," commanded the gypsy in sepulchral tones. "If you attempt to pass, the snake will strike you and the owl will tear you. The spirit of wisdom is in our presence. The Stone God has already told me your fate. It is worth your while to hear it." Rita placed her trembling hand in the hag's claw. "No purer woman ever lived than you," began the sorceress; "but if you marry the dark man who awaits you outside, you will become evil; you will be untrue to him; you will soon leave him in company with another man who is light of complexion, tall, and strong. Disgrace and ruin await your family if you marry the light man. Even the Stone God cannot foretell a woman's course when love draws her in opposite directions. May the Stone God pity you." The hag's ominous words, fitting so marvellously the real situation, frightened Rita and she cried, "Please let me out," but the gypsy held her hand, saying:-- "Sit still, ye fool; sit and listen. For one shilling I will teach you a spell which you may throw over the man you despise, and he will wither and die; then you may marry the one of your choice, and all evil shall be averted."