"Really?" Alaire looked up quickly, then the smile left her face. After a moment she said, "Perhaps he could tell me something that I want to know?" "Now don't you get him started," Blaze cautioned, hastily, "or he'll put a spell on you like he did on me." "I want to know what Ed had to do with the Guzman affair." Blaze shook his head slowly. "Well, he's mixed up somehow with Lewis. Dave thinks Tad was at the bottom of the killin', and he hoped to prove it on him; but our government won't do anything, and he's stumped for the time bein'. I don't know any more about Ed's dealin's than you do, Miz Austin: all I know is that I got a serpent in my household and I can't get shed of her. I've got a lapful of troubles of my own. I've ordered Paloma to let that woman go, but, pshaw! It's like a bowlegged man drivin' a shoat--there ain't any headin' Paloma off when her mind's made up. You mark what I say, that female spider'll sew venom into those dresses. I never seen a woman with a mustache that was any good. Look here!" Blaze drew a well-thumbed pack of playing-cards from his pocket. "Shuffle 'em, and I'll prove what I say. If I don't turn up a dark woman three times out of five I'll eat that saddle-blanket, dry." 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."