A peddler had approached and was now about to open his pack. From his coarse dark skin and black hair, long enough to show underneath his slouch hat, they judged he was at least half-Indian, and he stood over them, a silent, statuesque figure, his narrow eyes becoming slits of blackness as he regarded them.
“I am very sorry,” said Miss Campbell politely,
“I’m afraid we don’t need any of those things. We are already well provided.”
This courteous lady was always apologetic when she couldn’t accommodate persons of a wandering character.
“Maybe the lady would like something better than shoestrings,” continued the man, slipping his pack to the ground and opening a lower secret compartment from which he drew a long, narrow box.
Spreading a square of dark green cotton material on the ground, the halfbreed emptied out a double handful of beautiful opals.
“These opals I found in Mexico,” he said, letting the stones drip through his fingers like glorified drops of milk. “They are very perfect ones. This one would make you a beautiful ring, madam. And this young lady would look well in a necklace of opals. I will sell them to you for half their value.”
The girls looked at the stones with grave interest, but nobody wanted an unset opal, and at the beginning of this long journey they had no intention of buying jewels.
“I am exceedingly sorry, my good man,” said Miss Campbell, “but we do not wish to buy anything, especially opals, because they are unlucky stones.”
“Only for those, lady, who are not born in October. Now, I should say that this young lady was born in that month,” he added, pointing to Billie.