The horn sounded again; Jim turned his horses with their noses toward the western sun, when suddenly there was a loud clanging from the great bell that hung in front of the rancho to summon the cowboys from across the fields. Six cowboys rode in toward the caravan in as many different directions. As the big wagon wheels crunched in the sand with the pack-horses trailing behind and Olive's and Jack's ponies alongside, the six cowboys formed a semicircle, the emblem of the Rainbow Ranch, and cracking their whips in unison let out a tremendous yell. It was the call the Indians use before going into battle and it might have frozen the blood of the uninitiated, but the ranch girls knew it meant good luck and went away with the sound ringing in their ears.
The caravan party did not feel they had started on their journey until they crossed the border of their own ranch. The land beyond was familiar enough, but this afternoon it was invested with a new charm. It was a new world, because they had set out on a voyage of discovery, so it was disenchanting when they had ridden a few miles beyond their own place to discover another caravan, smaller and far shabbier than theirs, but still a caravan, drawn up by the side of a solitary tree along the road. A ragged girl nursing a baby was resting in the grass and an old woman was bending over a freshly lit camp-fire. There was no man in sight, but Jim recognized the wayfarers with a sudden tightening of his lips before any one of the girls spoke.
"Why, there are our gypsies!" Jean declared lightly. "And, Ruth, there is the old woman who told us our fortunes. She said you were going on a journey, and sure enough you are! I wonder if any other of her predictions will come true. She told us such a jumble of things and most of it was such utter nonsense that I can't remember half of them."
Ruth leaned over toward the front seat: "Have you any idea why those people are staying around in this neighborhood, Mr. Jim?" she asked, using her new name for him for the first time.
"No," Jim answered truthfully, beaming approval of his title.
An hour or so afterwards Jack and Olive were riding ahead of the wagon looking for a suitable place to strike camp for the night. There was no water near, but a tiny clump of trees offered a certain shelter, and they went toward it. From a cluster of bushes a western bluebird, which is bluer than all others, rose up and soared over the girls' heads, homing toward its nest in the trees. It was a wonderful darting ray of splendid color against the orange glow of the setting sun.
Olive clapped her hands softly. "O Jack, do let's get Jim to pitch our tent here for the night. That was a bluebird that flew across our path, and it's a good omen: 'the bluebird for happiness'—don't you remember the play Ruth read us?"
CHAPTER VIII
ALONG THE ROAD
FOR a week the caravan party moved on. They had gotten away from the railroad and were following an ancient trail which wound southward to the timber-lands of the Yellowstone, passing through valleys and canyons and over upland summits, now faint and grass-grown, now lost in the sand drifts, but always reappearing and always re-discovered by Jim's trained eyes. The journey across the state was to last several weeks, and the caravaners were in no hurry to accomplish it.