It was several weeks before Custer could ride again,
and in the meantime Shannon had gone down to her
own place to live. She came up every day on Baldy,
who had been loaned to her until Custer should be able
to select a horse for her. She insisted that she would own
nothing but a Morgan, and that she wanted one of the
Apache’s brothers.
“You’ll have to wait, then, until I can break one for
you,” Custer told her. “There are a couple of four-year-olds
that are saddle-broke and bridle-wise in a way; but
I wouldn’t want you to ride either of them until they’ve
had the finishing touches. I want to ride them enough
to learn their faults, if they have any. In the meantime
you just keep Baldy down there and use him. How’s
ranching? You look as if it agreed with you. Nobody’d
know you for the same girl. You look like an Indian,
and how your cheeks have filled out!”
The girl smiled happily.
“I never knew before what it was to live,” she said.
“I have never been sickly; but on the other hand I never
felt health before, to know it was a tangible, enjoyable
possession that one experienced and was conscious of
every moment. People fill themselves with medicines, or
drugs, or liquors, to induce temporarily a poor imitation
of what they might enjoy constantly if they only would.
A man who thinks that a drink is the only thing that
can make one feel like shouting and waving one’s hat
should throw a leg over one of your Morgans before
breakfast one of these cool September mornings, and give
him his head and let him go. Oh, boy!” she cried.
“There’s intoxication for you!”
Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes dancing. She was
a picture of life and health and happiness; and Custer’s
eyes were sparkling, too.
“Gee!” he exclaimed. “You’re a regular Pennington!”
“I wish I were!” the girl thought to herself. “You
honor me,” was what she said aloud.
Custer laughed.
“That sounded rotten, didn’t it? But you know what
I meant—it’s nice to have people whom we like like
the same things we do. It doesn’t necessarily mean that
we think our likes are the best in the world. I didn’t
mean to be egotistical.”
Eva had just entered the patio.
“Listen to him, the radiant child!” she exclaimed. “Do
you know, Shannon, that dear little brother just hates
himself!”
She walked over and perched on his knee and kissed
him.
“Yes,” said Custer, “brother hates himself. He spends
hours powdering his nose. Mother found a lip stick and
an eyebrow pencil, or whatever you call it, in his dressing
table recently; and when he goes to L. A. he has
his eyebrows plucked.”
Eva jumped from his knee and stamped her foot.
“I never had my eyebrows plucked!” she cried.
“They’re naturally this way.”
“Why the excitement, little one? Did I say you did
have them plucked?”
“Well, you tried to make Shannon think so. I got
the lip stick and the other things so that if we have any
amateur theatricals this winter I’ll have them. Do you
know, I think I’ll go on the stage or the screen—wouldn’t
it be splishous, though?—‘Miss Eva Pennington is starring
in the new and popular success based on the story
by Guy Thackeray Evans, the eminent author!’”
“Eminent! He isn’t even imminent,” said Custer.
“Oh, Eva!” cried Shannon, genuine concern in her
tone. “Surely you wouldn’t think of the screen, would
you? You’re not serious?”
“Oh, yes,” said Custer. “She’s serious—serious is her
middle name. To-morrow she will want to be a painter,
and day after to-morrow the world’s most celebrated
harpist. Eva is nothing if not serious, while her tenacity
of purpose is absolutely inspiring. Why, once, for one
whole day, she wanted to do the same thing.”
Eva was laughing with her brother and Shannon.
“If she were just like every one else, you wouldn’t
love your little sister any more,” she said, running her
fingers through his hair. “Honestly, ever since I met
Wilson Crumb, I have thought I should like to be a movie
star.”
“Wilson Crumb!” exclaimed Shannon. “What do you
know of Wilson Crumb?”
“Oh, I’ve met him,” said Eva airily. “Don’t you envy
me?”
“What do you know about him, Shannon?” asked Custer.
“Your tone indicated that you may have heard something
about him that wasn’t complimentary.”
“No—I don’t know him. It’s only what I’ve heard.
I don’t think you’d like him.” Shannon almost shuddered
at the thought of this dear child even so much as
knowing Wilson Crumb. “Oh, Eva!” she cried impulsively.
“You mustn’t even think of going into pictures.
I lived in Los Angeles long enough to learn that the life
is oftentimes a hard one, filled with disappointment, disillusionment,
and regrets—principally regrets.”
“And Grace is there now,” said Custer in a low voice,
a worried look in his eyes.
“Can’t you persuade her to return?”
He shook his head.
“It wouldn’t be fair,” he said. “She is trying to succeed,
and we ought to encourage her. It is probably hard
enough for her at best, without all of us suggesting
antagonism to her ambition by constantly urging her to
abandon it, so we try to keep our letters cheerful.”
“Have you been to see her since she left? No, I know
you haven’t. If I were you, I’d run down to L. A. It
might mean a lot to her, Custer; it might mean more than
you can guess.”
The girl spoke from a full measure of bitter experience.
She realized what it might have meant to her
had there been some man like this to come to her when
she had needed the strong arm of a clean love to drag her
from the verge of the mire. She would have gone away
with such a man—gone back home, and thanked God for
the opportunity. If Grace loved Custer, and was encountering
the malign forces that had arisen from their
own corruption to claw at Shannon’s skirts, she would
come back with him.
On the other hand, should conditions be what they
ought to be, and what they are in some studios, Custer
would return with a report that would lift a load from
the hearts of all of them, while it left Grace encouraged
and inspired by the active support of those most dear to
her. What it would mean to Shannon, in either event,
the girl did not consider. Her soul was above jealousy.
She was prompted only by a desire to save another from
the anguish she had endured, and to bring happiness to
the man she loved.
“You really think I ought to go?” Custer asked. “You
know she has insisted that none of us should come. She
said she wanted to do it all on her own, without any help.
Grace is not only very ambitious, but very proud. I’m
afraid she might not like it.”
“I wouldn’t care what she liked,” said Shannon.
“Either you or Guy should run down there and see her.
You are the two men most vitally interested in her. No
girl should be left alone long in Hollywood without some
one to whom she can look for the right sort of guidance
and—and—protection.”
“I believe I’ll do it,” said Custer. “I can’t get away
right now; but I’ll run down there before I go on to
Chicago with the show herds for the International.”
It was shortly after this that Custer began to ride
again, and Shannon usually rode with him. Unconsciously
he had come to depend upon her companionship
more and more. He had been drinking less on account
of it, for it had broken a habit which he had been forming
since Grace’s departure—that of carrying a flask with
him on his lonely rides through the hills.
As a small boy, it had been Custer’s duty, as well as
his pleasure, to “ride fence.” He had continued the
custom long after it might have been assigned to an employee,
not only because it had meant long, pleasant hours
in the saddle with Grace, but also to get first-hand knowledge
of the condition of the pastures and the herds, as
well as of the fences. During his enforced idleness, while
recovering from his burns, the duty had devolved upon
Jake.
On the first day that Custer took up the work again,
Jake had called his attention to a matter that had long
been a subject of discussion and conjecture on the part
of the employees.
“There’s something funny goin’ on back in them hills,”
said Jake. “I’ve seen fresh signs every week of horses
and burros comin’ and goin’. Sometimes they trail
through El Camino Largo and again through Corto, an’
they’ve even been down through the old goat corral once,
plumb through the ranch, an’ out the west gate. But
what I can’t tell for sure is whether they come in an’ go
out, or go out an’ come in. Whoever does it is foxy.
Their two trails never cross, an’ they must be made within
a few hours of each other, for I’m not Injun enough to
tell which is freshest—the one comin’ to Ganado or the
one goin’ out. An’ then they muss it up by draggin’
brush, so it’s hard to tell how many they be of ’em. It’s
got me.”
“They head for Jackknife, don’t they?” asked Custer.
“Sometimes, an’ sometimes they go straight up Sycamore,
an’ again they head in or out of half a dozen different
little barrancos comin’ down from the east; but
sooner or later I lose ’em—can’t never follow ’em no
place in particular. Looks like as if they split up.”
“Maybe it’s only greasers from the valley coming up
after firewood at night.”
“Mebbe,” said Jake; “but that don’t sound reasonable.”
“I know it doesn’t; but I can’t figure out what else it
can be. I found a trail up above Jackknife last spring,
and maybe that had something to do with it. I’ve sure
got to follow that up. The trouble has been that it doesn’t
lead where the stock ever goes, and I haven’t had time
to look into it. Do you think they come up here
regularly?”
“We got it doped out that it’s always Friday nights.
I see the tracks Saturday mornings, and some of the boys
say they’ve heard ’em along around midnight a couple of
times.”
“What gates do they go out by?”
“They use all four of ’em at different times.”
“H-m! Padlock all the gates to-morrow. This is
Thursday. Then we’ll see what happens.”
They did see, for on the following Saturday, when
Custer rode fence, he found it cut close by one of the
padlocked gates—the gate that opened into the mouth
of Horse Camp Cañon. Shannon was with him, and she
was much excited at this evidence of mystery so close at
home.
“What in the world do you suppose they can be doing?”
she asked.
“I don’t know; but it’s something they shouldn’t be
doing, or they wouldn’t go to so much pains to cover
their tracks. They evidently passed in and out at this
point, but they’ve brushed out their tracks on both sides,
so that you can’t tell which way they went last. Look
here! On both sides of the fence the trail splits. It’s
hard to say which was made first, and where they passed
through the fence. One track must have been on top
of the other, but they’ve brushed it out.”
He had dismounted, and was on his knees, examining
the spoor beyond the fence.
“I believe,” he said presently, “that the fresher trail
is the one going toward the hills, although the other one
is heavier. Here’s a rabbit track that lies on top of
the track of a horse’s hoof pointed toward the valley,
and over here a few yards the same rabbit track is obliterated
by the track of horses and burros coming up
from the valley. The rabbit must have come across
here after they went down, stepping on top of their
tracks, and when they came up again they crossed on
top of his. That’s pretty plain, isn’t it?”
“Yes; but the tracks going down are much plainer
than those going up. Wouldn’t that indicate that they
were fresher?”
“That’s what I thought until I saw this evidence introduced
by Brer Rabbit—and it’s conclusive, too. Let’s
look along here a little farther. I have an idea that I
have an idea.”
“One of Eva’s ‘dapper little ideas,’ perhaps!”
He bent close above first one trail and then another,
following them down toward the valley. Shannon walked
beside him, leading Baldy. Sometimes, as they knelt
above the evidence imprinted in the dusty soil, their
shoulders touched. The contact thrilled the girl with
sweet delight, and the fact that it left him cold did not
sadden her. She knew that he was not for her. It was
enough that she might be near him and love him. She
did not want him to love her—that would have been the
final tragedy of her life.
For the most part the trail was obliterated by brush,
which seemed to have been dragged behind the last horse;
but here and there was the imprint of the hoof of a horse,
or, again, of a burro, so that the story that Custer pieced
out was reasonably clear—as far as it went.
“I think I’ve got a line on it,” he said presently. “Two
men rode along here on horses. One horse was shod,
the other was not. One rider went ahead, the other
brought up the rear, and between them were several
burros. Going down, the burros carried heavy loads;
coming back, they carried nothing.”
“How do you know all that?” she asked rather incredulously.
“I don’t know it, but it seems the most logical deduction
from these tracks. It is easy to tell the horse tracks
from those of the burros, and to tell that there were at
least two horses, because it is plain that a shod horse
and an unshod horse passed along here. That one horse—the
one with shoes—went first is evident from the
fact that you always see the imprints of burro hoofs, or
the hoofs of an unshod horse, or both superimposed on
his. That the other horse brought up the rear is equally
plain from the fact that no other tracks lie on top of his.
Now, if you will look close, and compare several of these
horse tracks, you will notice that there is little or no difference
in the appearance of those leading into the valley
and those leading out; but you can see that the burro
tracks leading down are more deeply imprinted than
those leading up. To me that means that those burros
carried heavy loads down and came back light. How
does it sound?”
“It’s wonderful!” she exclaimed. “It is all that I can
do to see that anything has been along here.”
“It’s not wonderful,” he replied. “An experienced
tracker would tell you how many horses there were,
how many burros, how many hours had elapsed since
they came down out of the hills, how many since they
returned, and the names of the grandmothers of both
riders.”
Shannon laughed.
“I’m glad you’re not an experienced tracker, then,” she
said, “for now I can believe what you have told me.
And I still think it very wonderful, and very delightful,
too, to be able to read stories—true stories—in the
trampled dust where men and animals have passed.”
“There is nothing very remarkable about it. Just look
at the Apache’s hoofprints, for instance. See how the
hind differ from the fore.”
Custer pointed to them as he spoke, calling attention
to the fact that the Apache’s hind shoes were squared off
at the toe.
“And now compare them with Baldy’s,” he said. “See
how different the two hoofprints are. Once you know
them, you could never confuse one with the other. But
the part of the story that would interest me most I can’t
read—who they are, what they were packing out of the
hills on these burros, where they came from, and where
they went. Let’s follow down and see where they went
in the valley. The trail must pass right by the Evanses’
hay barn.”
The Evanses’ hay barn! A great light illuminated
Shannon’s memory. Allen had said, that last night at
the bungalow, that the contraband whisky was hauled
away on a truck, that it was concealed beneath hay, and
that a young man named Evans handled it.
What was she to do? She dared not reveal this knowledge
to Custer, because she could not explain how she
came into possession of it. Nor, for the same reason,
could she warn Guy Evans, had she thought that necessary—which
she was sure it was not, since Custer would
not expose him. She concluded that all she could do
was to let events take their own course.
She followed Custer as he traced the partially obliterated
tracks through a field of barley stubble. A hundred
yards west of the hay barn the trail entered a
macadam road at right angles, and there it disappeared.
There was no telling whether the little caravan had
turned east or west, for it left no spoor upon the hard
surface of the paved road.
“Well, Watson!” said Custer, turning to her with a
grin. “What do you make of this?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing? Watson, I am surprised. Neither do I.”
He turned his horse back toward the cut fence. “There’s
no use looking any farther in this direction. I don’t
know that it’s even worth while following the trail back
into the hills, for the chances are that they have it well
covered. What I’ll do is to lay for them next Friday
night. Maybe they’re not up to any mischief, but it
looks suspicious; and if they are, I’d rather catch them
here with the goods than follow them up into the hills,
where about all I’d accomplish would probably be to
warn them that they were being watched. I’m sorry now
I had those gates locked, for it will have put them on
their guard. We’ll just fix up this fence, and then we’ll
ride about and take all the locks off.”
On the way home, an hour later, he asked Shannon not
to say anything about their discovery or his plan to
watch for the mysterious pack train the following
Friday.
“It would only excite the folks needlessly,” he explained.
“The chances are that there’ll be some simple
explanation when I meet up with these people. As I
told Jake, they may be greasers who work all the week
and come up here at night for firewood. Still more likely,
it’s people who don’t know they can get permission to
gather deadwood for the asking, and think they are stealing
it. Putting themselves to a lot of trouble for nothing,
I’ll say!”
“You’ll not wait for them alone?” she asked, for she
knew what he did not—that they were probably unscrupulous
rascals who would not hesitate to commit any
crime if they thought themselves in danger of discovery.
“Why not?” he asked. “I only want to ask them what
they are doing on Ganado, and why they cut our fence.”
“Please don’t!” she begged. “You don’t know who
they are or what they have been doing. They might be
very desperate men, for all we know.”
“All right,” he agreed. “I’ll take Jake with me.”
“Why don’t you get Guy to go along, too?” she suggested,
for she knew that he would be safer if Guy
knew of his intention, since then there would be little
likelihood of his meeting the men.
“No,” he replied. “Guy would have to have a big
camp fire, an easy chair, and a package of cigarettes if he
was going to sit up that late out in the hills. Jake’s the
best for that sort of work.”
“Guy isn’t a bit like you, is he?” she asked. “He’s
lived right here and led the same sort of life, and yet he
doesn’t seem to be a part of it, as you are.”
“Guy’s a dreamer, and he likes to be comfortable all
the time,” laughed Custer. “They’re all that way a little.
Mr. Evans was, so father says. He died while we were
all kids. Mrs. Evans likes to take it easy, too, and even
Grace wasn’t much on roughing it, though she could stand
more than the others. None of them seemed to take to
it the way you do. I never saw any one else but a
Pennington such a glutton for a saddle and the outdoors
as you are. I don’t like ’em any the less for it,” he
hastened to add. “It’s just the way people are, I guess.
The taste for such things is inherited. The Evanses, up
to this generation, all came from the city; the Penningtons
all from the country. Father thinks that horsemen,
if not the descendants of a distinct race, at least spring
from some common ancestors who inhabited great plains
and were the original stock raisers of the human race.
He thinks they mingled with the hill and mountain people,
who also became horsemen through them; but that the
forest tribes and the maritime races were separate and
distinct. It was the last who built the cities, which the
horsemen came in from the plains and conquered.”
“But perhaps Guy would like the adventure of it,”
she insisted. “It might give him material for a story. I’m
going to ask him.”
“Please don’t. The less said about it the better, for
if it’s talked about it may get to the men I want to
catch. Word travels fast in the country. Just as we
don’t know who these men are or what they are doing,
neither do we know but what some of them may be
on friendly terms with our employees, or the Evanses, or
yours.”
The girl made no reply.
“You won’t mention it to him, please?” Custer insisted.
“Not if you don’t wish it,” she said.
They were silent for a time, each absorbed in his or
her own thoughts. The girl was seeking to formulate
some plan that would prevent a meeting between Custer
and Allen’s confederates, who she was sure were the
owners of the mysterious pack train; while the man indulged
in futile conjectures as to their identity and the
purpose of their nocturnal expeditions.
“That trail above Jackknife Cañon is the key to the
whole business,” he declared presently. “I’ll just lay low
until after next Friday night, so as not to arouse their
suspicions, and then, no matter what I find out, I’ll ride
that trail to its finish, if it takes me clear to the ocean!”
They had reached the fork in the road, one branch of
which led down to Shannon’s bungalow, the other to the
Ganado saddle-horse stables.
“I thought you were coming up to lunch,” said Custer,
as Shannon reined her horse into the west road.
“Not to-day,” she said. “I’ll come to dinner, if I may,
though.”
“We all miss you when you’re not there,” he said.
“How nice! Now I’ll surely come.”
“And this afternoon—will you ride with me again?”
“I’m going to be very busy this afternoon,” she replied.
His face dropped, and then, almost immediately, he
laughed.
“I hadn’t realized how much of your time I have been
demanding. Why, you ride with me every day, and now
when you want an afternoon off I start moping. I’m
afraid you’ve spoiled me; but you mustn’t let me be a
nuisance.”
“I ride with you because I like to,” she replied. “I
should miss our rides terribly if anything should occur
to prevent them.”
“Let’s hope nothing will prevent them. I’m afraid I’d
be lost without you now, Shannon. You can never know
what it has meant to me to have you here. I was sort
of going to pot after Grace left—blue and discouraged
and discontented; and I was drinking too much. I don’t
mind telling you, because I know you’ll understand—you
seem to understand everything. Having you to ride with
and talk to pulled me together. I owe you a lot, so don’t
let me impose on your friendship and your patience. Any
time you want an afternoon off,” he concluded, laughing,
“don’t be afraid to ask for it—I’ll see that you get it
with full pay!”
“I don’t want any afternoons off, because I enjoy the
rides as much as you, and they have meant even more to
me. I intend to see that nothing prevents them, if I can.”
She was touched and pleased with Custer’s sudden
burst of confidence, and thankful for whatever had betrayed
him into one of those rare revelations of his heart.
She wanted to be necessary to him, in the sweet and unemotional
way of friendship, so that they might be together
without embarrassment or constraint.
They had been standing at the fork, talking, and now,
as she started Baldy again in the direction of her own
place, Custer reined the Apache to accompany her.
“You needn’t come down with me,” she said. “It’s
nearly lunch time now, and it would only make you late.”
“But I want to.”
“No!” She shook her head. “You go right home.”
“Please!”
“This is my afternoon off,” she reminded him, “and
I’d really rather you wouldn’t.”
“All right! I’ll drive down in the car early, and we’ll
have a swim before dinner.”
“Not too early—I’ll telephone you when I’m ready.
Good-by!”
He waved his hat as she cantered off, and then sat the
Apache for a moment, watching her. How well she rode!
What grace and ease in every motion of that supple body!
He shook his head.
“Some girl, Shannon!” he mused aloud as he wheeled
the Apache and rode toward the stables.
