During the long ride to Los Angeles, and later in his
cell in the county jail, Custer Pennington had devoted
many hours to seeking an explanation of the motives
underlying the plan to involve him in a crime of which
he had no knowledge, nor even a suspicion of the identity
of its instigators. To his knowledge, he had no enemies
whose hostility was sufficiently active to lead them to
do him so great a wrong. He had had no trouble with
any one recently, other than his altercation with Slick
Allen several months before; yet it was obvious that he
had been deliberately sacrificed for some ulterior purpose.
What that purpose was he could only surmise.
The most logical explanation, he finally decided, was
that those actually responsible, realizing that discovery
was imminent, had sought to divert suspicion from themselves
by fastening it upon another. That they had
selected him as the victim might easily be explained on
the ground that his embarrassing interest in their movements
had already centered their attention upon him,
while it also offered the opportunity for luring him into
the trap without arousing his suspicions.
It was, then, just a combination of circumstances that
had led him into his present predicament; but there still
remained unanswered one question that affected his
peace of mind more considerably than all the others combined.
Who had divulged to the thieves his plans for the
previous night?
Concurrently with that question there arose before his
mind’s eye a picture of Shannon Burke and Baldy as
they topped the summit above Jackknife from the trail
that led across the basin meadow back into the hills, he
knew not where.
“I can’t believe that it was she,” he told himself for the
hundredth time. “She could not have done it. I won’t
believe it! She could explain it all if I could ask her;
but I can’t ask her. There is a great deal that I cannot
understand, and the most inexplicable thing is that she
could possibly have had any connection whatever with the
affair.”
When his father came with an attorney, in the morning,
the son made no mention of Shannon Burke’s ride
into the hills, or of her anxiety, when they parted in the
afternoon, to learn if he was going to carry out his
plan for Friday night.
“Did any one know of your intention to watch for
these men?” asked the attorney.
“No one,” he replied; “but they might have become
suspicious from the fact that the week before I had
all the gates padlocked on Friday. They had to cut the
fence that night to get through. They probably figured
that it was getting too hot for them, and that on the following
Friday I would take some other steps to discover
them. Then they made sure of it by sending me that
message from Los Angeles. Gee, but I bit like a sucker!”
“It is unfortunate,” remarked the attorney, “that you
had not discussed your plans with some one before you
undertook to carry them out on Friday night. If we
could thus definitely establish your motive for going alone
into the hills, and to the very spot where you were discovered
with the pack train, I think it would go much
further toward convincing the court that you were there
without any criminal intent than your own unsupported
testimony to that effect!”
“But haven’t you his word for it?” demanded the
colonel.
“I am not the court,” replied the attorney, smiling.
“Well, if the court isn’t a damned fool it’ll know he
wouldn’t have padlocked the gates the week before to
keep himself out,” stated the colonel conclusively.
“The government might easily assume that he did that
purposely to divert suspicion from himself. At least,
it is no proof of innocence.”
Colonel Pennington snorted.
“The best thing to do now,” said the attorney, “is to
see if we can get an immediate hearing, and arrange for
bail in case he is held to the grand jury.”
“I’ll go with you,” said the colonel.
They had been gone but a short time when Guy Evans
was admitted to Custer’s cell. The latter looked up and
smiled when he saw who his visitor was.
“It was bully of you to come,” he said. “Bringing
condolences, or looking for material, old thing?”
“Don’t joke, Cus,” exclaimed Evans. “It’s too rotten
to joke about, and it’s all my fault.”
“Your fault?”
“I am the guilty one. I’ve come down to give myself
up.”
“Guilty! Give yourself up! What are you talking
about?”
“God, Cus, I hate to tell you. It didn’t seem such an
awful thing to do until this happened. Every one’s buying
booze, or selling booze, or making booze. Every one’s
breaking the damned old Eighteenth Amendment, and
it’s got so it don’t seem like committing a crime, or anything
like that. You know, Cus, that I wouldn’t do anything
criminal, and, oh, God, what’ll Eva think?”
Guy covered his face with his hands and choked back
a sob.
“Just what the devil are you talking about?” inquired
Pennington. “Do you mean to tell me that you have
been mixed up in—well, what do you know about that?”
A sudden light had dawned upon Custer’s understanding.
“That hootch that you’ve been getting me—that I joked
you about—it was really the stuff that was stolen from a
bonded warehouse in New York? It wasn’t any joke
at all?”
“You can see for yourself now how much of a joke it
was,” replied Evans.
“I’ll admit,” returned Custer ruefully, “that it does
require considerable of a sense of humor to see it in this
joint!”
“What do you suppose they’ll do to me?” asked Guy.
“Do you suppose they’ll send me to the penitentiary?”
“Tell me the whole thing from the beginning—who
got you into it, and just what you’ve done. Don’t omit
a thing, no matter how much it incriminates you. I don’t
need to tell you, old man, that I’m for you, no matter what
you’ve done.”
“I know that, Cus; but I’m afraid no one can help
me. I’m in for it. I knew it was stolen from the start.
I have been selling it since last May—seven thousand
seven hundred and seventy-six quarts of it—and I made
a dollar on every quart. It was what I was going to
start housekeeping on. Poor little Eva!” Again a sob
half choked him. “It was Slick Allen that started me.
First he sold me some; then he got me to sell you a bottle,
and bring him the money. Then he had me, or at least
he made me think so; and he insisted on my handling it
for them out in the valley. It wasn’t hard to persuade
me, for it looked safe, and it didn’t seem like such a rotten
thing to do, and I wanted the money the worst way.
I know they’re all bum excuses. I shan’t make any excuses—I’ll
take my medicine; but it’s when I think of
Eva that it hurts. It’s only Eva that counts!”
“Yes,” said Pennington, laying his hand affectionately
on the other’s shoulder. “It is only Eva who counts; and
because of Eva, and because you and I love her so much,
you cannot go to the penitentiary.”
“What do you mean—cannot go?”
“Have you told any one else what you have just told
me?”
“No.”
“Don’t. Go back home, and keep your mouth shut,”
said Custer.
“You mean that you will take a chance of going up
for what I did? Nothing doing! Do you suppose I’d let
you, Cus, the best friend I’ve got in the world, go to the
pen for me—for something I did?”
“It’s not for you, Guy. I wouldn’t go to the pen for
you or any other man; but I’d go to the pen for Eva, and
so would you.”
“I know it, but I can’t let you do it. I’m not rotten,
Cus!”
“You and I don’t count. To see her unhappy and
humiliated would be worse for me than spending a few
years in the penitentiary. I’m innocent. No matter if
I am convicted, I’ll know I’m innocent, and Eva’ll know
it, and so will all the rest at Ganado; but, Guy, they’ve got
too much on you if they ever suspect you, and the fact
that you voluntarily admitted your guilt would convince
even my little sister. If you were sent up it might ruin
her life—it would ruin it. Things could never be the
same for her again; but if I was sentenced for a few
years, it would only be the separation from a brother
whom she knew to be innocent, and in whom she still
had undiminished confidence. She wouldn’t be humiliated—her
life wouldn’t be ruined; and when I came
back everything would be just as it was before.
If you go, things will not be the same when you
come back—they can never be the same again. You cannot
go!”
“I cannot let you go, and be punished for what I did,
while I remain free!”
“You’ve got to—it’s the easiest way. We’ve all got
to be punished for what you did—those who love us are
always punished for our sins; but let me tell you that I
don’t think you are going to escape punishment if I go up
for this. You’re going to suffer more than I. You’re
going to suffer more than you would if you went up
yourself; but it can’t be helped. The question is, are you
man enough to do this for Eva? It is your sacrifice
more than mine.”
Evans swallowed hard and tried to speak. It was a
moment before he succeeded.
“My God, Cus, I’d rather go myself!”
“I know you would.”
“I can never have any self-respect again. I can never
look a decent man in the face. Every time I see Eva, or
your mother, or the colonel, I’ll think: ‘You dirty cur,
you let their boy go to the pen for something you did!’
Oh, Cus, please don’t ask me to do it! There must be
some other way. And—and, Cus, think of Grace. We’ve
been forgetting Grace. What’ll it mean to Grace if you
are sent up?”
“It won’t mean anything to Grace, and you know it.
None of us mean much to Grace any more.”
Guy looked out of the little barred window, and tears
came to his eyes.
“I guess you’re right,” he said.
“You’re going to do it, Guy—for Eva?”
“For Eva—yes.”
Pennington brightened up as if a great load had been
lifted from his shoulders.
“Good!” he cried. “Now the chances are that I’ll not
be sent up, for they’ve nothing on me—they can’t have;
but if I am, you’ve got to take my place with the folks.
You’ve had your lesson. I know you’ll never pull another
fool stunt like this again. And quit drinking, Guy. I
haven’t much excuse for preaching; but you’re the sort
that can’t do it. Leave it alone. Good-by, now; I’d
rather you were not here when father comes back—you
might weaken.”
Evans took the other’s hand.
“I envy you, Cus—on the level, I do!”
“I know it; but don’t feel too bad about it. It’s one
of those things that’s done, and it can’t be undone.
Roosevelt would have called what you’ve got to do
‘grasping the nettle.’ Grasp it like a man!”
Evans walked slowly from the jail, entered his car,
and drove away. Of the two hearts his was the heavier;
of the two burdens his the more difficult to bear.
Custer Pennington, appearing before a United States
commissioner that afternoon for his preliminary hearing,
was held to the Federal grand jury, and admitted to bail.
The evidence brought by the deputies who had searched
the Pennington home, taken in connection with the circumstances
surrounding his arrest, seemed to leave the
commissioner no alternative. Even the colonel had to
admit that to himself, though he would never have admitted
it to another. The case would probably come up
before the grand jury on the following Wednesday.
The colonel wanted to employ detectives at once to
ferret out those actually responsible for the theft and
bootlegging of the stolen whisky; but Custer managed
to persuade him not to do so, on the ground that it would
be a waste of time and money, since the government
was already engaged upon a similar pursuit.
“Don’t worry, father,” he said. “They haven’t a shred
of evidence that I stole the whisky, or that I ever sold
any. They found me with it—that is all. I can’t be
hanged for that. Let them do the worrying. I want to
get home in time to eat one of Hannah’s dinners. I’ll say
they don’t set much of a table in the sheriff’s boarding
house!”
“Where did you get the three bottles they found in
your room?”
“I bought them.”
“I asked where, not how.”
“I might get some one else mixed up in this if I were
to answer that question. I can’t do it.”
“No,” said the colonel, “you can’t. When you buy
whisky, nowadays, you are usually compounding a felony.
It’s certainly a rotten condition to obtain in the land of
the free; but you’ve got to protect your accomplices. I
shall not ask you again; but they’ll ask you in court, my
boy.”
“All the good it’ll do them!”
“I suppose so; but I’d hate to see my boy sent to the
penitentiary.”
“You’d hate to be in court and hear him divulge the
name of a man who had trusted him sufficiently to sell
him whisky.”
“I’d rather see you go to the penitentiary!” the colonel
said.
That night, at dinner, Custer made light of the charge
against him, yet at the same time he prepared them for
what might happen, for the proceedings before the commissioner
had impressed him with the gravity of his case,
as had also the talk he had had with his attorney afterward.
“No matter what happens,” he said to them all, “I shall
know that you know I am not guilty.”
“My boy’s word is all I need,” replied his mother.
Eva came and put her arms about him.
“They wouldn’t send you to jail, would they?” she
demanded. “It would break my heart!”
“Not if you knew I was innocent.”
“N-no, not then, I suppose; but it would be awful. If
you were guilty, it would kill me. I’d never want to live
if my brother was convicted of a crime, and was guilty
of it. I’d kill myself first!”
Her brother drew her face down and kissed her tenderly.
“That would be foolish, dear,” he said. “No matter
what one of us does, such an act would make it all the
worse—for those who were left.”
“I can’t help it,” she said. “It isn’t just because I
have had the honor of the Penningtons preached to
me all my life. It’s because it’s in me—the Pennington
honor. It’s a part of me, just as it’s a part of you, and
mother, and father. It’s a part of the price we have to
pay for being Penningtons. I have always been proud
of it, Custer, even if I am only a silly girl.”
“I’m proud of it, too, and I haven’t jeopardized it; but
even if I had, you mustn’t think about killing yourself on
my account, or any one’s else.”
“Well, I know you’re not guilty, so I don’t have to.”
“Good! Let’s talk about something pleasant.”
“Why didn’t you see Grace while you were in Los
Angeles?”
“I tried to. I called up her boarding place from the
lawyer’s office. I understood the woman who answered
the phone to say that she would call her, but she came
back in a couple of minutes and said that Grace was
out on location.”
“Did you leave your name?”
“I told the woman who I was when she answered the
phone.”
“I’m sorry you didn’t see her,” said Mrs. Pennington.
“I often think that Mrs. Evans, or Guy, should run down
to Los Angeles occasionally and see Grace.”
“That’s what Shannon says,” said Custer. “I’ll try to
see her next week, before I come home.”
“Shannon was up nearly all afternoon waiting to hear
if we received any word from you. When you telephoned
that you had been held to the Federal grand jury, she
would scarcely believe it. She said there must be some
mistake.”
“Did she say anything else?”
“She asked whether Guy got there before you were held
and I told her that you said Guy visited you in the jail.
She seems so worried about the affair—just as if she
were one of the family. She is such a dear girl! I think
I grow to love her more and more every day.”
“Yes,” said Custer, non-committally.
“She asked me one rather peculiar question,” Eva
went on.
“What was that?”
“She asked if I was sure that it was you who had
been held to the grand jury.”
“That was odd, wasn’t it?”
“She’s so sure of your innocence—just as sure as we
are,” said Eva.
“Well, that’s very nice of her,” remarked Custer.
