The next morning he saw Shannon, who came to ride
with them, the Penningtons, as had been her custom. She
looked tired, as if she had spent a sleepless night. She
had—she had spent two sleepless nights, and she had had
to fight the old fight all over again. It had been very
hard, even though she had won, for it had shown her
that the battle was not over. She had thought that she
had conquered the craving; but that had been when she
had had no troubles or unhappiness to worry her mind
and nerves. The last two days had been days of suffering
for her, and the two sleepless nights had induced
a nervous condition that begged for the quieting influence
of the little white powder.
Custer noticed immediately that something was amiss.
The roses were gone from her cheeks, leaving a suggestion
of the old pallor; and though she smiled and greeted
him happily, he thought that he detected an expression
of wistfulness and pain in her face when she was not
conscious that others were observing her.
There was a strange suggestion of change in their relations,
which Custer did not attempt to analyze. It was
as if he had been gone a long time, and, returning, had
found Shannon changed through the natural processes
of time and separation. She was not the same girl—she
could never be the same again, nor could their relations
ever be the same.
The careless freedom of their association, which had
resembled that of a brother and sister more than any
other relationship between a man and a woman, had gone
forever. What had replaced it Custer did not know.
Sometimes he thought that it was a suspicion of Shannon
that clung to his mind in spite of himself, but again and
again he assured himself that he held no suspicion of
her.
He wished, though, that she would explain that which
was to him inexplicable. He had the faith to believe
that she could explain it satisfactorily; but would she do
so? She had had the opportunity, before this thing had
occurred, and had not taken advantage of it. He would
give her another opportunity that day, and he prayed
that she would avail herself of it. Why he should care
so much, he did not try to reason. He did not even
realize how much he did care.
Presently he turned toward her.
“I am going to ride over to the east pasture after breakfast,”
he said, and waited.
“Is that an invitation?”
He smiled and nodded.
“But not if it isn’t perfectly convenient,” he added.
“I’d love to come with you. You know I always do.”
“Fine! And you’ll breakfast with us?”
“Not to-day. I have a couple of letters to write that I
want to get off right away; but I’ll be up between eight
thirty and nine. Is that too late?”
“I’ll ride down after breakfast and wait for you—if
I won’t be in the way.”
“Of course you won’t. It will take me only a few
minutes to write my letters.”
“How are you going to mail them? This is Sunday.”
“Mr. Powers is going to drive in to Los Angeles to-day.
He’ll mail them in the city.”
“Who looks after things when Mr. and Mrs. Powers
are away?”
“Who looks after things? Why, I do.”
“The chickens, and the sow, and Baldy—you take care
of them all?”
“Certainly, and I have more than that now.”
“How’s that?”
“Nine little pigs! They came yesterday. They’re
perfect beauties.”
The man laughed.
“What are you laughing about?” she demanded.
“The idea of you taking care of chickens and pigs and
a horse!”
“I don’t see anything funny about it, and it’s lot of
fun. Did you think I was too stupid?”
“I was just thinking what a change two months have
made. What would you have done if you’d been left
alone two months ago with a hundred hens, a horse, and
ten pigs to care for?”
“The question then would have been what the hens,
the horse, and the pigs would have done; but now I
know pretty well what to do. The two letters I have
to write are about the little pigs. I don’t know much
about them, and so I am writing to Berkeley and Washington
for the latest bulletins.”
“Why don’t you ask us?”
“Gracious, but I do! I am forever asking the colonel
questions, and the boys at the hog house must hate to see
me coming. I’ve spent hours in the office, reading Lovejoy
and Colton; but I want something for ready reference.
I’ve an idea that I can raise lots more hogs than I
intended by fencing the orchard and growing alfalfa between
the rows, for pasture. There’s something solid
and substantial about hogs that suggests a bank balance
even in the years when the orange crop may be short or
a failure, or the market poor.”
“You’ve got the right idea,” said Custer. “There isn’t
a rancher or an orchardist, big or little, in the valley
who couldn’t make more money year in and year out if
he’d keep a few brood sows.”
“What’s Cus doing?” asked Eva, who had reined back
beside them. “Preaching hog raising again? That’s his
idea of a dapper little way to entertain a girl—hogs, Herefords
and horses! Wouldn’t he make a hit in society?
Regular little tea pointer, I’ll say!”
“I knew you were about to say something,” remarked
her brother. “You’ve been quiet for all of five minutes.”
“I’ve been thinking,” said Eva. “I’ve been thinking
how lonely it will be when you have to go away to jail.”
“Why, they can’t send me to jail—I haven’t done anything,”
he tried to reassure her.
“I’m so afraid, Cus!” The tears came to her eyes.
“I lay awake for hours last night, thinking about it. Oh,
Cus, I just couldn’t stand it if they sent you to jail!
Do you think the men who did it would let you go
for something they did? Could any one be so wicked?
I never hated any one in my life, but I could hate them,
if they don’t come forward and save you. I could hate
them, hate them, hate them! Oh, Cus, I believe that I
could kill the man who would do such a thing to my
brother!”
“Come, dear, don’t worry about it. The chances are
that they’ll free me. Even if they don’t, you mustn’t
feel quite so bitterly against the men who are responsible.
There may be reasons that you know nothing of that
would keep them silent. Let’s not talk about it. All we
can do now is to wait and see what the grand jury is
going to do. In the meantime I don’t intend to worry.”
Shannon Burke, her heart heavy with shame and sorrow,
listened as might a condemned man to the reading
of his death sentence. She felt almost the degradation
that might have been hers had she deliberately planned
to ensnare Custer Pennington in the toils that had been
laid for him.
She determined that she would go before the grand
jury and tell all she knew. Then she would go away.
She would not have to see the contempt and hatred they
must surely feel for her after she had recited the cold
facts that she must lay before the jury, unmitigated by
any of those extenuating truths that must lie forever
hidden in the secret recesses of her soul. They would
know only that she might have warned Custer, and did
not; that she might have cleared him at his preliminary
hearing, and did not. The fact that she had come to his
rescue at the eleventh hour would not excuse her, in
their minds, of the guilt of having permitted the Pennington
honor to be placed in jeopardy needlessly; nor could
it explain her knowledge of the crime, or those associations
of her past life that had made it possible for her to
have gained such knowledge.
No, she could never face them again after the following
Wednesday; but until then she would cling to the
brief days of happiness that remained to her before the
final catastrophe of her life, for it was thus that she
thought of it—the moment and the act that would forever
terminate her intercourse with the Penningtons, that
would turn the respect of the man she loved to loathing.
She counted the hours before the end. There would be
two more morning rides—to-morrow and Tuesday.
They would ask her to dinner, or to lunch, or to breakfast
several times in the ensuing three days, and there would
be rides with Custer. She would take all the happy
memories that she could into the bleak and sunless future.
Their ride that morning was over a loved and familiar
trail that led across El Camino Corto over low hills into
Horse Camp Cañon, and up Horse Camp to Coyote
Springs; then over El Camino Largo to Sycamore Cañon
and down beneath the old, old sycamores to the ranch.
She felt that she knew each bush and tree and bowlder,
and they held for her the quiet restfulness of the familiar
faces of old friends. She should miss them, but she
would carry them in her memory forever.
When they came to the fork in the road, she would not
let Custer ride home with her.
“At eight thirty, then,” he called to her, as she urged
Baldy into a canter and left them with a gay wave of
the hand that gave no token of the heavy sorrow in her
heart.
As was her custom, she ate breakfast with Mr. and
Mrs. Powers at the little tenant cottage a couple of hundred
yards in rear of her own bungalow—a practice which
gave her an opportunity to discuss each day’s work in
advance with her foreman, and at the same time to add
to her store of information concerning matters of ranching
and citrus culture. Her knowledge of these things
had broadened rapidly, and was a constant source of
surprise to Powers, who took great pride in bragging
about it to his friends; for Shannon had won as great
a hold upon the hearts of these two as she had upon
all who were fortunate enough to know her well.
After breakfast, as she was returning to her bungalow
to write her letters, she saw a Mexican boy on a bicycle
turn in at her gate. They met in front of the bungalow.
“Are you Miss Burke?” he asked. “Bartolo says for
you to come to his camp in the mountains this morning,
sure,” he went on, having received an affirmative reply.
“Who is Bartolo?”
“He says you know. You went to his camp a week
ago yesterday.”
“Tell him I do not know him and will not go.”
“He says to tell you that he only wants to talk to
you about your friend who is in trouble.”
The girl thought for a moment. Possibly here was a
way out of her dilemma. If she could force Bartolo by
threats of exposure, he might discover a way to clear
Custer Pennington without incriminating himself. She
turned to the boy.
“Tell him I will come.”
“I do not see him again. He is up in his camp now.
He told me this yesterday. He also told me to tell you
that he would be watching for you, and if you did not
come alone you would not find him.”
“Very well,” she said, and turned into the bungalow.
She wrote her letters, but she was not thinking about
them. Then she took them over to Powers to take to the
city for her. After that she went to the telephone and
called the Rancho del Ganado, asking for Custer when
she got the connection.
“I’m terribly disappointed,” she said, when he came to
the telephone. “I find I simply can’t ride this morning;
but if you’ll put it off until afternoon——”
“Why, certainly! Come up to lunch and we’ll ride
afterward,” he told her.
“You won’t go, then, until afternoon?” she asked.
“I’ll ride over to the east pasture this morning, and
we’ll just take a ride any old place that you want to
go this afternoon.”
“All right,” she replied.
She had hoped that he would not ride that morning.
There was a chance that he might see her, even though
the east pasture was miles from the trail she would ride,
for there were high places on both trails, where a horseman
would be visible for several miles.
“This noon at lunch, then,” he said.
