Half an hour later Custer Pennington swung into the
saddle and headed the Apache up Sycamore Cañon.
The trail to the east pasture led through Jackknife. As
he passed the spot where he had been arrested on the
previous Friday night, the man made a wry face—more
at the recollection of the ease with which he had been
duped than because of the fact of his arrest. Being free
from any sense of guilt, he could view with a certain
lightness of spirit that was almost levity the mere physical
aspects of possible duress. The reality of his service to
Eva could not but tend to compensate for any sorrow he
must feel because of the suffering his conviction and
imprisonment might bring to his family, so much greater
must be their sorrow should Eva be permitted to learn the
truth.
When Shannon had broken their engagement for the
morning, he had felt a disappointment entirely out of
proportion to its cause—a thing which he had realized
himself, but had been unable to analyze. Now, in anticipation
of seeing her at noon and riding with her after
lunch, he experienced a rise in spirits that was equally
unaccountable. He liked her very much, and she was
excellent company—which, of course, would account for
the pleasure he derived from being with her. To-day,
too, he hoped for an explanation of her ride into the
mountains the week before, so that there might be no
longer any shadow on his friendship for her.
The more he thought about it, the more convinced he
was that this afternoon she would explain the whole
matter quite satisfactorily, and presently he found himself
whistling as if there were no such places as jails
or penitentiaries in the whole wide and beautiful world.
Just then he reached the summit of the trail leading
out of Jackknife Cañon toward the east pasture. As was
his wont, the Apache stopped to breathe after the hard
climb, and, as seems to be the habit of all horses in like
circumstances, he turned around and faced in the opposite
direction from that in which his rider had been going.
Below and to Custer’s right the ranch buildings lay
dotted about in the dust like children’s toys upon a gray
rug. Beyond was the castle on the hill, shining in the
sun, and farther still the soft-carpeted valley, in grays and
browns and greens. Then the young man’s glance
wandered to the left and out over the basin meadow, and
instantly the joy died out of his heart and the happiness
from his eyes. Straight along the mysterious trail loped
a horse and rider toward the mountains, and even at that
distance he recognized them as Baldy and Shannon.
The force of the shock was almost equivalent to an
unexpected blow in the face. What could it mean? He
recalled her questions. She had deliberately sought to
learn his plans, as she had that other day, and then,
as before, she had hastened off to some mysterious rendezvous
in the hills.
Suddenly a hot wave of anger surged through him.
Quiet and self-controlled as he usually was, there were
times when the Pennington temper seized and dominated
him so completely that he himself was appalled by the
acts it precipitated. Under its spell a Pennington might
commit murder. Now Custer did what was almost as
foreign to his nature—he cursed the girl who rode on,
unconscious of his burning eyes upon her, toward the
mountains. He cursed her aloud, searching his memory
for opprobrious epithets and anathemas to hurl after
her.
This was the end. He was through with her forever.
What did he know about her? What did any of them
know about her? She had never mentioned her life or
associations in the city—he recalled that now. She had
known no one whom they knew, and they had taken her
in and treated her as a daughter of the house, without
knowing anything of her; and this was their reward!
She was doubtless a hireling of the gang that had
stolen the whisky and disposed of it through Guy. They
had sent her here to spy on Guy and to watch the Penningtons.
It was she who had set the trap in which he
had been caught, not to save Guy, but to throw the
suspicion of guilt upon Custer.
But for what reason? There was no reason except
that he had been selected from the first to be the scapegoat
when the government officers were too hot upon
their trail. She had watched him carefully. God, but
she had been cunning and he credulous! There had been
scarce a day that she had not been with him. She had
ridden the hills with him, and she had kept him from
following the mysterious trail—so he reasoned in his rage,
though as a matter of fact she had done nothing of the
sort; but anger and hate are blind, and Custer Pennington
was angry and filled with hate. Unreasoning rage
consumed him.
He believed that he never had hated before as he hated
this girl now, so far to the other extreme had the shock
of her duplicity driven his regard for her. He would
see her just once more, and he would tell her what he
thought of her, so that there might be no chance that
she would ever again enter the home of the Penningtons.
He must see to that before he went away, that
Eva might not be exposed to the influence of such a
despicable character.
But he could not see her to-day. He could not trust
himself to see her, for even in his anger he remembered
that she was a woman, and that when he saw her he
must treat her as a woman. If she had been within reach
when he first discovered her, a moment since, he could
have struck her, choked her.
With the realization, the senseless fury of his anger
left him. He turned the Apache away, and headed him
again toward the east pasture; but deep within his heart
was a cold anger that was quite as terrible, though in
a different way.
Shannon Burke rode up the trail toward the camp of
the smugglers, all unconscious that there looked down
upon her from a high ridge behind eyes filled with hate
and loathing—the eyes of the man she loved.
She put Baldy up the steep trail that had so filled her
with terror when she first scaled it, and down upon the
other side into the grove of oaks that had hidden the
camp; but now there was no camp there—only the debris
that always marks the stopping place of men.
As she reached the foot of the trail, she saw Bartolo
standing beneath a great oak, awaiting her. His pony
stood with trailing reins beneath the tree. A rifle butt
protruded from a boot on the right of the saddle. He
came forward as she guided Baldy toward the tree.
“Buenos dias, señorita,” he greeted her, twisting his
pock-marked face into the semblance of a smile.
“What do you want of me?” Shannon demanded.
“I need money,” he said. “You get money from Evans.
He got all the money from the hootch we take down two
weeks ago. We never get no chance to get it from
him.”
“I’ll get you nothing!”
“You get money now—and whenever I want it,” said
the Mexican, “or I tell about Crumb. You Crumb’s
woman. I tell how you peddle dope. I know! You
do what I tell you, or you go to the pen. Sabe?”
“Now listen to me,” said the girl. “I didn’t come up
here to take orders from you. I came to give you orders.”
“What?” exclaimed the Mexican, and then he laughed
aloud. “You give me orders? That is damn funny!”
“Yes, it is funny. You will enjoy it immensely when
I tell you what you are to do.”
“Hurry, then; I have no time to waste.”
He was still laughing.
“You are going to find some way to clear Mr. Pennington
of the charge against him. I don’t care what the
way is, so long as it does not incriminate any other innocent
person. If you can do it without getting yourself
in trouble, well and good. I do not care; but you must
see that there is evidence given before the grand jury
next Wednesday that will prove Mr. Pennington’s
innocence.”
“Is that all?” inquired Bartolo, grinning broadly.
“That is all.”
“And if I don’t do it—eh?”
“Then I shall go before the grand jury and tell them
about you, and Allen—about the opium and the morphine
and the cocaine—how you smuggled the stolen booze
from the ship off the coast up into the mountains.”
“You think you would do that?” he asked. “But how
about me? Wouldn’t I be telling everything I know
about you? Allen would testify, too, and they would
make Crumb come and tell how you lived with him.
Oh, no, I guess you don’t tell the grand jury nothing!”
“I shall tell them everything. Do you think I care
about myself? I will tell them all that Allen or Crumb
could tell; and listen, Bartolo—I can tell them something
more. There used to be five men in your gang. There
were three when I came up last week, and Allen is in
jail; but where is the other?”
The man’s face went black with anger, and perhaps
with fear, too.
“What you know about that?” he demanded sharply.
“Allen told Crumb the first time he came to the Hollywood
bungalow that he was having trouble among his
gang, that you were a hard lot to handle, and that already
one named Bartolo had killed one named Gracial. How
would you like me to tell that to the grand jury?”
“You never tell that to no one!” growled the Mexican.
“You know too damn much for your health!”
He had stepped suddenly forward and seized her wrist.
She struck at him and at the same time put the spurs to
Baldy—in her fear and excitement more severely than
she had intended. The high-spirited animal, unused to
such treatment, leaped forward past the Mexican, who,
clinging to the girl’s wrist, dragged her from the saddle.
Baldy turned, and feeling himself free, ran for the trail
that led toward home.
“You know too damn much!” repeated Bartolo. “You
better off up here alongside Gracial!”
The girl had risen to her feet and stood facing him.
There was no fear in her eyes. She was very beautiful,
and her beauty was not lost upon the Mexican.
“You mean that you would kill me to keep me from
telling the truth about you?” she asked.
“Why not? Should I die instead? If you had kept
your mouth shut, you would have been all right; but now”—he
shrugged suggestively—“you better off up here beside
Gracial.”
“They’ll get you and hang you for it,” she said.
“Who will know?”
“The boy who brought me the message from you.”
“He will not tell. He my son.”
“I wrote a note and left it in my desk before I came
up here, telling everything, for fear of something of this
sort,” she said.
“You lie!” he accused, correctly; “but for fear you
did, I go down and burn your house to-night, after I get
through with you. The ground pretty hard after the
hot weather—it take me long time to dig a hole beside
Gracial!”
The girl was at her wits’ end now. Her pitiful little
lie had not availed. She began to realize that nothing
would avail. She had made the noose, stuck her head into
it, and sprung the trap. It was too late to alter the consequences.
The man had the physique of a bull—she could
not hope to escape him by recourse to any power other
than her wits, and in the first effort along that line she
had failed miserably and put him on his guard.
Her case appeared hopeless. She thought of pleading
with him, but realized the futility of it. The fact that
she did not do so indicated her courage, which had not
permitted her to lose her head. She saw that it was
either his life or hers, as he saw the matter, and that it
was going to be hers was obvious.
The man stood facing her, holding her by the wrist.
His eyes appraised her boldly.
“You damn good-looking,” he said, and pulled the
girl toward him. “Before I kill you, I——”
He threw an arm about her roughly, and, leaning far
over her as she pulled away, he sought to reach her lips
with his.
