As the weeks passed, the routine of ranch life
weighed more and more heavily on Custer Pennington.
The dull monotony of it took the zest from the things
that he had formerly regarded as the pleasures of existence.
The buoyant Apache no longer had power to thrill.
The long rides were but obnoxious duties to be performed.
The hills had lost their beauty.
Custer attributed his despondency to an unkind face
that had thwarted his ambitions. He thought that he
hated Ganado; and he thought, too—he honestly thought—that
freedom to battle for success in the heart of some
great city would bring happiness and content. For all
that, he performed his duties and bore himself as cheerfully
as ever before the other members of his family,
though his mother and sister saw that when he thought
he was alone and unobserved he often sat with drooping
shoulders, staring at the ground, in an attitude of dejection
which their love could scarce misinterpret.
The frequent letters that came from Grace during her
first days in Hollywood had breathed a spirit of hopefulness
and enthusiasm that might have proven contagious,
but for the fact that he saw in her success a longer and
probably a permanent separation. If she should be
speedily discouraged, she might return to the foothills
and put the idea of a career forever from her mind; but
if she received even the slightest encouragement, Custer
was confident that nothing could wean her from her ambition.
He was the more sure of this because in his own
mind he could picture no inducement sufficiently powerful
to attract any one to return to the humdrum existence
of the ranch. Better be a failure in the midst of life,
he put it to himself, than a success in the unpeopled
spaces of its outer edge.
Ensuing weeks brought fewer letters, and there was
less of enthusiasm, though hope was still unquenched.
She had not yet met the right people, Grace said, and
there was a general depression in the entire picture industry.
Universal had a new manager, and there was
no guessing what his policy would be; Goldwyn had laid
off half their force; Robertson-Cole had shut down. She
was sure, though, that things would brighten up later,
and that she would have her chance. Would they please
tell her how Senator was, and give him her love, and
kiss the Apache for her? There was just a note, perhaps,
of homesickness in some of her letters; and gradually
they became fewer and shorter.
The little gatherings of the neighbors at Ganado continued.
Other young people of the valley and the foothills
came and danced, or swam, or played tennis. Their
elders came, too, equally enjoying the hospitality of the
Penningtons; and among these was the new owner of the
little orchard beyond the Evans ranch.
The Penningtons had found Mrs. Burke a quiet woman
of refined tastes, and the possessor a quiet humor that
made her always a welcome addition to the family circle.
That she had known more of sorrow than of happiness
was evidenced in many ways, but that she had risen
above the petty selfishness of grief was strikingly apparent
in her thoughtfulness for others, her quick sympathy,
and the kindliness of her humor. Whatever ills
fate had brought her, they had not left her soured.
As she came oftener, and came to know the Penningtons
better, she depended more and more on the colonel
for advice in matters pertaining to her orchard and her
finances. Of personal matters she never spoke. They
knew that she had a daughter living in Los Angeles; but
of the girl they knew nothing, for deep in the heart of
Mrs. George Burke, who had been born Charity Cooper,
was a strain of Puritanism that could not look with aught
but horror upon the stage and its naughty little sister,
the screen—though in her letters to that loved daughter
there was no suggestion of the pain that the fond heart
held because of the career the girl had chosen.
Charity Cooper’s youth had been so surrounded by
restrictions that at eighteen she was as unsophisticated
as a child of twelve. As a result, she had easily succumbed
to the blandishments of an unscrupulous young
Irish adventurer, who had thought that her fine family
connections indicated wealth. When he learned the contrary,
shortly after their marriage, he promptly deserted
her, nor had she seen or heard aught of him since. Of
him she never spoke, and of course the Penningtons never
questioned her.
At thirty-nine Mrs. George Burke still retained much
of the frail and delicate beauty that had been hers in
girlhood. The effort of moving from her old home and
settling the new, followed by the responsibilities of the
unfamiliar and highly technical activities of orange culture,
had drawn heavily upon her always inadequate
vitality. As the Penningtons became better acquainted
with her, they began to feel real concern as to her physical
condition; and this concern was not lessened by the knowledge
that she had been giving the matter serious thought,
as was evidenced by her request that the colonel would
permit her to name him as executor of her estate in a
will that she was making.
While life upon Ganado took its peaceful way, outwardly
unruffled, the girl whose image was in the hearts
of them all strove valiantly in the face of recurring disappointment
toward the high goal upon which her eyes
were set.
If she could only have a chance! How often that half
prayer, half cry of anguish, was in the silent voicing of
her thoughts! If she could only have a chance!
In the weeks of tramping from studio to studio she
had learned much. For one thing, she had come to know
the ruthlessness of a certain type of man that must and
will some day be driven from the industry—that is, in
fact, even now being driven out, though slowly, by the
stress of public opinion and by the example of the men
of finer character who are gradually making a higher code
of ethics for the studios.
She had learned even more from the scores of chance
acquaintances who, through repeated meetings in the
outer offices of casting directors, had become almost
friends. Indeed, when she found herself facing the actuality
of one of the more repulsive phases of studio procedure,
it appeared more in the guise of habitude through
the many references to it that she had heard from the
lips of her more experienced fellows.
She was interviewing, for the dozenth time, the casting
director of the K. K. S. Studio, who had come to
know her by sight, and perhaps to feel a little compassion
for her—though there are those who will tell you that
casting directors, having no hearts, can never experience
so human an emotion as compassion.
“I’m sorry, Miss Evans,” he said; “but I haven’t a
thing for you to-day.” As she turned away, he raised
his hand. “Wait!” he said. “Mr. Crumb is casting his
new picture himself. He’s out on the lot now. Go out
and see him—he might be able to use you.”
The girl thanked him and made her way from the office
building in search of Crumb. She stepped over light
cables and picked her way across stages that were littered
with the heterogeneous jumble of countless interior
sets. She dodged the assistants of a frantic technical
director who was attempting to transform an African
water hole into a Roman bath in an hour and forty-five
minutes. She bumped against a heavy shipping crate,
through the iron-barred end of which a savage lioness
growled and struck at her. Finally she discovered a
single individual who seemed to have nothing to do and
who therefore might be approached with a query as to
where Mr. Crumb might be found. This resplendent idler
directed her to an Algerian street set behind the stages,
and as he spoke she recognized him as the leading male
star of the organization, the highest salaried person on
the lot.
A few minutes later she found the man she sought.
She had never seen Wilson Crumb before, and her first
impression was a pleasant one, for he was courteous and
affable. She told him that she had been to the casting
director, and that he had said that Mr. Crumb might be
able to use her. As she spoke, the man watched her
intently, his eyes running quickly over her figure without
suggestion of offense.
“What experience have you had?” he asked.
“Just a few times as an extra,” she replied.
He shook his head.
“I am afraid I can’t use you,” he said; “unless”—he
hesitated—“unless you would care to work in the semi-nude,
which would necessitate making a test—in the
nude.”
He waited for her reply. Grace Evans gulped. She
could feel a scarlet flush mounting rapidly until it suffused
her entire face. She could not understand why
it was necessary to try her out in any less garmenture
than would pass the censors; but then that is something
which no one can understand.
Here, possibly, was her opportunity. She had read
in the papers that Wilson Crumb was preparing to make
the greatest picture of his career. She thought of her
constant prayer for a chance. Here was a chance, and
yet she hesitated. The brutal, useless condition he had
imposed outraged every instinct of decency and refinement
inherent in her, just as it has outraged the same
characteristics in countless other girls—just as it is doing
in other studios in all parts of the country every day.
“Is that absolutely essential?” she asked.
“Quite so,” he replied.
Still she hesitated. Her chance! If she let it pass,
she might as well pack up and return home. What a
little thing to do, after all, when one really considered it!
It was purely professional. There would be nothing
personal in it, if she could only succeed in overcoming
her self-consciousness; but could she do it?
Again she thought of home. A hundred times, of late,
she had wished that she was back there; but she did not
want to go back a failure. It was that which decided her.
“Very well,” she said; “but there will not be many
there will there?”
“Only a camera man and myself,” he replied. “If it is
convenient, I can arrange it immediately.”
Two hours later Grace Evans left the K. K. S. lot. She
was to start work on the morrow at fifty dollars a week
for the full period of the picture. Wilson Crumb had
told her that she had a wonderful future, and that she was
fortunate to have fallen in with a director who could
make a great star of her. As she went, she left behind
all her self-respect and part of her natural modesty.
Wilson Crumb, watching her go, rubbed the ball of
his right thumb to and fro across the back of his left
hand, and smiled.
The Apache danced along the wagon trail that led
back into the hills. He tugged at the bit and tossed his
head impatiently, flecking his rider’s shirt with foam. He
lifted his feet high and twisted and wriggled like an eel.
He wanted to be off, and he wondered what had come
over his old pal that there were no more swift, gay gallops,
and that washes were crossed sedately by way of
their gravelly bottoms, instead of being taken with a
flying leap.
Presently he cocked an eye ahead, as if in search of
something. A moment later he leaped suddenly sidewise,
snorting in apparent terror.
“You old fool!” said Pennington affectionately.
The horse had shied at a large white bowlder lying
beside the wagon trail. For nearly three years he had
shied at it religiously every time he had passed it. Long
before they reached it he always looked ahead to see
if it was still there, and he would have been terribly disappointed
had it been missing. The man always knew
that the horse was going to shy—he would have been disappointed
if the Apache had not played this little game
of make-believe. To carry the game to its conclusion,
the rider should gather him and force him snorting and
trembling, right up to the bowlder, talking to him coaxingly
and stroking his arched neck, but at the same time
not neglecting to press the spurs against his glossy sides
if he hesitated.
The Apache loved it. He loved the power that was
his as exemplified by the quick, wide leap aside, and he
loved the power of the man to force his nose to the
bowlder—the power that gave him such confidence in
his rider that he would go wherever he was asked to go;
but to-day he was disappointed. His pal did not force
him to the bowlder. Instead, Custer Pennington merely
reined him into the trail again beyond it and rode on up
Jackknife Cañon.
Custer was looking over the pasture. It was late July.
The hills were no longer green, except where their sides
and summits were clothed with chaparral. The lower
hills were browning beneath the hot summer sun, but
they were still beautiful, dotted as they were with walnut
and live oak.
As Pennington rode, he recalled the last time he had
ridden through Jackknife with Grace. She had been
gone two months now—it seemed as many years. She
no longer wrote often, and when she did write her letters
were short and unsatisfying. He recalled all the
incidents of that last ride, and they reminded him again of
the new-made trail they had discovered, and of his oft
repeated intention of following it to see where it led.
He had never had the time—he did not have the time
to-day. The heifers with their calves were still in this
pasture. He counted them, examined the condition of
the feed, and rode back to the house.
It was Friday. From the hill beyond Jackknife a man
had watched through binoculars his every move. Three
other men had been waiting below the watcher along the
new-made trail. It was well for Pennington that he had
not chosen that day to investigate.
After he had turned back toward the ranch, the man
with the binoculars descended to the others.
“It was young Pennington,” he said. The speaker was
Allen. “I was thinking that it would be a fool trick to
kill him, unless we have to. I have a better scheme.
Listen—if he ever learns anything that he shouldn’t know,
this is what you are to do, if I am away.”
Very carefully and in great detail he elaborated his
plan.
“Do you understand?” he asked.
They did, and they grinned.
The following night, after the Penningtons had dined,
a ranch hand came up from Mrs. Burke’s to tell them
that their new neighbor was quite ill, and that the woman
who did her housework wanted Mrs. Pennington to
come down at once as she was worried about her
mistress.
“We will be right down,” said Colonel Pennington.
They found Mrs. Burke breathing with difficulty, and
the colonel immediately telephoned for a local doctor.
After the physician had examined her, he came to them
in the living room.
“You had better send for Jones, of Los Angeles,” he
said. “It is her heart. I can do nothing. I doubt if
he can; but he is a specialist. And,” he added, “if she
has any near relatives, I think I should notify them—at
once.”
The housekeeper had joined them, and was wiping
tears from her face with her apron.
“She has a daughter in Los Angeles,” said the colonel;
“but we do not know her address.”
“She wrote her to-day, just before this spell,” said the
housekeeper. “The letter hasn’t been mailed yet—here
it is.”
She picked it up from the center table and handed it
to the colonel.
“Miss Shannon Burke, 1580 Panizo Circle, Hollywood,”
he read. “I will take the responsibility of wiring
both Miss Burke and Dr. Jones. Can you get a good
nurse locally?”
The doctor could, and so it was arranged.
