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.