Custer’s long hours of loneliness had often been occupied with plans
against the day of his liberation. That Grace had not seen him or
communicated with him since his arrest and conviction had been a source
of wonder and hurt to him. He recalled many times the circumstance of
the telephone call, with a growing belief that Grace had been there,
but had refused to talk with him. Nevertheless, he was determined to
see her before he returned to Ganado.
He had asked particularly that none of his family should come to Los
Angeles on the day of his release, but that the roadster should be sent
up on the preceding day and left in a garage for him. He lost no time,
after quitting the jail, in getting his machine and driving out to
Hollywood, to the house where Grace had boarded.
The woman who answered his ring told him that Grace no longer lived
there. At first she was loath to give him any information as to the
girl’s whereabouts; but after some persuasion she gave him a number on
Circle Terrace, and in that direction Pennington turned his car.
As he left his car before the bungalow, and approached the building, he
could see into the interior through the screen door, for it was a warm
day in April, and the inner door was open. As he mounted the few steps
leading to the porch, he saw a woman cross the living room, into which
the door opened. She moved hurriedly, disappearing through a doorway
opposite and closing the door after her. Though he had but a brief
glimpse of her in the darkened interior, he knew that it was Grace,
so familiar were every line of her figure and every movement of her
carriage.
It was several minutes after Custer rang before a Japanese appeared at
the doorway. It was the same Japanese “schoolboy” who had served as
general factotum at the Vista del Paso bungalow. He opened the screen
door a few inches and looked inquiringly at the caller.
“I wish to see Miss Evans,” said Custer.
He took a card case from his pocket and handed a card to the servant,
who looked blankly at the card and then at the caller, finally shaking
his head stupidly and closing the door.
“No here,” he said. “Nobody home.”
Pennington recalled once more the affair of the telephone. He knew that
he had just seen Grace inside the bungalow. He had come to talk with
her, and he intended to do so.
He laid his hand on the handle of the door and jerked it open. The
Jap, evidently lacking in discretion, endeavored to prevent him from
entering. First the guardian clawed at the door in an effort to close
it, and then, very foolishly, he attempted to push Pennington out on
the porch. The results were disastrous to the Jap.
Crossing the living room, Custer rapped on the door through which he
had seen Grace go, calling her by name. Receiving no reply, he flung
the door open. Facing him was the girl he was engaged to marry.
With her back against the dresser, Grace stood at the opposite end of
the room. Her disheveled hair fell about her face, which was overspread
with a sickly pallor. Her wild, staring eyes were fixed upon him. Her
mouth, drooping at the corners, tremulously depicted a combination of
terror and anger.
“Grace!” he exclaimed.
She still stood staring at him for a moment before she spoke.
“What do you mean,” she demanded at last, “by breaking into my bedroom?
Get out! I don’t want to see you. I don’t want you here!”
He crossed the room and put a hand upon her shoulder.
“My God, Grace,” he cried, “what is the matter? What has happened to
you?”
“Nothing has happened,” she mumbled. “There is nothing the matter with
me. I suppose you want me to go back with the rest of the rubes. I am
through with the damned country--and country jakes, too!” she added.
“You mean that you don’t want me here, Grace? That you don’t love me?”
he asked.
“Love you?” She broke into a disagreeable laugh. “Why, you poor rube, I
never want to see you again!”
He stood looking at her for a moment longer, and then he turned slowly
and walked out of the bungalow and down to his car. When he had
gone, the girl threw herself face down upon the bed and burst into
uncontrollable sobs. For the moment she had risen triumphant above the
clutches of her sordid vice. For that brief moment she had played her
part to save the man she loved from greater torture and humiliation in
the future--at what a price only she could ever know.
Custer found them waiting for him on the east porch as he drove up to
the ranch house. The new freedom and the long drive over the beautiful
highway through the clear April sunshine, with the green hills at his
left and the lovely valley spread out upon his right hand, to some
extent alleviated the depression that had followed the shock of his
interview with Grace; and when he alighted from the car he seemed quite
his normal self again.
Eva was the first to reach him. She fairly threw herself upon her
brother, laughing and crying in a hysteria of happiness. His mother was
smiling through her tears, while the colonel blew his nose violently,
remarking that it was “a hell of a time of year to have a damned cold!”
Custer joked a little about his imprisonment, but he soon saw that the
mere mention of it had a most depressing effect upon Eva; so he did
not revert to the subject again in her presence. He confined himself
to plying them with a hundred questions about happenings on the ranch
during his long absence, the condition of the stock, and the crop
outlook for the season.
As he considered the effect his undeserved jail sentence had produced
upon the sensibilities of his sister, he was doubly repaid for the
long months of confinement that he had suffered in order to save
her from the still greater blow of having the man she was to marry
justly convicted of a far more serious crime. He saw no reason now
why she should ever learn the truth. The temporary disgrace of his
incarceration would soon be forgotten in the everyday run of work and
pleasure that constituted the life of Ganado, and the specter of her
hurt pride would no longer haunt her.
Custer was surprised that Guy and Mrs. Evans had not been of the
party that welcomed his return. When he mentioned this, Eva told him
that Mrs. Evans thought the Penningtons would want to have him all to
themselves for a while, and that their neighbors were coming up after
dinner. And it was not until dinner that he asked after Shannon.
“We have seen very little of her since you left,” explained his mother.
“She returned Baldy soon after that, and bought the Senator from Mrs.
Evans.”
“I don’t know what is the matter with the child,” said the colonel.
“She is as sweet as ever when we do see her, and she always asks after
you and tells us that she believes in your innocence. She rides a great
deal at night, but seldom, if ever, in the daytime. I don’t think it is
safe for a woman to ride alone in the hills at night, and I have told
her so; but she says that she is not afraid, and that she loves the
hills as well by night as by day.”
“Eva has missed her company very much,” said Mrs. Pennington. “I was
afraid that we might have done something to offend her, but none of us
could think what it could have been.”
“I thought she was ashamed of us,” said Eva.
“Nonsense!” exclaimed the colonel.
“Of course that’s nonsense,” said Custer. “She knows as well as the
rest of you that I was innocent.”
He was thinking how much more surely Shannon knew his innocence than
any of them.
During dinner Eva regained her old-time spirit. More than once the
tears came to Mrs. Pennington’s eyes as she realized that once more
their little family was united, and that the pall of sorrow that had
weighed so heavily upon them for the past six months had at last
lifted, revealing again the sunshine of the daughter’s heart, which had
never been the same since their boy had gone away.
“Oh, Cus!” exclaimed Eva. “The most scrumptious thing is going to
happen, and I’m so glad that you are going to be here too. It’s going
to be perfectly gorgeristic! There’s be a whole regiment of them, and
they’re going to be camped right up at the mouth of Jackknife. I can
scarcely wait until they come--can you?”
“I think I might manage,” said her brother; “at least until you tell me
what you are talking about.”
“Pictures,” exclaimed Eva. “Isn’t it simplimetic gorgeristic? And they
may be here a whole month!”
“What in the world is the child talking about?” asked Custer, appealing
to his mother.
“Your father----” Mrs. Pennington started to explain.
“Oh, don’t tell him”; cried Eva. “I want to tell him myself.”
“You have been explaining for several minutes,” said Custer; “but you
haven’t said anything yet.”
“Well, I’ll start at the beginning, then. They’re going to have
Indians, and cowboys, and----”
“That sounds more like the finish,” suggested Custer.
“Don’t interrupt me! They’re going to take a picture on Ganado.”
Custer turned toward his father with a look of surprise.
“You needn’t blame papa,” said Eva. “It was all my fault--or, rather,
I should say our good fortune is all due to me. You see, papa wasn’t
going to let them come at first, but the cutest man came up to see
him--a nice, short, fat little man, and he rubbed his hands together
and said: ‘Vell, colonel?’ Papa told him that he had never allowed any
picture companies on the place; but I happened to be there, and that
was all that saved us, for I teased and teased and teased until finally
papa said that they could come, provided they didn’t take any pictures
up around the house. They didn’t want to do that, for they’re making a
Western picture, and they said the scenery at the back of the ranch is
just what they want. They’re coming up in a few days, and it’s going to
be perfectly radiant, and maybe I’ll get in the pictures!”
“If I thought so,” said Custer, “I’d put a can of nitroglycerine under
the whole works the moment they drove on to the property!” He was
thinking of what the pictures had done for Grace Evans. “I am surprised
that you permitted it, father,” he said, turning to the colonel.
“I’m rather surprised myself,” admitted the older Pennington; “but what
was I to do, with that suave little location manager rubbing his hands
and oiling me on one side, and this little rascal here pestering the
life out of me on the other? I simply had to give in. I don’t imagine
any harm will come from it. They’ve promised to be very careful of all
the property, and whenever any of our stock is used it will be handled
by our own men.”
“I suppose they are going to pay you handsomely for it,” suggested
Custer.
The colonel smiled.
“Well, that wasn’t exactly mentioned,” he said; “but I have a
recollection that the location manager said something about presenting
us with a fine set of stills of the ranch.”
“Generous of them!” said Custer. “They’ll camp all over the shop,
use our water, burn our firewood, and trample up our pasture, and in
return they’ll give us a set of photographs. Their liberality is truly
marvelous!”
“Well, to tell you the truth,” said the colonel, “after I found how
anxious Eva was, I wouldn’t have dared mention payment, for fear they
might refuse to come and this young lady’s life might be ruined in
consequence!”
“What outfit is it?” asked the son.
“It’s a company from the K. K. S., directed by a man by the name of
Crumb.”
“Wilson Crumb, the famous actor-director,” added Eva. “How perfectly
radiant! I danced with him in Los Angeles a year ago.”
“Oh, that’s the fellow, is it?” said Custer. “I have a hazy
recollection that you were mad about him for some fifteen minutes after
you reached home, but I have never heard you mention him since.”
“Well, to tell you the truth,” said Eva, “I had forgotten all about him
until that perfectly gorgeous little loquacious manager mentioned him.”
“Location manager,” corrected her father.
“He was both.”
“Yes, he was,” said the colonel. “I rather hope he comes back. I
haven’t enjoyed any one so much since the days of Weber and Fields.”
It was after eight o’clock when the Evanses arrived. Mrs. Evans was
genuinely affected at seeing Custer again, for she was as fond of
him as if he had been her own son. In Guy, Custer discovered a great
change. The boy that he had left had become suddenly a man, quiet and
reserved, with a shadow of sadness in his expression. His lesson had
been a hard one, Custer knew, and the price that he had had to pay for
it had left its indelible mark upon his sensitive character.
Guy’s happiness at having Custer back again was overshadowed to some
extent by the shame that he must always feel when he looked into the
face of the man who had shouldered his guilt and taken the punishment
which should have been his. The true purpose of Pennington’s sacrifice
could never alter young Evans’s realization of the fact that the part
he had been forced to take had been that of a coward, a traitor, and a
cad.
The first greetings over, Mrs. Evans asked Custer if he had seen Grace
before he left Los Angeles.
“I saw her,” he said, “and she is not at all well. I think Guy should
go up there immediately, and try to bring her back. I meant to speak to
him about it this evening.”
“She is not seriously ill?” exclaimed Mrs. Evans.
“I cannot say,” replied Custer. “I doubt if she is seriously ill in a
physical sense, but she is not well. I could see that. She has changed
a great deal. I think you should lose no time, Guy,” he added, turning
to Grace’s brother, “in going to Los Angeles and getting her. She has
been gone almost a year. It is time she knew whether her dreams are
to come true or not. From what I saw of her, I doubt if they have
materialized.”
“I will go to-morrow,” said young Evans.