 Chapter 17 of The Girl from Hollywood by Edgar S. Perot's. This lip of Vox recording is in the Pahutomane. Recording by Joe DeNoya, Somerset, New Jersey. That night, Shannon insisted upon taking her turn at Custer's bedside, and she was so determined that they could not refuse her. He was still suffering, but not so acutely. The doctor had left morphine, with explicit directions for its administration should be required. The burns, while numerous, and reaching from his left ankle to his cheek are superficial and, though painful, not necessarily dangerous. He had slept but little, and when he was awake, he wanted to talk. He told her about Grace. It was his first confidence, a sweetly sad one, for he was a reticent man concerning those things that were nearest his heart and consequently the most sacred to him. He had not heard from Grace for some time, and her mother had but one letter, a letter that had not sounded like Grace at all. They were anxious about her. I wish she would come home, he said, wistfully. You would like her, Shannon. We could have such bully times together. I think I would be content here if Grace were back, but without her it seems very different and very lonely. You know, we have always been together, all of us, since we were children. Grace, Eva, Guy, and I. And now that you are here, it would be all the better, for you are just like us. You seem like us, at least, as if you had always lived here, too. It's nice to have you say that, but I haven't always been here. And really, you know I don't belong. But you do belong. And I'm going away again pretty soon. I must go back to the city. Please, don't go back, he begged. You don't really have to, do you? I had intended telling you all this morning, but after the spurgers, I couldn't. Do you really have to go, Custer insisted? I don't have to, but I think I ought to. Do you want me to stay, honestly? Just engine, he said, smiling. Maybe I will. He reached over with his right hand and took hers. Oh, will you, he exclaimed? You don't know how much we want you, all of us. It was precisely what he might have done or said to Eva, in boyish affection and comradeship. I'm going to stay, she announced. I've made up my mind. As soon as you are well, I'm going to move down to my own place and really learn to work for it. I'd love it. And I'll come down and help you with what little I know about oranges. I will, too. We don't know much. Citrus growing is a little out of our line, though we have a small orchard here. But we'll give you the best we've got. And it'll be fine for Eva. She loves you. She cried the other day, the last time you mentioned an earnest that you might not stay. She's a deer. She is all of that, he said. We've always had our fights. I supposed all brothers and sisters do, and we kid one another a lot. But there never was a sister like Eva. Just let anyone else say anything against me. They'd have a fight on their hands right there if Eva was around. And sunshine, the old place seems like a morgue every time she goes away. She worships you, Custer. She's a brick. He could have voiced no higher praise. He asked about the fire, and especially about the horses. He was delighted when she told him that a man had just come down to say the fire was practically out and the Colonel was coming in shortly. And that the veterinary had been there and found the team not seriously injured. I think that fire was incendiary, he said. But now that Slick Allen is in jail, I don't know who would have said it. Who is Slick Allen? She asked. And why should he want to set fire to Ganado? He told her and she was silent for a while, thinking about Allen and the last time she had seen him. She wondered what he would do when he got out of jail. She would hate to be in Wilson Crump's boots then, for she guessed that Allen was a hard character. While she was thinking of Allen, Custer mentioned Guy Evans. Instantly there came to her mind for the first time since that last evening at the Vista del Paso Bungalow, Crump's conversation with Allen, and the latter's account of the disposition of the stolen whiskey. His very words returned to her. Got a young high blood at the edge of the valley handling it, a fellow by the name of Evans. She had not connected Allen or that conversation or the Evans he had mentioned with these people. But now she knew it was Guy Evans who was disposing of the stolen liquor. She wanted that Allen would return to this part of the country after he was released from jail. If he did and saw her, he would be sure to recognize her, for he must have had her features impressed upon his memory by the fact that she so resembled someone he had known. If he recognized her, would he expose her? She did not doubt that he would. The chances were that he would attempt to blackmail her. But, worst of all, he might tell Crump where she was. That was the thing she dreaded most, seeing Wilson Crump again or having him discover her whereabouts. For she knew that he would leave no stone unturned and hesitate to stoop to no dishonorable act to get her back again. She shuddered when she thought of him, a man whose love even was dishonorable and dishonoring thing. Then she turned her eyes to the face of the van lying there in the bed beside what she said. He would never love her, but her love for him had already ennobled her. If the people of her old life did not discover her hiding place, she could remain here on her little grove near Granada and see Custer often nearly every day. He would not guess her love, no one would guess it. But she should be happy just to be near him. Even if Grace returned, it would make no difference. Even if Grace and Custer were married. Shanna knew that he was not for her. No honorable man was for her after what she had been. But there was no moral law to be transgressed by her secret love for him. She felt no jealousy for Grace. He belonged to Grace, and even had she thought she might win him, she would not have attempted it. For she had always held in contempt by those who infringe selflessly upon settled affections. It would be hard for her, of course, when Grace returned. But she was determined to like her, even to love her. She would be untrue to this new love that had transfigured her, should she fail to love what he loved. Custer moved restlessly. Again, he was giving evidence of suffering. She lit the cool palm upon his forehead and stroked it. He opened his eyes and smiled up at her. It's bully of you to sit with me, said, but you ought to be in bed. You've had a pretty hard day, and you're not as used to it as we are. I am not tired, she said, and I should like to stay, if you would like to have me. He took her hand from his forehead and kissed it. Of course, I'd like to have you here, Shannon. You're just like a sister. It's funny, isn't it, that we should all feel that way about you, and we've only known you for a few weeks? It must have been because of the way you fit it in. You belonged right from the start. You were just like us. She turned her head away suddenly, casting her eyes upon the floor and biting her lip to keep back the tears. What's the matter, he asked? I am not like you, Custer, but I have tried hard to be. Why aren't you like us, he demanded? I, why? I couldn't ride a horse, she explained, lamely. Don't make me laugh, please. My face is burnt. He pleaded in mock irony. Do you think that's all we know or think of or possess, our horsemanship? We have hearts and minds, such as they are, and souls, I hope. It was of these things I was thinking. I was thinking, too, that we Pennington's demand a higher standard in women than is customary nowadays. We're a little old fashioned, I guess. We want the blood of our horses and the minds of our women pure. Here's a case in point, I can tell you, because you don't know the girl and never will. She was the daughter of a friend of Cousin William, our New York cousin. She was spending the winter in Pasadena, and we had her out here on Cousin William's account. She was a pippin of a looker, and I suppose she was all right morally, but she didn't have a clean mind. I discovered it about the first time I talked to her alone, and then Ava asked me a question about something that she couldn't have known about at all except through this girl. I didn't know what to do. She was a girl, and so I couldn't talk about her to anyone, not even my father or mother. But I didn't want her around Ava. I wonder if I was just a narrow prig, and if, after all, there was nothing that anyone need to take exception to in the girl. I got to analyzing the thing, and it came to the conclusion that I would be ashamed of mother and Ava if they had talked or thought along such lines. Consequently, it wasn't right to expose Ava to that influence. That was what I decided, and I don't just think I was right, I know I was. And what did you do? Shannon asked in a very small voice. I did what under any other circumstance would have been unpardonable. I went to the girl and asked her to make some excuse that would terminate her visit. It was a very hard thing to do, but I would do more than that. I would sacrifice my most cherished friendship for Ava. And the girl, did you tell her why you asked her to go? I didn't want to, but she insisted, and I told her. Did she understand? She did not. They were silent for some time. Do you think I did wrong, he asked? No, there is a mental virtue as well as physical. This is as much your duty to protect your sister's mind as to protect her body. I knew you'd think as I do about it, but let me tell you, it was an awful jolt to the cherished Pennington hospitality. I hope I never have to do it again. I hope you never do. He commenced the show increasing signs of suffering presently, and then he asked for morphine. I don't want to take it unless I have to, he explained. No, she said, do not take it unless you have to. She prepared and administered it, but she felt no desire for it herself. Then Ava came to relieve her, and she bathed in good night and went up to bed. She woke about four o'clock in the morning and immediately thought of the little black case, but she only smiled, turned over, and went back to sleep again. End of Chapter 17. Chapter 18 of The Girl from Hollywood by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This liberal box recording is in the public domain, recording by Joe DeNoya, Somerset, New Jersey. It was several weeks before Custer could ride again, and in the meantime, Shannon had gone down to her own place to live. She came up every day on Baldy, who had been loaned to her until Custer could be able to select a horse for her. She insisted that she would own nothing but a Morgan, and that she wanted one of the Apache's brothers. You'll have to wait then until I can break one for you, Custer told her. There are a couple of four-year-olds that are saddle-broke and brothel-wise on the way, but I wouldn't want you to ride either of them until they've had the finishing touches. I want to ride them enough to learn their faults, if they have any. In the meantime, you just keep Baldy down there and use him. How's ranching? You look as if he'd agreed with you. Nobody'd know you for the same girl. You look like an Indian, and how your cheeks have filled out. The girl smiled happily. I never knew before what it was to live, she said. I've never been sickly, but on the other hand, I never felt healthy for her, to know it was a tangible, enjoyable possession that one experienced and was conscious of every moment. People fill themselves with medicines, or drugs, or liquors, to induce temporarily a poor imitation of what they might enjoy constantly if they only would. A man who thinks that a drink is the only thing that can make one feel like shouting and waving one's hat should throw a leg over one of your Morgans before breakfast, one of these cool September mornings, and give him his head and let him go. Oh boy, she cried. There's intoxication for you. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes dancing. She was a picture of life and health and happiness, and Custer's eyes were sparkling too. Gee, he exclaimed, you're a regular Pennington. I wish I were the girl thought to herself, you honor me was what she said aloud. Custer laughed. That sounded rotten, didn't it? But you know what I meant. It's nice to have people whom we like like the same things we do. It doesn't necessarily mean that we think our likes are the best in the world. I didn't mean to be egotistical. Ava had just entered the patio. Listened to him, the radiant child, she exclaimed. Do you know, Shannon, that dear little brother just hates himself? She walked over and purged on his knee and kissed him. Yes, said Custer. Brother hates himself. He spends hours powdering his nose. Mother found a lipstick and an eyebrow pencil or whatever you call it in his dressing table recently. When he goes to LA, he has his eyebrows plucked. Ava jumped from his knee and stamped her foot. I never had my eyebrows plucked, she cried. They're naturally this way. Why the excitement, little one? Did I say you did have them plucked? Well, you tried to make Shannon think so. I got the lipstick and the other things, so if we have any amateur theatricals this winter, I'll have them. Do you know, I think I'll go on the stage or the screen. Wouldn't it be splishes though? Miss Ava Pennington is starring in the new and popular success based on a story by Guy Thackeray Evans, the eminent author. Eminent? He isn't even eminent, said Custer. Oh, Ava cried Shannon, genuine concern in her tone. Surely you wouldn't think of the screen, would you? You're not serious. Oh, yes, said Custer. She's serious. Serious is her middle name. Tomorrow she will want to be a painter, and day after tomorrow the world's most celebrated harpist. Ava is nothing, if not serious. While her tenacity of purpose is absolutely inspiring. Why, once for one whole day, she wanted to do the same thing. Ava was laughing with her brother and Shannon. If she were just like everyone else, he wouldn't love your little sister anymore, she said, running her fingers through his hair. Honestly, ever since I met Wilson Crumb, I have thought I should like to be a movie star. Wilson Crumb was playing Shannon. What do you know, Wilson Crumb? Oh, I've met him, said Ava, eerily. Don't you envy me? What do you know about him, Shannon? Ask Custer. Your tone indicated that you may have heard something about him that wasn't complimentary. No, I don't know him. It's only what I've heard. I don't think you'd like him. Shannon almost shut it to the thought of this dear child ever so much as knowing Wilson Crumb. Oh, Ava, she cried impulsively. You mustn't even think of going into pictures. I lived in Los Angeles long enough to learn that life is oftentimes a hard one, filled with disappointment, disillusionment, and regrets. Principally, regrets. And Grace is there now, said Custer in a low voice, a worried look in his eyes. Can't you persuade her to return? He shook his head. It wouldn't be fair, he said. She's trying to succeed and we ought to encourage her. It's probably hard enough for her at best without all of us suggesting antagonism to her ambition by constantly urging her to abandon it so we try to keep our letters cheerful. Have you been to see her since she left? No, I know you haven't. If I were you, I'd run down to LA. It might mean a lot to her, Custer. It might mean more than you can guess. The girl spoke from a full measure of bitter experience. She realized what it might have meant to her had there been some man like this to come and see her when she had needed the strong arm of a clean love to drag her from the verge of the mire. She would have gone away with such a man, gone back home, and thanked God for the opportunity. If Grace loved Custer and was encountering the malign forces that had arisen from their own corruption to claw at Shannon's skirts, she would come back with him. On the other hand, should conditions be what they ought to be, and what they are in some studios, Custer would return with a report that would lift the load from the hearts of all of them, while left Grace encouraged and inspired by the active support of those most dear to her. What it would mean to Shannon in either event, the girl did not consider. Her soul was above jealousy. She was prompted only by desire to save another from the anguish she had endured and to bring happiness to the man she loved. You really think I ought to go, Custer asked? You know, she has insisted that none of us should come. She said she wanted to do it all on her own without any help. Grace is not only very ambitious, but very proud. I'm afraid she might not like it. I wouldn't care what she likes, said Shannon. Either you or guys should run down there and see her. You're the two men most vitally interested in her. No girl should be left alone in Hollywood without someone to whom they can look for for the right sort of guidance and protection. I believe I'll do it, said Custer. I can't get away right now, but I went down there before I go out to Chicago with the show herds for the international. It was shortly after this that Custer began to ride again, and Shannon usually rode with him. Unconsciously, he had come to depend upon her companionship more and more. He had been drinking less on account of it, for I had broken a habit which he had been forming since Grace's departure, that of carrying a flask with him on his lonely rides through the hills. As a small boy, he had been Custer's duty, as well as his pleasure to ride fence. He had continued the custom long after he might have been assigned to an employee, not only because it meant long, pleasant hours in the saddle of Grace, but also to get first hand knowledge of the condition of the pastures and the herds, as well as of the fences. During his enforced idleness, while recovering from his burns, the duty had devolved not to Jake. On the first day that Custer took up the work again, Jake had called his attention to a matter that had long been a subject of discussion and conjecture on the part of the employees. Something funny going on back in them hills, said Jake. I've seen fresh signs every week of horses and burrows coming and going. Sometimes they trail through El Camino Largo, and again through Corto. And they've even been down the old goat corral once, plowing through the ranch and out the West Gate. But what I can't tell for sure is whether they come in and go out, or go out and come in. Whoever does it is foxy. The two trails never cross, and they must be made within a few hours of each other, for I'm not injured enough to tell which is freshest. The ones come into Canado, or the ones going out. And then they must set up by Dragon Brush, so it's hard to tell how many they be of them. It's got me. They head for Jackknife, don't they? Ask Custer. Sometimes, and sometimes they go straight up Sycamore, and again they head in or out of a half dozen different little baroncos coming down from the east. But sooner or later I lose them. Can't never follow them in no place in particular. Looks like as if they split up. Maybe it's only greasers from the valley coming up after firewood at night. Maybe, said Jake, but that don't sound reasonable. I know it doesn't, but I can't figure out what else it can be. I found a trail up above Jackknife last spring, and maybe that had something to do with it. I'm sure it got to follow that up. The trouble has been that it doesn't lead where the stock ever goes, and I haven't had time to look into it. Do you think they come up here regularly? We've got it doped out that it's always Friday nights. I see the track Saturday mornings, and some of our boys said they heard them coming along around midnight a couple of times. What gates do they go out by? They use all four of them at different times. Padlock all the gates tomorrow. This is Thursday. Then we'll see what happens. They did see, and for on the following Saturday, when Custer rode fence, he found a cut closed by one of the padlock gates, the gate that opened to the mouth of horse camp canyon. Shannon was with him, and she was much excited at this evidence of mystery so close to home. What in the world do you suppose they could be doing, she asked? I don't know, but it's something they shouldn't be doing, or they wouldn't go to so much pains to cover their tracks. They evidently passed in and out at this point, but they've brushed out their tracks on both sides so that we can't tell which way they went last. Look here. On both sides of the fence, the trail splits. It's hard to say which was made first, or where they passed through the fence. One track must have been on top of the other, but they've brushed it out. He had dismounted and was on his knees, examining the spore beyond the fence. I believe, he said presently, that the fresher trail is the one going toward the hills, although the other one is heavier. Here's a rabbit track that lies on top of the track of the horse's hoof pointed toward the valley. And over here a few yards, the same rabbit track is obliterated by the tracks of horses and burrows coming up from the valley. The rabbit must have come across here after they went down, stepping on top of their tracks, and when they came up again they crossed on top of his. That's pretty plain, isn't it? Yes, but the tracks going down are much planer than those going up. Wouldn't that indicate that they're fresher? That's what I thought until I saw this evidence introduced by Brer Rabbit, and it's conclusive too. Let's look along here a little further. I have an idea that I have an idea. One of Eva's dapper little ideas, perhaps? He bent close above first one trail, and then another, following him down toward the valley. Shannon walked beside him, leading Baldi. Sometimes as they knelt above the evidence imprinted in the dusty soil, their shoulders touched. The contact thrilled the girl with sweet delight, and the fact that it left him cold did not sat in her. She knew that he was not for her. There was enough that she might be near him and love him. She did not want him to love her. That would have been the final tragedy of her life. For the most part the trail was obliterated by brush, which seemed to have been dragged behind the last horse, but here and there was the imprint of a hoof of a horse, or, again, of a burrow, so the story the custer pieced out was reasonably clear as far as it went. I think I've got a line on it, he said, presently. Two men rode along here on horses. One horse was shod, the other was not. One rider went ahead, the other brought up the rear, and between them were several burrows. Going down the burrows carried heavy loads. Coming back, they carried nothing. How do you know all that, she asked rather incredulously. I don't know it, but it seems the most logical deduction from these tracks. It is easy to tell the horse tracks from those of the burrows, and to tell that there were at least two horses, because it is plain that a shod horse and an unshod horse passed along here. That one horse, the one with shoes, went first as evident from the fact that you always see the imprints of burrow hoofs or the hoofs of an unshod horse, are both superimposed on his. That the other horse brought up the rear is equally plain from the fact that no other tracks lie on top of this. But if you look close and compare several of these horse tracks, you'll notice that there is little or no difference in the appearance of these leading in the valley and those leading out. But you can see that the burrow tracks leading down are more deeply imprinted than those leading up. To me that means that those burrows carried heavy loads down and came back light. How does it sound? It's wonderful, she exclaimed. It is all that I can do to see that anything has been along here. It's not wonderful, he replied. An experienced tracker would tell you how many horses there were, how many burrows, how many hours had elapsed since they came down from the hills, and how many since they returned, and the names of the grandmothers of both riders. Shannon laughed. I'm glad you're not an experienced tracker then, she said. For now I can believe what you have told me, and I still think it is very wonderful and very delightful too to be able to read stories, true stories, and to trample dust where men and animals have passed. There's nothing very remarkable about it. Just look at the Apache's hoof prints, for instance. See how the hind differs from the four? Custer pointed to them as he spoke, calling attention to the fact that the Apache's hind shoes were squared off at the toe. And now compare them with baldies, he said. See how different the two hoof prints are? Once you know them, you can never confuse one with the other. But the part of the story that would interest me most, I can't read. Who they are, what they were packing out of the hills on these burrows, where they came from, and where they went. Let's follow down and see where they went in the valley. The trail must pass right by the Evans's Hay Barn. The Evans's Hay Barn, a great light illuminated Shannon's memory. Allen had said that last night at the bungalow that the contraband whiskey was hauled away on a truck, that it was concealed beneath hay, and that a young man named Evans handled it. What was she to do? She did not reveal this knowledge to Custer, because she could not explain how she came into possession of it. Nor for the same reason could she warn Guy Evans, had she thought that necessary, which she was sure it was not, since Custer would not expose him. She concluded that all she could do was to let events take their own course. She followed Custer as he traced the partially obliterated tracks through a field of barley stubble. A hundred yards west of the Hay Barn, the trail entered a macadam road at right angles, and there it disappeared. There was no telling whether the little caravan had turned east or west, for it left no spore upon the hard surface of the paved roads. Well, Watson said, Custer, turning to her with a grin. What do you make of this? Nothing. Nothing? Watson, I am surprised. Not to do I. He turned his horse back toward the cut fence. There's no use looking any further in this direction. I don't know if it's even worthwhile following the trail back into the hills, for the chances are that they will have it well covered. What I'll do is lay for them next Friday night. Maybe they'll not up to any mischief, but it looks suspicious, and if they are, I'd rather catch them here with the goods than follow them up into the hills, where about all I'd accomplish would probably be to warn them that they were being watched. I'm sorry now I had these gates locked, for we'll have put them on their guard. We'll just fix up this fence and then we'll ride about and take all the locks off. On the way home, an hour later, he asked Shannon not to say anything about the discovery or his plan to watch for the mysterious pack train the following Friday. He would only excite the folks needlessly, he explained. The chances are that there will be some simple explanation when I meet up with these people. As I told Jake, there may be greasers who work all the week and come up here at night for firewood. Still, more likely, there's people who don't know that they can get permission to get the dead wood for the asking and think they are stealing it. Putting themselves to a lot of trouble for nothing, I'd say. You'll not wait for them alone, she asked, for she knew what he did not, that they were probably unscrupulous rascals who would not hesitate to commit any crime if they thought themselves in danger of discovery. Why not, he asked. I want to ask them what they are doing on Ganado, and why they cut our fence. Please don't, she begged. You don't know who they are or what they have been doing. They might be very desperate men for all we know. All right, he agreed. I'll take Jake with me. Why don't you get Guy to go along too, she suggested, for she knew that he would be safer if Guy knew of his intention, since there would be little likelihood of his meeting the men. No, he replied. Guy would have to have a big campfire and easy chair and a package of cigarettes he was going to sit up that late out on the hills. Jake's the best for that sort of work. Guy isn't a bit like you, is he, she asked. He's lived right here and led the same sort of life, and it doesn't seem to be a part of it as you are. Guy's a dreamer, and he likes to be comfortable all the time, laughed costar. They're all that way a little. Mr. Evans was, so Father says. He doted while we were all kids. Mrs. Evans likes to take it easy too, and even Grace wasn't much unruffing it, though she did stand more than the others. None of them seemed to take it the way you do. I never saw anyone else but a Pennington such a glutton for the saddle and the outdoors as you are. I don't like him any less for it, he hastened to add. It's just the way people are, I guess. The taste for such things is inherited. The Evans's, up to this generation, all came from the city. The Penningtons, all from the country. Father thinks that horsemen, if not the descendants of a distinct race, at least spring from some common ancestors who inhabited great plains and were the original stockraisers of the human race. He thinks they mingle with the hill and the mountain people, who also become horsemen through them. But that the forest tribes and the maritime races were separate and distinct. It was the last who built the cities, which the horsemen came in from the plains in Concord. But perhaps Guy would like the adventure of it, she insisted. It might give him material for a story. I'm going to ask him. Please don't. The less said about it, the better. For if it's talked about, it may get to the men I want to catch. War travels fast in a country, just as we don't know who these men are or what they're doing. Now that do we know what someone that may be on friendly terms with our employees, or the Evans's, or yours. The girl made no reply. You won't mention it to him, please, Custer insisted. Not if you don't wish it, she said. They were silent for a time, each absorbed in his or her own thoughts. The girl was seeking to formulate some plan that would prevent a meeting between Custer and Allen's Confederates, who she would share with the owners of the mysterious pack train, while the man indulged in futile conjectures as to their identity and the purpose of their nocturnal expeditions. That trail above Jackknife Canyon is the key to the whole business, he declared presently. I'll just lay low until after a Friday night, so as not to arouse their suspicions. And then, no matter what I found out, I'll ride that trail to its finish, if it takes me clear to the ocean. They had reached the fork on the road, one branch of which led down to Shannon's bungalow, the other to the Canado saddle horse tables. I'll fight you coming up to lunch, said Custer, as Shannon rained her horse into the west road. Not today, she said. I'll come to dinner, if I may, though. We'll miss you when you're not there, he said. How nice. Now I'll surely come. And this afternoon, will you ride with me again? I'm going to be very busy this afternoon, she replied. Her face dropped, and then, almost immediately, he laughed. I haven't realized how much of your time I've been demanding. Why, you ride with me every day, and now when you want an afternoon off, I start moping. I'm afraid you've spoiled me, but you mustn't let me be a nuisance. I ride with you because I like to, she replied. I should miss our rides terribly if anything should occur to prevent them. Let's hope nothing will prevent them. I'm afraid I'll be lost without you now, Shannon. You can never know what it has meant to me to have you here. I was sort of going to Pot after Grace left, blue and discouraged and discontented, and I was drinking too much. I don't mind telling you because I know you'll understand. You seem to understand everything. Having you to ride with and talk to pulled me together. I owe you a lot, so don't let me impose on your friendship and your patience. Anytime you want an afternoon off, he concluded, laughing. Don't be afraid to ask for it. I'll see that you get it with full pay. I don't want any afternoons off, because I enjoy the rides as much as you, and they have meant even more to me. I intend to see that nothing prevents them, if I can. She was touched and pleased with Custer's sudden burst of confidence, and thankful for whatever had betrayed him into one of those rare revelations of his heart. She wanted to be necessary to him in the sweet, unemotional way of friendship, so that they might be together without embarrassment or constrain. They had been standing at the fork, talking, and now, as she started Baldy again in the direction of her own place, Custer reigned the Apache to accompany her. You didn't come down with me, she said. It's nearly lunchtime now and would only make you late. But I want to. No, she shook her head. You go right home. Please. This is my afternoon off, she reminded him, and I'd really rather you wouldn't. All right. I'll drive down in the car early and we'll have a swim before dinner. Not too early. I'll telephone you when I'm ready. Goodbye. He waved his hat as she cantered off, and then sat the Apache for a moment, watching her. How well she rode. What grace and ease in every motion of that supple body. He shook his head. Some girl, Shannen, he mused aloud as he wheeled the Apache in a road toward the stables. End of chapter 18. Chapter 19 of The Girl from Hollywood by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This loop rocks recordings in the public domain. Recorded by Joe De Noia, Somerset, New Jersey. Shannen Burke did not ride to her home after she left Custer. She turned toward the west of the road above the Evans Place, continued on to the mouth of Horse Camp Canyon, and entered the hills. For two miles, she followed the canyon trail to El Camino Largo, and there, turning to the left, she followed this other trail east to Sycamore Canyon. Whatever her mission, it was evident that she did not wish known to others. Had she not wished to conceal it, she might have ridden directly up Sycamore Canyon from Ganado with a saving of several miles. Crossing Sycamore, she climbed the low hills, skirting its eastern side. There was no trail here, and the brush was thick and oftentimes so dense that she was forced to make numerous detours to find a way upward. But at last, she rode out upon the western rim of the basin in Meadow, below Jackknife. Thence, she picked her way down to more level ground, and, putting spurs to Baldi, galloped east, her eyes constantly scanning the ground just ahead of her. Presently, she found what she saw, a trail running north and south across the basin. She turned Baldi into it, and headed himself towards the mountains. She was nervous and inwardly terrified, and a dozen times she would have turned back if she had not been urged on by a power infinitely more potent than self-interest. Personally, she had all to lose by the venture and not to gain. The element of physical danger she knew to be far from inconsiderable, although it appalled her to contemplate the after-effects, in the not inconceivable contingency of the discovery of her act by the Pennington's. Yet she urged Baldi steadily onward, though she felt her flesh creep as the trail entered a narrow bronco at the southern extremity of the Meadow, and wound upward through Deschamparral, which showed off a range of vision in all directions for more than a few feet. At the upper end of the bronco, the trail turned back and ascended the steep hillside, running diagonally upward through heavy brush, without which she realized the trail would have appeared an almost impossible one, since it clung to a nearly perpendicular cliff. The brush led the suggestion of safety that was more apparent than real, and at the same time it hid the sheer descent below. Baldi, digging his toes into the loose earth, scrambled upward, stepping over gnarled roots and an occasional boulder, and finding, almost miraculously, the least precarious footing. There were times when the girl shut her eyes tightly and sat with tense muscles, her knees pressing the horses' sides until her muscles ached. At last, the doughy morgan topped the summit of the hogback, and Shannon drew a deep breath of relief, which was alloyed, however, by the realization that in returning, she must ride down this fearful trail, which now, as if by magic, disappeared. The hogback was water-washed and gravel-strewn, and as hard-baked beneath the summer sun as in McCallum Road. To Shannon's unaccustomed eyes, it gave no clues in the direction of the trail. She rode up and down in both directions until finally she discovered what appeared to be a trail leading downward into another bronco, upon the opposite side of the ridge. The descent seemed less terrifying than that which she had just negotiated, and as it was the only indication of a trail that she could find, she determined to investigate it. Baldi, descending carefully, suddenly paused and with upright ears emitted a shrill ney. So sudden and so startling was the sound that Shannon's heart all but stood still, gripped with the cold fingers of terror, and then from below came an answering ney. She had found what she saw, but the fear that rode her all but sent her panic-stricken in retreat. It was only the fact that she could not turn Baldi upon that narrow trail that gave her sufficient pause to gain mastery over the chaos of her nerves and drive them again to the fold of reason. It required a supreme effort of will to urge her horse onward again, down to that mysterious ravine where she knew there might lurk for her a thing more terrible than death. That she did it bespoke the greatness of the love that inspired her courage. The ravine below her was both shallower and wider than that upon the opposite side of the ridge so that it presented the appearance of a tiny basin. From her vantage point, she looked out across the tops of a spreading oaks to the brush-covered hillside that bounded the basin down the south. But what lay below, what the greenery of the trees concealed from her sight, she could only surmise. She knew that the pannington's kept no horses here, so she guessed that the animal that had answered Baldi's ney belonged to the men she sought. Slowly she rode downward, but what would her reception be? For conclusions as to the identity of the men camp below were correct. She could imagine them shooting first and investigating later. The idea was not a pleasant one, but nothing could deter her now. After what seemed a long time, she rode out among splendid old oaks in view of the soil tent and a picket line where three horses and half a dozen burrows were tethered. Nowhere was their sign of the actual presence of men that she had an uncanny feeling that they were there and that for some place of concealment they were watching her. She sat quietly upon her horse for a moment, waiting. Then, no one appearing, she called out. Hello there, I want to speak with you. Her voice sounded strange and uncanny in her ears. For what seemed like a long time there was no other sound than the gentle moving leaves about her, the birds and the heavy breathing of Baldi. Then from the brush behind her came another voice that came from the direction of the trail down which she had ridden. She realized she must have passed within a few feet of the man who now spoke. What do you want? I've come to warn you, you're being watched. You mean you're not alone? There are others with you? And tell them to go away if we have our rifles. We have done nothing. We're tending our bees. They're just below the ridge above our camp. There is no one with me. I do not mean that others are watching you now, but that others know that you come down out of the hills with something each Friday night they want to find out what it is you bring. There was a rustling in the brush behind her and she turned to see a man emerge carrying a rifle ready in his hands. He was a Mexican, Swarovian ill-favored, his face pitted by smallpox. Almost immediately two other men stepped from the brush and had other points about the camp. The three walked where Shannon sat upon her mount. All were armed and all were Mexicans. What do you know about what we bring out of the hills? Should we not bring our honey out as the pockmarked one? I know what you bring out, she said. I'm not going to expose you. I'm here to warn you. Why? I know Alan. Immediately their attitude changed. You have seen Alan? You bring a message from him? I have not seen him. I bring no message from him. But for reasons of my own, I have come to warn you not to bring down another load next Friday night. End of chapter 19. Chapter 20 of The Girl from Hollywood by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This lipbox recording is in the public domain. According by Joe De Noia, Somerset, New Jersey. The pockmarked Mexicans stepped close to Shannon and took hold of her bridal reins. You think you said in broken English we are damn fool? If you did not come from Alan, you come from no good to us. You tell us the truth, damn quick, or you never go back to tell where you find us and bring policemen here. His tone was ugly and his manner threatening. There was no harm in telling these men the truth, though it was doubtful whether they would believe her. She realized that she was in a predicament from which it might not be easy to extricate herself. She had told him that she was alone, and if they suspected her motives, they might easily do away with her. She knew how lightly the criminal messed in esteem's life, especially the life of a hated gringo. I have come to warn you because a friend of mine is going to watch you next Friday night. He does not know who you are or what you bring out of the hills. I do, and so I know that rather than be caught, you might kill him, and I do not want him killed. That is all. How do you know what we bring out of the hills? Alan told me. Alan told you? I do not believe you. Do you know where Alan is? He is in jail in Los Angeles. I heard him telling a man in Los Angeles last July. Who is this friend of yours that is going to watch for us? Mr. Pennington, you have told him about us? I have told you that he knows nothing about you. All he knows is that someone comes down with burrows from the hills, and they cut his fence last Friday night. He wants to catch you and find out what you were doing. Why have you not told him? She hesitated. That can make no difference, she said presently. It makes a difference to us. I told you to tell the truth, or the Mexican raised his rifle that she might guess the rest. I did not want to have to explain how I knew about you. I did not want Mr. Pennington to know that I knew such a man as Alan. How did you know Alan? That has nothing to do with it at all. I have warned you that you can take steps to avoid discovery and capture. I shall tell no one else about you. Now let me go. She gathered baldi and tried to rain her about, but the man clunked at her bridal. Not so much of a hurry, senorita. Unless I know how Alan told you so much, I cannot believe that he told you anything. The police have many ways of learning things. Sometimes they use women. If you are a friend to Alan, all right. If you are not, you know too damn much to be very good for your health. You'd better tell me all the truth or you shall not ride away from here, ever. Very well, she said. I met Alan in the house in Hollywood where he sold his snow, and I heard him telling the man there how you disposed of the whiskey that was stolen in New York, brought her to the coast in the ship and hidden in the mountains. What is the name of the man and whose house you met Alan? Crumb. The man raised his heavy brows. How long since you've been there in the house in Hollywood? Not since the last of July. I left the house the same time Alan did. You know how Alan he'd get in jail? The Mexican asked. The girl sold a new suspicion and been aroused in the man, and she judged that the safer plan was to be perfectly frank. I do not know, for I have not either seen Crumb nor Alan since. When I read in the paper that he had been arrested that night, I guess that Crumb had done it. I heard Crumb asked him to deliver some snow to a man in Hollywood. I know that Crumb is a bad man, and he was trying to steal your share of the money from Alan. The man thought in silence for several minutes, the lines of his heavy face evidencing the travail with which some new idea was being born. Presently he looked up, the light of cunning gleaming in his evil eyes. You go now, he said. I know you. Alan told me about you a long time ago. You Crumb's woman, and your name is Gaza. You will not tell anything about us to your rich friends, the penitents. You bet you won't. The Mexican laughed loudly, winging at his companions. Shadding could feel the burning flush that suffused her face. She closed her eyes in what was almost physical pain, so terrible that the humiliation tortured her pride, and then the nausea of disgust. The man had dropped her reins, and she wheeled Baldy about. You will not come Friday night, she asked, wishing some assurance that her sacrifice had not been entirely unveiling. Mr. Pennington would not find us for any night, and so he will not be shot. She rode away then, but there was a vague suspicion lurking in her mind that there had been a double meeting in the man's final words. Cluster Pennington, occupied in the office for a couple of hours after lunch, had just come out of the house and was standing on the brow of the hill looking out over the ranch toward the mountains. His gaze, wandering idly at first, was suddenly riveted upon a tiny speck moving downward from the mouth of the distant ravine, a moving speck which he recognized, even at that distance, to be a horseman, where no horseman should have been. For a moment he watched it, and then, returning to the house, he brought out a pair of binoculars. Now the speck had disappeared, but he knew that it was way down in the bottom of the basin, hidden by the ridge above Jackknife Canyon, and he waited for the time when it would reappear on the crest. For five, ten, fifteen minutes he watched the spot where the rider should come to view once more. Then he saw a movement in the brush and leveled his glasses upon the spot, following the half-seen figure until it emerged into a space clear of the chaperone. Now they were clearly revealed by the powerful lenses, the horse and its rider, Baldi and Shannon. Pennington dropped his glasses at its side, a puzzled expression on his face, and he tried to find some explanation of the fast the binoculars had revealed. From time to time he caught glimpses of her again as she rode down the canyon. But when, after a considerable time, she did not emerge upon the road leading to the house, he guessed that she had crossed over El Camino Cordo. Why she should do this, he could not even conjecture. It was entirely out of her way and a hilly trail, while the other was a wagon road leading almost directly from Sycamore to her house. Presently he walked around the house to the north side of the hill, where he had a view of the valley spreading to the east and west and the north. Toward the west he could see the road that ran above the evidence's house, all the way to Horse Camp Canyon. He did not know why he stood there watching for Shannon. It was none of his affair where she rode or went. It seemed strange though that she would have ridden alone into those hills after having refused to ride with him. It surprised him and troubled him too, for it was the first suggestion that Shannon could commit even the most trivial acts of underhandedness. After a while he saw her emerge from Horse Camp Canyon and follow the road to her own place. Custer ran his fingers through his hair in perplexity. He was troubled, not only because Shannon had ridden without him, after telling him that he could not ride that afternoon, but also because of the direction in which he had ridden, the trail of which he had told her that he thought it led to the solution of the mystery of the nocturnal traffic. He had told her that he would not ride it before Saturday, for fear of arousing the suspicion of the men he wished to surprise in whatever activity they might be engaged upon. Within a few hours she had ridden deliberately up into the mountains on that very trail. The more Custer considered the matter, the more perplexed he became. At last he gave it up in sheer disgust. Doubtless Shannon would tell him all about it when he called for her later in the afternoon. He tried to forget it, but the whole thing would not be forgotten. Several times he realized, was surprised that he was heard because she had ridden without him. He tried to argue that he was not heard, that it made no difference to him, that she had a perfect right to ride with or without him as she saw fit, and that he did not care straw one way or the other. No, it was not that that was troubling him, it was something else. He didn't know what it was, but a drink would straighten it out, so he took a drink. He realized that it was the first he had in a week, and almost decided not to take it, but he changed his mind. After that he took several more without bothering his conscious to any appreciable extent. When his conscious showed signs of life, he reasoned it back with Inaki's desperateude by the unanswerable argument. What's the use? By the time he left to call for Shannon, he was miserably happy and happily miserable. Yet he showed no outward sign that he had been drinking, unless it was that he swung the roadster around the curves of the driveway leading down the hill a bit more rapidly than usual. Shannon was ready and waiting for him. She came out to the car with a smile, a smile that hit a sad and frightened heart, and he greeted her with another that equally belied his inward feelings. As they rode up to the castle on the hill, he gave her every opportunity to mention and explain her ride, principally by long silences, though never by any outward indication that he thought that she ought to explain. If she did not care to have him know about it, she would never know from him what he already knew, but the canker of suspicion was already gnawing at his heart, and he was realizing, perhaps for the first time, how very desirable this new friendship had grown to be. Again and again, he insisted to himself that what she had done made no difference, that she must have had some excellent reason. Perhaps she had just wanted to be alone. He often had experienced a similar longing. Even when Grace had been there, he had occasionally wanted to ride off into the hills with nothing but his own thoughts for company. He had argued, as he would, the fact remained that it had made a difference, and that he was considering Shannon now in a new light. Just what the changed man he probably could not have satisfactorily explained had he tried, but he did not try. He knew that there was a difference, and that his heart ached, and that it should not ache. They made him angry with himself, with the result that he went to his room and had another drink. Shannon, too, felt a difference. She had thought that it was her own guilty conscience, though why she should feel guilty for having risked so much for his sake, she did not know. Instinctively, she was honest, and so did deceive one whom she loved, even for a good purpose, troubled her. Something else troubled her, too. She knew the custard had been drinking again, and she recalled what he had said to her that morning, of the help she had bent to him in getting away from this habit. She knew too well herself what it meant to fight for freedom from a subtle vice. She had been glad to have been instrumental in aiding him. She had had to fight her own battle alone. She had not wanted to face a similar ordeal. She wondered why he had been drinking that afternoon. Could it have been that she had not been able to ride with him, and thus left alone, he had reverted to the old habit? The girl reproached herself, even though she felt, after her interview with the Mascons, she had undoubtedly saved Custer's life. The Evans' mother and son were also at the Pennington's for dinner that night. Shannon had noticed that it was with decreasing frequency that Grace's name was mentioned of late. She knew the reason. Letters had become fewer and fewer from the absent girl. She had practically ceased writing to Custer. Her letters to Mrs. Evans were no longer read to the Pennington's, but they were crept into them a new and unpleasant tone that was as foreign as possible to the girl who had gone away months before. They showed a certain carelessness and lack of consideration that had pained them all. They always asked after the absent girl, but her present life and her career were no longer discussed since the subject brought nothing but sorrow to them all. That she had been disemported and disillusioned seemed probable since she had obtained only a few minor parts in mediocre pictures, and now she no longer mentioned her ambition and scarcely ever wrote of her work. At dinner that night, Ava was unusually quiet until the colonel, noticing it, as if she was ill. There, she cried, you all make life miserable for me because I talk too much, and then when I give you a rest, you ask if I am ill. What shall I do? If I talk, I pain you. If I fail to talk, I pain you. If you must know, I am too thrilled to talk just now. I am going to be married. All alone, inquired Custer. A sickly, purplish hue, threatening crimson complications crept from behind Guy's collar and enveloped his entire head. He reached for his water goblet and ran the handle of his fork up his sleeve. The ensuing disentanglement added nothing to his equanimity, though it all but overturned the goblet. Custer was eyeing him with a serific expression that boated ill. What's the matter, Guy? Measles? He asked with a beatific smile. Guy grinned shapelessly and was about to venture an explanation when Ava interrupted her. The others at the table were watching the two with amused smiles. You see, Momzie, said Ava, addressing her mother. Guy has sold a story. He got a thousand dollars for it, a thousand. Oh, not a thousand, expotulated Guy. Well, it was nearly a thousand. If it had been three hundred dollars more, it would have been. And so now that our future is assured, we're going to get married. I hadn't intended to mention it until Guy had talked with Popsy, but this will very much be nicer and easier for Guy. Guy looked up appealingly at the Colonel. You see, sir, I was something to key you. I mean, I was… You see what it's going to mean to have another author in the family, said Custer. He's going to talk away above our heads. We won't know what he's talking about half the time. I don't know. Do you, Guy? For pretty sake, Custer, leave the boy alone, laughed Mrs. Pennington. You're enough to rattle a stone image. And now, Guy, you know you don't have to feel embarrassed. We have all grown accustomed to the idea that you and Ava would marry. So it is no surprise. It makes us very happy. Thank you, Mrs. Pennington, said the boy. It wasn't that it was hard to tell you. It was the way Ava wanted me to do it, like a book. I was supposed to come and ask the Colonel for her hand in a very formal manner, and it made me feel foolish the more I thought of it. And I'd been thinking about it all day. So, you see, when Ava blurted it out, I thought of my silly speech, and I… It wasn't a silly speech, you know what Ava? It was simple, metagorgeristic. You thought so yourself when you made Bruce Bellingham ask Hortense's father for her. Mr. Leclerc said, squaring his manly shoulders, it is with the motions of deepest solemnity and the full realization of my unworthiness that I approach you upon this beautiful day in May. Oh, for heaven's sake, Ava, please, beg Guy. They were all laughing now, including Ava and Guy. The tears were rolling down Custer's cheeks. That editor was guilty of grand larceny when he offered you 700 berries for the story. Why? The gem alone is worth a thousand. Adieu, Mark Twain. Farewell, Bill Nye. You've got them all nailed to the post, Guy Thackeray. The Colonel wept his eyes. I gather, he said, that you two children wish to get married. Do I surmise correctly? Oh, Popsie, you're just wonderful, exclaimed Ava. Yes, how did you guess it, Father? asked Custer. Marvelous deductive faculties in the old gentleman. I'll say. That will be about all from you, Custer, admonished the Colonel. Any time that I let a chance like this slip return young Penitent, do you think I'd have forgotten how these two imps pestered the life out of Grace and me a few short years ago? Nay, nay. I don't blame Custer a bit, said Mrs. Evans. Guy and Ava certainly did make life miserable for him and Grace. That part of it is all right. It is Guy's affair and Ava's. But did you hear him refer to me as old gentleman? They all laughed. But you are a gentleman, insisted Custer. The Colonel, as I swinkling, turned to Mrs. Evans. Times have changed, May, since we were children. Imagine speaking thus to our fathers. I'm glad they have changed, Custer. It's terrible to see children afraid of their parents. It has driven so many of them away from their home. No danger of that here, said the Colonel. If it's more likely to be the other way around, suggested Mrs. Penitent, in the future we may hear our parents leaving home because of the exacting tyranny of their children. My children shall be brought up properly, announced Ava, with proper respect for their elders. Guided by the shining example of their mother, said Custer. And their Uncle QD, she retorted. Come now, interrupted the Colonel. Let's hear something about your plans. When are you going to be married? Yes, offered Custer. Now that the $700 is assured their future, there's no reason why they shouldn't be married at once and take a suite at the ambassador. I understand they're as low as $3,500 a month. Oh, I have more than the $700, said Guy. I've been saving up for a long time. Well, plenty to start with. Shannon noticed that he flushed just a little as he made the statement, and as she alone knew why he flushed, it was too bad that Custer's little sister should start her married life on money of that sort. Shannon felt that at heart Guy was a good boy, that he must have been led into this traffic originally without any adequate realization of its criminality. Her own misfortune had made her generously ready to seek excuses for wrongdoing in others. But she dreaded to think what it was going to mean to Ava and the other Penitents, if ever the truth came known. From her knowledge of the sort of man with whom Guy was involved, she was inclined to believe that the menace of exposure or blackmail would hang over him for many years, even if the former did not materialize in the near future. For she was confident that if his confederates were discovered by the authorities, they would immediately involve him and would try to put the full burden of responsibility upon his shoulders. I don't want the financial end of matrimony to worry either of you, the colonel was saying, Guy has chosen a profession in which he may require years of effort to produce substantial returns. While I shall ask of my husband's daughter, is that he shall honestly apply himself to his work. If you do your best, Guy, you will succeed, and in the meantime, I'll take care of the finances. But we don't want it that way, said Ava. We don't want to live on charity. Do you think that what I'd give my little girl would be given in the spirit of charity, the colonel asked? Oh Popsie, I know you wouldn't feel that it was, but can't you see how Guy would feel? I want him to be independent. I'd rather get along with a little and feel that he had earned it all. It may take a long time, Ava, said Custer, and in the meantime, the best part of your lives would be spending worrying and scrimping. I know how you feel, but there's a way around it that has the backing of established business methods. Let Father finance Guy's writing ability, just as inventive genius is sometimes financed. When Guy succeeds, he could pay back with interest. What a dapper little thought, exclaimed the girl. That would fix everything, wouldn't it? You radiant man. End of Chapter 20. Chapter 21 of The Girl from Hollywood by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This liberal fox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Joe DeNoya, Somerset, New Jersey. On the following Monday, a pockmarked Mexican appeared at the county jail in Los Angeles during visiting hours and asked to be permitted to see Slick Allen. The two stood in a corner and conversed in whispers. Allen's face wore an ugly scowl when his visitor told him of the young Pennington's interference with their plans. It's getting too hot for us around there, said Allen. We gotta move. How much junk he got left? About 60 cases of booze. We got rid of nearly 300 cases on the coast side without sending them through Evans. There isn't much of the other junk left. A couple pounds altogether at the outside. We gotta lose the last of the booze, said Allen, but we'll get our money's worth out of it. Now you listen, and you listen carefully, Bartolo. He proceeded very carefully and explicitly to explain the details of the plan, which brought a grin of sinister amusement to the face of the Mexican. It was not an entirely new plan, but rather an elaboration and improvement of the one that Allen had conceived some time before in the event of a contingency similar to that which had now arisen. And what about the girl, asked Bartolo? She should pay well to keep the Pennington's from knowing. Leave her to me, replied Allen. I shall not be in jail forever. During the ensuing days of that late September week, when Shannon and Custer rode together, there was a certain constraint in their relations that was new and depressing. The girl was apprehensive of the outcome of his adventure on the rapidly approaching Friday, while he could not rid himself of the haunting memory of her solitary and clandestine ride over the mysterious trail which led into the mountains. They troubled him that she should have kept the thing a secret, and they troubled him that he should care. What difference could it make to him where Shannon Burke rode? He asked himself that question a hundred times, but though he always answered that it could make no difference, he knew perfectly well that it had made a difference. He often found himself studying her face as if he could find the air and answer to his question or a refutation of the suspicion of trickery and deceit which had arisen in his mind and would not down. What a beautiful face it was, not despite its irregular features, but because of them and because of the character and individuality they imparted to her appearance. Custer could not look upon that face and doubt her. Several times she caught him in the act of scrutinizing her thus, and she wondered at it, for in the past he had never appeared to be consciously studying her. She was aware, too, that he was troubled about something. She wished that she might ask him, that she might invite his confidence, for she knew the pain of unshared sorrows. But he gave her no opening, so he rode together, often in silence. And though his stirrups touched many a time, yet constantly they rode further and further apart, just because Chance had brought Custer Pennington from the office that Saturday afternoon to look out over the southern hills at the moment when Shannon had ridden down the trail into the meadow above Jackknife Canyon. At last Friday came, neither have reverted since the previous Saturday, to the subject that was uppermost in the mind of each. But now Shannon cannot refrain from seeking what's more to deter Custer from his project. She had not been able to forget the sinister smile of the messkin, or to rid her mind of the intuitive conviction that the man's final statement had concealed a hidden threat. They were parting at the fork of the road. She had hesitated until the last moment. You still intend to try to catch those men tonight, she asked? Yes, why? I hope you would give it up. I'm afraid something may happen. I, oh, please don't go, Custer. She wished that she might add, for my sake. He laughed shortly. I guess there won't be any trouble. If there is, I can take care of myself. She saw that it was useless to insist further. Let me know if everything else is right, she asked. Light the light in the big couple in the house when you get back. I can see it from my bedroom window, and then I shall know that nothing has happened. I shall be watching for it. All right, Custer promised, and they parted. He wondered why she should be so perturbed by his plans for the night. There was something peculiar about that, something that he couldn't understand or explain, except in accordance with a single hypothesis. A hypothesis which he scorned to consider, yet which rode his thoughts like the variable little old man of the sea. Had he known the truth, it would all have been quite understandable, but how is he to know that Shannon Burke loved him? When he reached the house, the ranch bookkeeper came to tell him that the Los Angeles operator had been trying to get him all afternoon. Somebody in LA wants to talk to you on an important business, said the bookkeeper. You'd call back the minute you get here. Five minutes later, he had his connection, an unfamiliar voice asked if he were the younger Mr. Pernican. I am, he replied. Someone cut your fence last Friday. You'd like to know who he is? What about it? Who are you? Never mind who I am. I was with them. They double crossed me. You want to catch them? I want to know who they are and why they cut up my fence, and why they're up there in the hills. You listen to me. You saw me jackknife canyon? Yes. Tonight they bring down the load just before dark. They do that every Friday and hide the burrows until very late. Then they come down into the valley while everyone is asleep. Tonight they hide him in jackknife. They tie him there and go away. About 10 o'clock they come back. You be there at 9 o'clock and you catch them when they come back. Sobby? How many of them are there? Only two. You don't have to be afraid. They don't pack no guns. You take gun and you catch them all alone. But how do I know that you're not stringing me? You listen. They double cross me. I get even. You don't want to catch them? I don't care. That's all. Goodbye. Custer turned away from the phone, running his fingers through his hair in a charismatic gesture, signifying perplexity. What should he do? The message sounded rather fishy, he thought, but it would do no harm to have a look in the jackknife canyon around 9 o'clock. If he was being tricked, the worst he could fear was that they had taken this method of learning the jackknife while they brought the loaded burrows down from the hills by some other route. If they had done that, it was very clever of them, but it would not be full at the second time. Custer Pennington didn't care to be laughed at, and so, if he was going to be hoaxed that night, he had no intention of having a witness to his idiocy. For that reason, he did not take Jake with him, but rode alone up Sycamore when all the inmates of the castle of the hill fought him in bed and asleep. It was a clear night. Objects were plainly discernible at short distances, and when he passed the horse pasture, he saw the dim bulks of the brooding mares a hundred yards away. A coyote voiced its uncanny cry from a near hill. An owl hooded dismally from a distance, but these sounds, rather than depressing him, had the opposite effect, for they were of the voices of the knights that he had known and loved since childhood. When he turned into the jackknife, he reigned the Apache Inn and sat for a moment listening. From farther up the canyon, out of sight, there came the shadow of his sound. That would be the tethered burrows he thought if the whole thing was not a trick, but he was certain that he heard the sound of something moving there. He rode on again, but he took the precaution of loosening his gun in its holster. There was, of course, the bare possibility of a sinister motive behind the message he had received. As he thought of it now, it occurred to him that his informant was perhaps a trifle too insistent in assuring that it was safe to come up there alone. Well, the man had put it over cleverly, if that had been his intent. Now Custer saw a dark mask beneath a sycamore. He rode directly toward it, and another moment he saw that it represented half a dozen laden burrows tethered to a tree. He moved the Apache close in to examine them. There was no sign of men about. He examined the packs, leaning over and feeling one. What they contained he could not guess, but it was not firewood. They evidently consisted of six wooden boxes to each burrow, three on a side. He reigned the Apache in behind the burrows in the darkness of the tree shape, and there he waited for the coming of the men. He did not like the look of things at all. What could those boxes contain? There was no legitimate traffic through or out of these hills that can explain the weekly trip of this little pack train, and if the men in charge of it were employed in any illegitimate traffic, they would not be surrendering to a lone man as meekly as his informant had suggested. The days of smuggling through the hills from the ocean was over, or at least Custard had thought it was over. But this thing commenced to look like a recurdescence of the old-time commerce. As he sat there waiting, he had ample time to think. He speculated upon the identity and the purpose of the mysterious informant who had called him up from Los Angeles. He speculated again upon the contents of the packs. He recalled the whiskey that Guy had sold him from time to time, and wondered if the packs might not contain liquor. He had gathered from Guy that his supply came from Los Angeles, and he had never given the matter a second thought. But now he recalled the fact and concluded that if this was whiskey, it was not from the same source as Guy's. All the time he kept thinking of Shannon and her mysterious excursion into the hills. He recalled her anxiety to prevent him from coming up here tonight, and he tried to find reasonable explanations for it. Of course, it was the obvious explanation that did not occur to him, but several did occur that he tried to put from his mind. Then from the mouth of Jackknife he heard the sound of horse's hooves. The Apache pricked up its ears, and Custer leaned forward and laid a hand upon his nostrils. Quiet boy he admonished in a low whisper. The sound approached slowly, halting occasionally. Presently, two horsemen rode directly past him on the far side of the canyon. They rode at a brisk trot. Apparently they did not see the pack train, or, if they saw it, they paid no attention to it. They disappeared in the darkness, and the sound of their horse's hooves ceased. Pennington knew that they had halted. Who could they be? Certainly not the drivers of the pack train, else they would have stopped with the burrows. He listened intently. Presently he heard horses walking slowly toward him from up the canyon. The two who had passed were coming back, stealthily. I sure have got myself into a pretty trap he slowly acquiesced a moment later, when he heard the movements of the mountain men in the canyon below him. He drew his gun and sat waiting. It was not long that he had to wait, a voice coming from the short distance down the canyon addressed him. Right out into the open hole up your hands it said, we got you surrounded and covered. If you make a break, we'll bore you. Come on now, step lively, and keep your hands up. Who was the voice of an American? Who in thunder are you? demanded Pennington. I am a United States Marshal, was the quick reply. Pennington laughed. There was something convincing in the very tone of the man's voice, possibly because Custer had been expecting to meet Mexicans. Here was a hoax indeed, but evidently as much on the newcomers as on himself. They had expected to find a lawbreaker. They would doubtless be angry when they discovered that they had been duped. Custer wrote slowly out from beneath the tree. Hold up your hands, Mr. Pennington, snapped the Marshal. Custer Pennington was nonplussed. They knew who he was, and yet they demanded that he should hold up his hands like a common criminal. Hold on there, he cried. What's the joke? If you know who I am, what do you want me to hold up my hands for? How do I know you're a Marshal? You don't know it, but I know that you're armed and that you're in a mighty bad hole. I don't know what you might do, and I ain't taking no chances, so stick them up and do it quick. If anybody's gonna get bored around here, it'll be you, and not none of my men. You're a damned fool, said Pennington succinctly, but he held up his hands before his shoulders, as he had been directed. Five men rode from the shadows and surrounded him, one of them dismounted and disarmed him. He lowered his hands and looked about at them. Would you mind, he said, showing me your authority for this, and telling me what in the hell it's all about? One of the men threw back his coat, revealing a silver shield. That's my authority, he said. That and the goods we got on you. What goods? Well, we expected to get them when we examined these packs. Look here, said Custer, you're all wrong. I have nothing to do with that pack trainer or what it's packing. I came up here to catch the fellas who've been bringing it down through Ganado every Friday night and who cut our fence last week. I don't know any more about what's in those packs than you do, evidently not as much. That's all right, Mr. Pennington. You'll probably get a chance to tell all that to a jury. We've been laying for you since last spring. We didn't know it was you until one of your gangs squealed, but we knew that this stuff was somewhere in the hills above LA, and we aim to get it and you sooner or later. Me? Well, not you particularly, but whoever was bootlegging it. To tell you the truth, I'm plum surprised to find who it is. I fought all along with some gang of cheap greasers, but it don't make no difference who it is to your Uncle Sam. You said someone told you it was I, asked Custer. Sure, how else would we know it? It don't pay to double cross your pals, Mr. Pennington. What are you going to do with me, he asked. We're going to take you back to LA and get you held by the federal grand jury. Tonight? We're going to take you back tonight. Can I stop at the house first? No, we've got a warrant to search the place, and we're going to leave a couple of my men here to do it the first thing in the morning. I got an idea you ain't the only one around here that knows something about this business. As they talked, one of the deputies had taken a case from the pack and opened it. Look here, he called. It's it, all right. It's what, asked Custer. Oh, Peruna, of course, replied the deputy facetiously. What did you think it was? I hope you never thought that none of that hooch stolen from a government-ported warehouse in New York. The others laughed at his joke. It's too bad, said the Marshal, not at all, unkindly, for decent young folk like you to get mixed up in a nasty business like this. I agree with you, said Pennington. His mind traveled like lightning, flashing a picture of Shannon Burke riding out of the hills and across the meadows above Jackknife Canyon, of her inquiry that very afternoon as to whether he was coming up here tonight. Had she really wished to dissuade him, or had she only desired to make sure of his intentions? The light would not shine from the big copula tonight. What message would the darkness carry to Shannon Burke? End of chapter 21. Chapter 22 of The Girl from Hollywood by Edgar Rice-Barrows. This liberal box recording is in the public domain, recorded by Joe DeNoya, Somerset, New Jersey. They took Custer down to the village of Ganado, where they had left their cars and obtained horses. Here they left the animals, including the Apache, with instructions that he should be returned to the Rancho del Ganado in the morning. The inhabitants of the village, almost to a man, had grown up in neighborly friendship with the Penningtons. When he, from whom the officers had obtained their mouths, discovered the identity of the prisoner, the surprise was exceeded only by his anger. If I had known who you was after, he said, you'd never gotten no horses from me. I'd have hamstrung them first. I'd have known Cust Pennington since he was knee-high to a grasshopper, and whatever you took him for, he'd never done it. Wait till the colonel hears of this. You won't have no more job than a jackrabbit. The Marshal turned threateningly toward the speaker. Shut up, he advised. If Colonel Pennington hears of this before morning, you wish to god you was a jackrabbit, and can get out of the country in two jumps. Now you get what I'm telling you? You're to keep your trap closed until morning. Hear me? I ain't deaf, but sometimes I'm a little might dumb. The last he added in a low sight to Pennington, accompanying it with a wink, and a loud, I'm mighty sorry, Cust, mighty sorry, if I'd only known it was you. By gosh, I'll never get over this, furnishing horses to help arrest a friend, and a Pennington. Don't worry about that for a minute, Jim. I haven't done anything. It's just a big mistake. The officers in their prison that were in the car ready to start. The Marshal pointed a finger at Jim. Don't forget what I told you about keeping your mouth shut until morning, he admonished. They drove off towards Los Angeles. Jim watched them for a moment as the red tail light diminished in the distance. They turned into the officer that was feed barn and took a telephone receiver from its hook. Give me guanado number one, he said to the sleeping night operator. It was five minutes before continuous ringing brought the Colonel to the extension telephone in his bedroom. He seemed unable to comprehend the meaning of what Jim was trying to tell him. So sure was he that Custer was in bed and asleep in a nearby room. But at last he was half convinced for he had known Jim for many years and well knew his stability and his friendship. If it was anybody but you Jim, I'd say you were a damn liar. He commented in characteristic manner. What in hell did they take my boy for? They wouldn't say just as I told them. I don't know what he'd done, but I know he never done it. You're right, Jim. My boy couldn't be a crooked thing. It's just like you, Colonel. I know there ain't a crooked hair in Cuspannington's head. Is there anything I can do, Colonel? You just let me know. You bring the Apache up in the morning. Thank you again, Jim and goodbye. He hung up the receiver. While he dressed hastily, he explained to his wife the purport of the message he had just received. What are you going to do, Custer, she asked. I'm going to Los Angeles, Julia, unless that Marshal is driving a racing car. I'll be waiting for him when he gets there. Shortly before breakfast, the following morning, two officers armed with a warring searched the castle on the hill. In Custer Pannington's closet, they found something which seemed to fill in with elation. Two full bottles of whiskey and an empty bottle, each bearing a label identical with those of the bottles they found in the cases borne by the boroughs. With this evidence and a laden pack train, they started off toward the village. Shannon Burke had put in an almost sleepless night. For hours, she had lain watching the black silhouette of the big couple against the clear sky, waiting for the light which would announce that Custer had returned home in safety. But no light had shown to relieve her anxiety. She had strained her ears through the long hours of the night for the sound of shooting from the hills. But only the howling of coyotes and the hooting of owls had disturbed the long sounds. She sought to assure herself that all was well, that Custer had returned and forgotten a switch on the couple of light, that he had not forgotten, but that the bull was burned out. She manufactured probable and improbable explanations by the score. But always a disturbing premonition of evil dispersed the cohorts of hope. She was up early in the morning in the saddle at the first streak of dawn, riding directly to the stables of the Rancho Don Donato. The stableman was here, saddling horses while he fed. No one has come down yet, she asked. The Apache's gone, he replied. I don't understand it. He hasn't been in the box all night. I was just thinking of going up to the house to see if Custer was there. Don't seem likely he'll be riding all night, does it? No, she said. Her heart was in her mouth. She could scarcely speak. I'll ride up for you, she managed to say. Willing Baldy, she put him up the steep hill to the house. The iron gate that closed the patio arch at night was still down, so she rode around to the north side of the house, and cuhooed to attract the attention of someone within. Mrs. Pennington, followed by Eva, came to the door. Both were fully dressed. When they saw who it was, they came out and told Shannon what had happened. He was not injured then. The sudden sense of relief left her weak, and for a moment she did not consider the other danger that confronted him. He was safe. That was all she cared about just then. Later, she commenced to realize the gravity of his situation and the innocent part that she had taken in involving him in the Toils of the Scheme, which her interference must have suggested to those actually responsible for the traffic and stolen liquor, the guilt of which that had now cleverly shifted to the shoulders of an innocent man. Intuitively, she guessed Slick Down's part in the unhappy Contrata of the previous night, for she knew of the threats that he had made against Custer Pennington, and of his complicity in the criminal operations of the bootleggers. How much she knew? More than any other, she knew all the details of the whole tragic affair. She alone could untangle the knotted web, and yet she dared not until there was no other way. She dared not let them guess that she knew more of the matter than they. She could not admit such knowledge without revealing the source of it and exposing herself to the merited contempt of those people who was high regarded to become her obsession, whose friendship was her sole happiness, and the love that she had conceived for one of them in the secret altar at which she worshipped. In the last extremity, if there was no alternative, she would sacrifice everything for him. To that, her love committed her, but she would wait until there was no other way. She had suffered so grievously through no fault of her own that she clung with desperation to the brief happiness which had come into her life, and which was now threatened, once again, because of no wrongdoing on her part. Fate had been consistently unkind to her. Was it fair that she should suffer away for the wickedness of another? She had at least the right to hope and wait. But there was something that she could do. When she turned Baldy down the hill from the Penningtons, she took the road home that led past the Evans' ranch, and, turning in, dismounted and tied Baldy at the fence. Her knock was answered by Mrs. Evans. Is Guy here, asked Shannon? Hearing her voice, Guy came from his room, drawing on his coat. You're getting as bad as the Penningtons, he said, laughing. They have no respect for Christian hours. Something has happened, she said, that I thought you should know about. Custer was arrested last night by government officers and taken to Los Angeles. He was out on the Apache at the time. No one seems to know where he was arrested or why, but the supposition is that they found him in the hills, for the man who runs the feed barn in the village. Jim told the colonel that the officers got horses from him and rode up towards the ranch, and that it was a couple hours later that they brought Custer back on the Apache. The stable man just told me that the Apache had not been in his stall all night, and I know. Custer told me not to tell, but it makes no difference now that he was going up in the hills last night to try to catch the men who have been bringing down loads of burrows every Friday night for a long time, and who cut his fence last Friday. She looked straight into Guy's eyes as she spoke, but he dropped his as a flushed man in his cheeks. I thought, she continued, that Guy might want to go to Los Angeles and see if he could help Custer in any way. The colonel went last night. I'll go now, said Guy. I guess I can help him. His voice was suddenly weary, for he turned away with an air of dejection, which assured Shannon that he intended to do the only honorable thing that he could do, assume the guilt that had been thrown upon Custer's shoulders, no matter what the consequences to himself. She had had little doubt that Guy would do this, for she realized his affection for Custer, as well as the impulsive generosity of his nature, which, however marred by the weakness, was still fine by instinct. Half an hour later, after a hasty breakfast, young Evans started to Los Angeles, while his mother and Shannon, standing on the porch of the bungalow, waved their goodbyes as his roasters swung through their gate into the country road. Mrs. Evans had only a vague idea as to what her son could do to assist Custer Pennington out of his difficulty, but Shannon Burke knew that Pennington's fate lay in the hands of Guy Evans, unless she chose to tell what she knew. Colonel Pennington had overtaken the Marshal's car before the latter reached Los Angeles, but after a brief parlay on the road, he had discovered that he could do nothing to alter the officer's determination to place Custer in the county jail, pending his preliminary hearing before the United States Commissioner. Neither the colonels pleaded that his son should be allowed to accompany him in the hotel for the night, nor his assurance that he should be personally responsible for the young man's appearance before the commissioner on the following morning availed to move the adorant Marshal from his stand, nor would he permit the colonel to talk with the prisoner. That was the last straw. Colonel Pennington had managed to disemble outward indications of his rising ire, but now an amused smile lighted his son's face as he realized that his father was upon the verge of an explosion. He caught the older man's eye and shook his head. It would only make it worse, he cautioned. The colonel directed a parting glare at the Marshal, muttered something about homeopathic intellects, and turned back to his roaster. End of Chapter 22. Chapter 23 of The Girl from Hollywood by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Joe De Noia, Somerset, New Jersey. During the long ride to Los Angeles, and later in his cell in the county jail, Custer Pennington had devoted many hours to seeking an explanation of the motives underlying the plan to involve him in a crime of which he had no knowledge, nor even a suspicion of the identity of his instigators. To his knowledge, he had no enemies whose hostility was sufficiently active to lead them to do him so great a wrong. He had no trouble with anyone recently other than his altercation with Slick Allen several months before. It was obvious that he had been deliberately sacrificed for some ulterior purpose. What that purpose was, he can only surmise. The most logical explanation he finally decided was that those actually responsible, realizing that discovery was imminent, had sought to divert a suspicion from themselves by fastening it upon another. That they had selected him as the victim might easily be explained on the ground that his embarrassing interest in their movements had already centered their attention upon him, while it also offered the opportunity for luring him into the trap without arousing his suspicions. It was then just a combination of circumstances that had led him into his present predicament, but they still remain unanswered one question that affected his peace of mind more considerably than all the others combined. Who had divulged to the thieves his plans for the previous night? Concurrently with that question there rose before his mind's eye a picture of Shannon Burke and Baldi as they topped the summit above Jackknife from the trail that led across the basin meadow back into the hills. He knew not where. I can't believe it was she he told himself for the hundredth time. She could not have done it. I won't believe it. She could explain it all if I can ask her, but I can't ask her. There's a great deal that I cannot understand, and the most inexplicable thing is that she could possibly have at any connection whatever with this affair. When his father came with an attorney in the morning, the son made no mention of Shannon Burke's ride into the hills, or of her anxiety when they parted in the afternoon to learn if he was going to carry out his plan for Friday night. Did anyone know of your intention to watch for these men as the attorney? No one, he replied, but they might have become suspicious from the fact that the week before I had all the gates padlocked on Friday. They had to cut the fence that night to get through. They probably figured it was going to get too hot for them, and that on the following Friday I would take some other steps to discover them. Then they made sure of it by sending me that message from Los Angeles. Gee, but I bit like the sucker. It is unfortunate remarked the attorney, that you had not discussed your plan with someone before you undertook to carry them out on Friday night. If we can thus definitely establish your motive for going alone into the hills, and to the very spot where you would discover it with the pack train, I think it would go much further towards convincing the court that you were there without any criminal intent than your own unsupported testimony to that effect. But haven't you his word for it, demanded the colonel? I am not the court, replied the attorney, smiling. Well, if the court isn't a damn fool, it'll know he wouldn't have padlocked the gates the week before to keep himself out, stated the colonel conclusively. The government might easily assume that he did that purposely to divert suspicion from himself. At least it is no proof of innocence. Colonel Pennington snorted. The best thing to do now, said the attorney, is to see if we can get an immediate hearing and arrange for bail in case he is held to the grand jury. I'll go with you, said the colonel. They had been gone about a short time when Guy Evans was admitted to the Custer's cell. The latter looked up and smiled when he saw who the visitor was. It was bully of you to come, he said, bringing condolences or looking for material, old thing. Don't joke, cuss, exclaimed Evans. It's too rotten to joke about, and it's all my fault. Your fault? I am the guilty one. I've come down and give myself up. Guilty? Give yourself up? What are you talking about? God, cuss, I hate to tell you. It didn't seem such an awful thing to do until this happened. Everyone's buying booze, or selling booze, or making booze. Everyone's breaking the damned old 18th Amendment, and it's got so it don't seem like committing a crime or anything like that. You know, cuss, that I wouldn't do anything criminal, and oh God, what'll Ava think? Guy covered his face with his hands and choked back us up. Just what the devil are you talking about, inquired Pennington? Do you mean to tell me that you've been mixed up in? Well, what do you know about that? A sudden light had dawned upon Custer's understanding. That hooch you've been getting me, that I joked you about, it was really the stuff that was stolen from a bonded warehouse in New York. It wasn't any joke at all. You can see for yourself how much of a joke it was, replied Evans. I'll admit, returned Custer roofily, that it does require a considerable of a sense of humor to see it in this joint. What do you suppose they'll do to me, ass guy? Do you suppose they'll send me to the penitentiary? Tell me the whole thing from the beginning. Who got you into it, and just what you've done? Don't omit a thing no matter how much it incriminates you. I don't need to tell you, old man, that I'm for you, no matter what you've done. I know that cuss, but I'm afraid no one can help me. I'm in for it. I knew it was stolen from the start. I've been selling it since last May, 7,776 quarts of it, and I made a dollar in every quart. It was what I was going to start housekeeping on. Poor little Ava. Again, Asab half choked him. It was Slick Allen that started me. First he sold me some, then he got me to sell you a bottle and bring in the money. Then he had me, or at least he made me think so, and he insisted on my handling it for them out in the valley. It wasn't hard to persuade me, for it looked safe, and it didn't seem like such a rotten thing to do, and I wanted the money the worst way. I know they're all bum excuses. I shan't make any excuses. I'll take my medicine. But it's when I think of Ava that it hurts. It's only Ava that counts. Yes, said Penitent, laying his hand affectionately on the other's shoulder. It is only Ava who counts. And because of Ava, and because you and I love her so much, you cannot go to the penitentiary. What do you mean, cannot go? Have you told anyone else what you have just told me? No. Don't. Go back home and keep your mouth shut, said Guster. You mean that you will take a chance of going up for what I did? Nothing doing. Do you suppose I'd let you cuss? The best friend I've gotten in the world go to the pen for me for something I did? It's not for you, Guy. I wouldn't go to the pen for you or any other man, but I go to the pen for Ava, and so would you. I know it, but I can't let you do it. I'm not rotten, cuss. You and I don't count. To see her unhappy and humiliated would be worse for me than spending a few years in the penitentiary. I'm innocent. No matter if I'm convicted, I know I'm innocent. And Ava will know it. And so will all the rest of Ganado. But, Guy, they've got too much on you, if they ever suspect you, and the fact that you voluntarily admitted your guilt would convince even my little sister. If you were sent up and might ruin her life, it would ruin it. Things can never be the same for her again. But if I was sentenced for a few years, it would only be the separation from a brother whom she knew to be innocent, and a home she still had undiminished confidence. She wouldn't be humiliated. Her life wouldn't be ruined. When I came back, everything would be just as it was before. If you go, things will not be the same when you come back. They can never be the same again. You cannot go. I cannot let you go and be punished for what I did while I remain free. You've got to. It's the easiest way. You've all got to be punished for what you did. Those who love us are always punished for our sins. But let me tell you that I don't think you are going to escape punishment if I go out for this. You're going to suffer more than I. You're going to suffer more than you would if you went up yourself. But it can't be helped. The question is, are you man enough to do this for Ava? It is your sacrifice more than mine. Evan swallowed hard and tried to speak. It was a moment before he succeeded. My God, Cus, I'd rather go myself. I know you would. I can never have any self-respect again. I can never look a decent man in the face. Every time I see Ava, or your mother, or the colonel, I'll think, you dirty cur, you let their boy go to the pen for something you did. Oh, Cus, please don't ask me to do it. There must be some other way. And Cus, think of grace. We've been forgetting grace. What'll it mean to grace if you are set up? It won't mean anything to grace, and you know it. None of us mean much to grace anymore. Guy looked out of the little barred window, and tears came to his eyes. I guess you're right, he said. You're going to do it, guy, for Ava? For Ava, yes. Pennington breaded up as if a great load had been lifted from his shoulders. Good, he cried. Now, the chances are that I'll not be set up, for they've got nothing on me. They can't have. But if I am, you've got to take my place with the folks. You had your lesson. I know you'll never pull another full stunt like this again. And quit drinking, guy. I haven't much excuse for preaching, but you're the sort that can't do it. Leave it alone. Goodbye now. I'd rather you were not here when Father comes back. You might weaken. Evans took the others' hands. I envy you, cuss. On the level I do. I know it, but don't feel too bad about it. It's one of those things that's done, and it can't be undone. Roosevelt would've called what you've got to do, grasping the nettle. Grasp it like a man. Evans walked slowly from the jail, entered his car, and drove away. Of the two hearts, his was the heavier. Of the two burdens, his the more difficult to bear. Custer Pennington, appearing before United States commission that afternoon for his preliminary hearing, was held to the federal grand jury and admitted to bail. The evidence brought by the deputies who had searched the Pennington home, taken in connection with the circumstances surrounding his arrest, seemed to leave the commissioner in no alternative. Even the colonel had to admit that to himself, though he would never have admitted it to another. The case would probably come up for the grand jury on the following Wednesday. The colonel wanted to employ detectives at once to ferret out those actually responsible for the theft and bootlegging of the stolen whiskey. But Custer managed to persuade him not to do so, on the ground that it would be a waste of time and money, since the government was already engaged upon a similar pursuit. Don't worry, father, he said. They haven't a shred of evidence that I stole the whiskey, or that I have ever sold any. They found me with it. That is all. I can't be hanged for that. Let them do the worrying. I want to get home in time to eat one of Hannah's dinners. I'll say they don't set much of a table in the sheriff's boarding house. Where'd you get them three bottles they found in your room? I bought them. I asked where, not how. I might get someone else mixed up in this if I were to answer that question. I can't do it. No, said the colonel. You can't. When you buy whiskey nowadays, you are usually compounding a felony. It's certainly a rotten condition to obtain in the land of the free, but you've got to protect your accomplices. I shall not ask you again, but they'll ask you in court, my boy. All the good it'll do them. I suppose so, but I hate to see my boy sent to the penitentiary. You'd hate to be in the court and hear him divulge the name of a man who had trusted him sufficiently to sell him whiskey. I'd rather see you go to the penitentiary, the colonel said. That night, at dinner, customer made light of the charge against him, yet at the same time he prepared them for what might happen. For the proceedings before the commissioner had impressed him the gravity of this case. As had also the talk he had had with his attorney afterwards. No matter what happens, he said to them all, I shall know that you know that I am not guilty. My boy's word is all I need, replied his mother. Ava came and put her arms around him. They wouldn't send you to jail one day, she demanded. It would break my heart. Not if you knew I was innocent. No, not then, I suppose, but it would be awful. If you were guilty, it would kill me. I never want to live if my brother was convicted of a crime and was guilty of it. I'd kill myself first. Her brother drew her face down and kissed her tenderly. That would be foolish, dear, he said. No matter what one of us does, such an act would make it all the worst, for those who are left. I can't help it, she said. It isn't just because I had the honor of the Pennington's preached to me all my life. It's because it's in me, the Pennington honor. It's a part of me, just as it's a part of you, and mother, and father. It's part of the price we have to pay for being Pennington's. I've always been proud of it, Custer, even if I'm only a silly girl. I'm proud of it too, and I haven't jeopardized it. But even if I had, you mustn't think about killing yourself on my account, or on anyone else's. Well, I know you're not guilty, so I don't have to. Good. Let's talk about something pleasant. Why didn't you see Gracie while you were in Los Angeles? I tried to. I called her a boarding place from the lawyer's office. I understand the woman who answered the phone to say that she would call her, but she came back in a couple of minutes and said that Grace was out on location. Did you leave your name? I told the woman who I was when she answered the phone. I'm sorry you didn't see her, said Mrs. Pennington. I often think that Mrs. Evans or Guy should run down to Los Angeles occasionally and see Grace. That's what Shannon says, said Custer. I'll try to see her next week before I come home. Shannon was up another all afternoon waiting to hear if we received any word from you. When you telephoned you had been held to the federal grant jury, she would scarcely believe it. She said there must be some mistake. Did she say anything else? She asked whether Guy got there before you were held, and I told her that you said Guy visited you in the jail. She seemed so worried about the affair just as if she were one of the family. She is such a dear girl. I think I'd grow to love her more and more every day. Yes, said Custer, noncommittally. She asked me one rather peculiar question, Eva went on. What was that? She asked if I was sure that it was you who had been held to the grand jury. That was odd, wasn't it? She's so sure of your innocence, just as sure as we are, said Eva. Well, that's very nice of her, remarked Custer. End of Chapter 23 Chapter 24 of The Girl from Hollywood by Edgar Rice-Parrows This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recorded by Joe De Noia, Somerset, New Jersey. The next morning he saw Shannon, who came to ride with them, the Penitins, 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 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 a 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 collar. And though she smiled and greeted him happily, he thought that he detected an expression of wistfulness and the 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 shame and change 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 a sister and 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 wish to him was 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'm 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 today, I have a couple letters to write that I want to get off right away, but I'll be up between 8.30 and 9. 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 the letters. How are you going to mail them? This is Sunday. Mr. Powers is going to drive to Los Angeles today. 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 in 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 a lot of fun. Did you think I was too stupid? I was just thinking that it changed two months I've 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, so I'm writing to Berkeley and Washington for the latest boldings. 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 spent hours in the office reading Lovejoy and Colton, but I want something for ready reference. I have an idea that I can raise lots more hogs than I intended by fencing the orchard and growing off alfalfa between the rose or pasture. There's something solid and substantial about hogs that suggest that bank belts, 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 bigger or little in the valley who couldn't make more money year in and year out if he'd keep a few broods house. What's Cust doing, asked Ava, who would rain back beside them, preaching hog raising again? That's his idea of a dapper little way to entertain a girl. Hogs, hair furs, and horses? Wouldn't he make a hit in society? Regular little tea pointer, I'd 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 Ava. 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, Cust. The tears came to her eyes. I lay awake for hours last night thinking about it. Oh, Cust. 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? Would anyone be so wicked? I never hated anyone in my life, but I could hate them if they don't come forward to save you. I could hate them. Hate them. Hate them. Oh, Cust. 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 could do now is 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 a 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 the preliminary hearing and did not. The fact that she had come to rescue at the 11th hour would not excuse her in their minds of the guilt of having permitted Pennington on her 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 would 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 in 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 tomorrow and Tuesday. They would ask her for 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 sumless future. Their ride that morning was over a loved and familiar trail that led across El Camino Cordo over low hills into Horse Camp Canyon and up Horse Camp to Coyote Springs. Then over El Camino Largo to Sycamore Canyon and down beneath the old, old Sycamores to the ranch. She felt that she knew each bush and tree in Boulder, for they held for her the quiet restfulness of the familiar faces of old friends. She should miss them, but she would carry them into 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 and she urged Baldi into a canther 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 the rear of her own bungalow. A practice which gave her an opportunity to discuss each day's work in advance with her foreman, 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 those 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 turning 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's up in the camp now. He told me this yesterday. He also told me to tell you that he'd 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. And she took them over to Powers to take to the city for her. After that, she went to the telephone and called the ranch of Del Donato, asking for Custer when she got the connection. I'm terribly disappointed, she said, when he came to the telephone. I find I simply cannot ride this morning. But if he'll put it off until afternoon, why, certainly, come up to the lunch and we'll ride afterwards, he told her. You won't go then until afternoon, she asked. I'll ride over to the east pastor this morning and we'll just take a ride to any old place that you want to go in 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 pastor 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. End of Chapter 24. Chapter 25 of The Girl from Hollywood by Edgar Rice Burroughs. This liberal fox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Joe DeNoya, Somerset, New Jersey. Half an hour later, Custer Pennington swung into the saddle and headed the Apache up Sycamore Canyon. The trail to the east pastor led through Jackknife. As he passed a spot where he had been arrested on the previous Friday night, the man made a rye phase. More at the recollection of the ease with which he had been duped than because of the fact of his arrest. Being free of any sense of guilt, he can 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 disappointed 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. Today, too, he hoped for an explanation of a ride into the mountains the week before, so that there would no longer be 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 Canyon toward the East Pasture. As was his want, 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 when much the rider had been going. Below and to Coaster's right, the ranch buildings laid 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 further 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 Baldi 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 the 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 temp perceived and dominated him so completely that he himself was appalled by the axe it precipitated. Under its spell, a Pennington might commit murder. Now, Coaster 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 appropriate epithets and anathemas to hurl after her. This was the end. He was through with her forever. What did he know of her? What did any of them know about her? She had never mentioned to 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 whiskey 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 up the trap in which he had been caught, not the safe Guy, but to throw the suspicion of guilt upon Coaster. 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 when they 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 at his rage, though as a matter of fact she had done nothing of the sort. But anger and hate are blind, and Coaster Pennington was angry and filled with hate. Unreasoning rage consumed him. They 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 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 seek 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 today. He could not trust himself to see her, for even his anger he remembered that she was a woman, and that when he saw her, he must treat her as a woman. But she had been with whom he reached when he had 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 they looked down upon her from a high ridge behind eyes filled with hate and loathing, the eyes of the man she loved. She put Baldi up the steep trail and it so filled her with terror when she first scaled it and down upon the other side into the grove of oaks that hid in the camp. But now there was no camp there, holding 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 behind the tree, a rifle butt protruded from a boot on the right side of the saddle. He came forward as she guided Baldi toward the tree. Buenos de la signorita, he greeted her, twisting his pockmarked 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 hooch 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 messkin. Or I tell about Crumb. You Crumb's woman. I tell how you pedal dope. I know. You do what I tell you and you go to the pen, sobby. 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 messkin. And then he laughed aloud. You'll 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're going to find some way to clear Mr. Penitent into the charge against him. I don't care what the way is, as 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. Penitent's innocence. Is that all, inquired Bartolo? Gritting 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 Alan, 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? Alan would testify too, and they would make crumb calm and tell how you live 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 Alan 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 Alan 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. Alan 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 killed one named Gratio. How would you like me to tell that to the grand jury? You'd never tell that to no one, grout the Mexican. You know too damn much for your health. It stepped suddenly forward and seized her wrist. She struck with 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, leapt 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'd know too damn much, repeated Bartolo. You'd better off up here alongside Gratio. 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'd have been all right. But now, he shrugged suggestively. You'd better off up here beside Gratio. 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's my son. I wrote a note and left it on 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 tonight, after I get through with you. The ground pretty hard after the hot weather. It took me a long time to dig a hole beside Gratio. The girl was at her wit's 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 ending recourse to any power other than her wits, and in the first effort along the 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 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 appraising her boldly. You damn good-looking, he said, and pulled the girl toward him. Before I kill you, I gave through an arm about her roughly, and, leaning far over her as she pulled away, he sought to reach her lips with his. End of Chapter 25