The pock-marked Mexican stepped close to Shannon and took hold of her bridle reins.

“You think,” he said in broken English, “we are damn fool? If you do not come from Allen, you come for 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 them that she was alone, and if they suspected her motives they might easily do away with her. She knew how lightly the criminal Mexican esteems life—especially the life of the hated gringo.

“I have come to warn you because a friend of mine is going to watch for 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?”

“Allen told me.”

“Allen told you? I do not believe you. Do you know where Allen is?”

“He is in jail in Los Angeles. I heard him telling a man in Los Angeles last July.”

“Who is the 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 some one comes down with burros from the hills, and that they cut his fence last Friday night. He wants to catch you and find out what you are 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 men as Allen.”

“How did you know Allen?”

“That has nothing to do with it at all. I have warned you so that you can take steps to avoid discovery and capture. I shall tell no one else about you. Now let me go.”

She gathered Baldy and tried to rein him about, but the man clung to her bridle.

“Not so much of a hurry, seÑorita! Unless I know how Allen 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 Allen, all right. It you are not, you know too damn much for to be very good for your health. You had better tell me all the truth, or you shall not ride away from here—ever!”

“Very well,” she said. “I met Allen in a house in Hollywood where he sold his ‘snow,’ and I heard him telling the man there how you disposed of the whisky that was stolen in New York, brought here to the coast in a ship, and hidden in the mountains.”

“What is the name of the man in whose house you met Allen?”

“Crumb.”

The man raised his heavy brows.

“How long since you been there—in that house in Hollywood?”

“Not since the last of July. I left the house the same time Allen did.”

“You know how Allen he get in jail?” the Mexican asked.

The girl saw that a new suspicion had been aroused in the man, and she judged that the safer plan was to be perfectly frank.

“I do not know, for I have seen neither Crumb nor Allen since; but when I read in the paper that he had been arrested that night, I guessed that Crumb had done it. I heard Crumb ask him to deliver some snow to a man in Hollywood. I know that Crumb is a bad man, and that he was trying to steal your share of the money from Allen.”

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! Allen tell 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 Penningtons—you bet you won’t!”

The Mexican laughed loudly, winking at his companions.

Shannon could feel the burning flush that suffused her face. She closed her eyes in what was almost physical pain, so terrible did the humiliation torture her pride, and then came 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 unavailing.

“Mr. Pennington will not find us Friday 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 meaning in the man’s final words.

Custer Pennington, occupied in the office for a couple of hours after lunch, had just come from 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 a 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 down in the bottom of the basin, hidden by the ridge above Jackknife CaÑon, 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 into 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 chaparral. Now they were clearly revealed by the powerful lenses, the horse and its rider—Baldy and Shannon!

Pennington dropped the glasses at his side, a puzzled expression on his face, as he tried to find some explanation of the fact that the binoculars had revealed. From time to time he caught glimpses of her again as she rode down the caÑon; 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 Corto. 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 the west and the north. Toward the west he could see the road that ran above the Evanses’ house all the way to Horse Camp CaÑon.

He did not know why he stood there watching for Shannon. It was none of his affair where she rode, or when. It seemed strange, though, that she should have ridden alone into the 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 act of underhandedness.

After a while he saw her emerge from Horse Camp CaÑon 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 she could not ride that afternoon, but also because of the direction in which she 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 suspicions of the men he wished to surprise in whatever activity they might be engaged upon; and 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 thing would not be forgotten.

Several times he realized, with surprise, that he was hurt because she had ridden without him. He tried to argue that he was not hurt, 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 a 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 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 conscience to any appreciable extent. When his conscience showed signs of life, he reasoned it back to innocuous desuetude by that 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 hid 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 she had aught to explain. If she did not care to have him know about it, she should never know from him that 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.

Yet, argue 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 change meant 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 when it should not ache. It made him angry with himself, with the result that he went to his room and had another drink.

Shannon, too, felt the difference. She thought that it was her own guilty conscience, though why she should feel guilt for having risked so much for his sake she did not know. Instinctively she was honest, and so to deceive one whom she loved, even for a good purpose, troubled her.

Something else troubled her, too. She knew that Custer had been drinking again, and she recalled what he had said to her, that morning, of the help she had been to him in getting away from his habit. She knew too well herself what it meant to fight for freedom from a settled vice, and she had been glad to have been instrumental in aiding him. She had had to fight her own battle alone; she did not want him to face a similar ordeal.

She wondered why he had been drinking that afternoon. Could it have been because 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 Mexicans, that she had undoubtedly saved Custer’s life.

The Evanses, mother and son, were also at the Penningtons’ 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 Penningtons, for there had crept into them a new and unpleasant note 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 disappointed 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 Eva was unusually quiet until the colonel, noticing it, asked 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; but 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 beneath 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 eying him with a seraphic expression that boded ill.

“What’s the matter, Guy—measles?” he asked with a beatific smile.

Guy grinned sheepishly, and was about to venture an explanation when Eva interrupted him. The others at the table were watching the two with amused smiles.

“You see, momsy,” said Eva, addressing her mother, “Guy has sold a story. He got a thousand dollars for it—a thousand!”

“Oh, not a thousand!” expostulated 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 are going to be married. I hadn’t intended to mention it until Guy had talked with popsy, but this will be very much nicer, and easier for Guy.”

Guy looked up appealingly at the colonel.

“You see, sir, I was summing to key you—I mean I was——”

“You see what it is going to mean to have an 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 pity’s 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 Eva 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 Eva 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 have been thinking about it all day. So, you see, when Eva blurted it out, I thought of my silly speech and I——”

“It wasn’t a silly speech,” interrupted Eva. “It was simplimetic gorgeristic. You thought so yourself when you made Bruce Bellinghame ask Hortense’s father for her. ‘Mr. Le Claire,’ he said, squaring his manly shoulders, ‘it is with emotions of deepest solemnity and a full realization of my unworthiness that I approach you upon this beautiful day in May——’”

“Oh, for Heaven’s sake, Eva, please!” begged Guy.

They were all laughing now, including Eva and Guy. The tears were rolling down Custer’s cheeks.

“That editor was guilty of grand larceny when he offered you seven hundred berries for the story. Why, the gem alone is easily worth a thousand. Adieu, Mark Twain! Farewell, Bill Nye! You’ve got ’em all nailed to the post, Guy Thackeray!”

The colonel wiped his eyes.

“I gather,” he said, “that you two children wish to get married. Do I surmise correctly?”

“Oh, popsy, you’re just wonderful!” exclaimed Eva.

“Yes, how did you guess it, father?” asked Custer. “Marvelous deductive faculties for an 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!” returned young Pennington. “Do you think I have forgotten how those 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 Eva certainly did make life miserable for him and Grace.”

“That part of it is all right—it is Guy’s affair and Eva’s; but did you hear him refer to me as an old gentleman?”

They all laughed.

“But you are a gentleman,” insisted Custer.

The colonel, his eyes twinkling, turned to Mrs. Evans.

“Times have changed, Mae, 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 home.”

“No danger of that here,” said the colonel.

“It is more likely to be the other way around,” suggested Mrs. Pennington. “In the future we may hear of parents leaving home because of the exacting tyranny of their children.”

“My children shall be brought up properly,” announced Eva, “with proper respect for their elders.”

“Guided by the shining example of their mother,” said Custer.

“And their Uncle Cutie,” 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 seven hundred dollars has assured their future, there is no reason why they shouldn’t be married at once and take a suite at the Ambassador. I understand they’re as low as thirty-five hundred a month.”

“Aw, I have more than the seven hundred,” said Guy. “I’ve been saving up for a long time. We’ll have plenty to start with.”

Shannon noticed that he flushed just a little as he made the statement, and 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 wrong-doing in others; but she dreaded to think what it was going to mean to Eva and the other Penningtons if ever the truth became known. From her knowledge of the sort of men 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 it may require years of effort to produce substantial returns. All I shall ask of my daughter’s husband 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 Eva. “We don’t want to live on charity.”

“Do you think that what I give to my little girl would be given in a spirit of charity?” the colonel asked.

“Oh, popsy, 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, Eva,” said Custer; “and in the meantime the best part of your lives would be spent in worry 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 can pay back with interest.”

“What a dapper little thought!” exclaimed the girl. “That would fix everything, wouldn’t it? You radiant man!”