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 mounts discovered the identity of the prisoner, his surprise was exceeded only by his anger.
“If I’d known who you was after,” he said, “you’d never have got no horses from me. I’d ’a’ hamstrung ’em first! I’ve known Cus Pennington since he was knee high to a grasshopper, and whatever you took him for he never done it. Wait till the colonel hears of this. You won’t have no more job than a jack rabbit!”
The marshal turned threateningly toward the speaker.
“Shut up!” he advised. “If Colonel Pennington hears of this before morning, you’ll wish to God you was a jack rabbit, and could 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 leetle mite dumb.” The last he added in a low aside to Pennington, accompanying it with a wink; and aloud: “I’m mighty sorry, Cus—mighty sorry. If I’d only knowed it was you! By gosh, I’ll never get over this—furnishin’ 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 and their prisoner 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 toward Los Angeles. Jim watched them for a moment, as the red tail light diminished in the distance. Then he turned into the office of his feed barn and took the telephone receiver from its hook. “Gimme Ganado No. 1,” he said to the sleepy 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 near-by 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 damned liar,” he commented in characteristic manner; “but what in hell did they take the boy for?”
“They wouldn’t say. Just as I told ’em. I don’t know what he done, but I know he never done it.”
“You’re right, Jim—my boy couldn’t do a crooked thing!”
“I’m just like you, colonel—I know there ain’t a crooked hair in Cus Pennington’s head. If there’s anything I can do, colonel, you jest let me know.”
“You’ll bring the Apache up in the morning? Thank you again, Jim, and good-by.”
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’s 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 warrant, searched the castle on the hill. In Custer Pennington’s closet they found something which seemed to fill them with elation—two full bottles of whisky and an empty bottle, each bearing a label identical with those on the bottles they had found in the cases borne by the burros. With this evidence and the 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 cupola against the clear sky, waiting for the light which would announce that Custer had returned home in safety; but no light had shone 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 silence. She sought to assure herself that all was well—that Custer had returned and forgotten to switch on the cupola light—that he had not forgotten, but that the bulb 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, and in the saddle at the first streak of dawn, riding directly to the stables of the Rancho del Ganado. The stableman was there, saddling the horses while they fed.
“No one has come down yet?” she asked.