The Girl from Hollywood, Edgar Rice Burroughs [i love reading .TXT] 📗
- Author: Edgar Rice Burroughs
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She carried a quirt in her hand, and she was a Pennington. “How dare you?” she cried, attempting to jerk away.
When he would have persisted, she raised the heavy quirt and struck him across the face. “My father shall hear of this, and so shall the man I am to marry—Mr. Evans.”
“Go slow!” he growled angrily. “Be careful what you tell! Remember that you came up here alone at night to meet a man you have known only a day. How will you square with that your assertions of virtue, eh? And as for Evans—yes, one of your men told me today that you and he were going to be married—as for him, the less you drag him into this the better it’ll be for Evans, and you, too!”
She was walking toward her horse. She wheeled suddenly toward him.
“Had I been armed, I would have killed you,” she said. “Any Pennington would kill you for what you attempted. My father or my brother will kill you if you are here tomorrow, for I shall tell them what you have done. You had better leave tonight. I am advising you for their sakes—not for yours.”
He followed her then, and, when she mounted, he seized her reins. “Not so damned fast, young lady! I’ve got something to say about this. You’ll keep your mouth shut, or I’ll send Evans to the pen, where he belongs!”
“Get out of my way!” she commanded, and put her spurs to her mount. The horse leaped forward, but Crumb clung to the reins, checking him. Then she struck Crumb again; but he managed to seize the quirt and hold it.
“Now listen to me,” he said. “If you tell what happened here tonight, I’ll tell what I know about Evans, and he’ll go to the pen as sure as you’re a silly little fool!”
“You know nothing about Mr. Evans. You don’t even know him.”
“Listen—I’ll tell you what I know. I know that Evans let your brother, who was innocent, go to the pen for the thing that Evans was guilty of.” The girl shrank back.
“You lie!” she cried.
“No, I don’t lie, either. I’m telling you the truth, and I can bring plenty of witnesses to prove what I say. It was young Evans who handled all that stolen booze and sold it to some guy from L.A. It was young Evans who got the money. He was getting rich on it till your brother butted in and crabbed his game, and then it was young Evans who kept still and let an innocent man do time for him. That’s the kind of fellow you’re going to marry. If you want the whole world to know about it, you just tell your father or your brother anything about me!”
He saw the girl sink down in her saddle, her head and shoulders drooping like some lovely flower in the path of fire, and he knew that he had won. Then he let her go.
It was half past nine o’clock when Colonel Pennington was aroused by some one knocking on the north door of his bedroom—the door that opened upon the north porch. “Who is it?” he asked. It was the stableman.
“Miss Eva’s horse is out, sir,” the man said. “I heard a horse pass the bunk house about half an hour ago. I dressed and come up here to the stables, to see if it was one of ours—somethin’ seemed to tell me it was—an’ I found her horse out. I thought I’d better tell you about it, sir. You can’t tell, sir, with all them pictur’ people up the canyon, what might be goin’ on. We’ll be lucky if we have any horses or tack left if they’re here long!”
“Miss Eva’s in bed,” said the colonel. “but we’ll have to look into this at once. Custer’s sick tonight, so he can’t go along with us; but if you will saddle up my horse, and one for yourself, I’ll dress and be right down. It can’t be the motion-picture people—they’re not horse thieves.”
While the stableman returned to saddle the horses, the colonel dressed. So sure was he that Eva was in bed that he did not even stop to look into her room. As he left the house, he was buckling on a gun—a thing that he seldom carried, for even in the peaceful days that have settled upon southern California a horse thief is still a horse thief.
As he was descending the steps to the stable, he saw some one coming up. In the moonlight there was no difficulty in recognizing the figure of his daughter.
“Eva!” he exclaimed, “Where have you been? What are you doing out at this time of night, alone?”
She did not answer, but threw herself into his arms, sobbing.
“What is it? What has happened, child? Tell me!”
Her sobs choked her, and she could not speak. Putting his arm about her, her father led her up the steps and to her room. There he sat down and held her, and tried to comfort her. Little by little, word by word, she managed at last to tell him. “You mustn’t cry dear,” he said. “You did a foolish thing to go up there alone, but you did nothing wrong. As for what that fellow told you about Guy, I don’t believe it.”
“But it’s the truth,” she sobbed. “I know it is the truth now. Little things that I didn’t think of before come back to me, and in the light of what that terrible man told me I know that it’s true. We always knew that Custer was innocent. Think what a change came over Guy from the moment that Custer was arrested. He has been a different man since. And the money—the money that we were to be married on. I never stopped to try to reason it out. He had thousands of dollars. He told me not to tell anybody how much he had; and that was where it came from.
“It couldn’t have come from anything else. Oh, popsy, it is awful, and I loved him so! To think that he, that Guy Evans, of all men, would have let my brother go to jail for something he did!” Again her sobs stifled her.
“Crying will do no good,” the colonel said, “Go to bed now, and tomorrow we will talk it over. Good night, little girl. Remember, we’ll all stick to Guy, no matter what he has done.” He kissed her then and left her, but he did not return to his room. Instead, he went down to the stables and saddled his horse, for the stableman, when Eva came in with the missing animal, had put it in its box and returned to the bunk house.
The colonel rode immediately to the sleeping camp in Jackknife Canyon. His calls went unanswered for a time, but presently a sleepy man stuck his head through the flap of a tent. “What do you want?” he asked.
“I am looking for Mr. Crumb. Where is he?”
“I don’t know. He went away in his car early in the evening, and hasn’t come back. What’s the matter, anyway? You’re the second fellow that’s been looking for him. Oh, you’re Colonel Pennington, aren’t you? I didn’t recognize you. Why, some one was here a little while ago looking for him—a young fellow on horseback. I think it must have been your son. Anything I can do for you?”
“Yes,” said the colonel. “In case I don’t see Mr. Crumb, you can tell him, or whoever is in charge, that you’re to break camp in the morning and be off my property by ten o’clock.”
He wheeled his horse and rode down Jackknife Canyon toward Sycamore.
“Well, what the hell!” ejaculated the sleepy man to himself, and withdrew again into his tent.
SHANNON BURKE after a restless night, rose early in the morning to ride. She always found that the quiet and peace of the hills acted as a tonic on jangling nerves, and dispelled, at least for the moment, any cloud of unhappiness that might be hovering over her.
The first person to see her that morning was the flunky from the K.K.S. camp who was rustling wood for the cook’s morning fire. So interested was he in her rather remarkable occupation that he stood watching her from behind a bush until she was out of sight. As long as he saw her, she rode slowly, dragging at her side a leafy bough, which she moved to and fro, as if sweeping the ground. She constantly looked back, as if to note the effect of her work; and once or twice he saw her go over short stretches of the road a second time, brushing vigorously.
It was quite light by that time, as it was almost five o’clock, and the sun was just rising as she dismounted at the Ganado stables and hurried up the steps toward the house. The iron gate at the patio entrance had not yet been raised, so she went around to the north side of the house and knocked on the colonel’s bedroom door.
“Colonel,” she cried, “Wilson Crumb has been killed. I rode early this morning, and as I came into Sycamore over El Camino Largo I saw his body lying under the big tree there.”
They were both thinking the same thought, which neither dared voice—where was Custer?
“Did you notify the camp?” he asked.
“No—I came directly here.”
“You are sure that it is Crumb, and that he is dead?” he asked.
“I am sure that it is Crumb. He was lying on his back, and though I didn’t dismount I am quite positive that he was dead.”
Mrs. Pennington had joined them, herself dressed for riding. “How terrible!” she exclaimed.
“Terrible nothing,” exclaimed the colonel. “I’m damned glad he’s dead!”
Shannon looked at him in astonishment, but Mrs. Pennington understood, for the colonel had told her all that Eva had told him.
“He was a bad man,” said Shannon. “The world will be better off without him.”
“You knew him?” Colonel Pennington asked in surprise. “I knew him in Hollywood,” she replied.
She knew now that they must all know sooner or later, for she could not see how she could be kept out of the investigation and the trial that must follow. In her heart she feared that Custer had killed Crumb. The fact that he had drunk so heavily that afternoon indicated not only that he had overheard, but that what he had heard had affected him profoundly—profoundly enough to have suggested the killing of the man whom he believed to have wronged the woman he loved.
“The first thing to do, I suppose,” said the colonel, “is to notify the sheriff.” He left the room and went to the telephone. While he was away Mrs. Pennington and Shannon discussed the tragedy, and the older woman confided to the other the experience that Eva had had with Crumb the previous night.
“The beast!” muttered Shannon. “Death was too good for him!” Presently the colonel returned to them.
“I think I’ll go and see if the children are going to ride with us,” he said. “There is no reason why we shouldn’t ride as usual.”
He went to Eva’s door and looked in. Apparently she was still fast asleep. Her hair was down, and her curls lay in soft confusion upon her pillow. Very gently he closed the door again, glad that she could sleep. When he entered his son’s room he found Custer lying fully clothed upon his
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