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 a load from the hearts of all of them, while it 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 a 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 liked,” said Shannon. “Either you or Guy should run down there and see her. You are the two men most vitally interested in her. No girl should be left alone long in Hollywood without some one to whom she can look for the right sort of guidance and—and—protection.”
“I believe I’ll do it,” said Custer. “I can’t get away right now; but I’ll run down there before I go on 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 it 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, it had been Custer’s duty, as well as his pleasure, to “ride fence.” He had continued the custom long after it might have been assigned to an employee, not only because it had meant long, pleasant hours in the saddle with 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 upon 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.
“There’s something funny goin’ on back in them hills,” said Jake. “I’ve seen fresh signs every week of horses and burros comin’ and goin’. Sometimes they trail through El Camino Largo and again through Corto, an’ they’ve even been down through the old goat corral once, plumb through the ranch, an’ out the west gate. But what I can’t tell for sure is whether they come in an’ go out, or go out an’ come in. Whoever does it is foxy. Their two trails never cross, an’ they must be made within a few hours of each other, for I’m not Injun enough to tell which is freshest—the one comin’ to Ganado or the one goin’ out. An’ then they muss it up by draggin’ brush, so it’s hard to tell how many they be of ’em. It’s got me.”
“They head for Jackknife, don’t they?” asked Custer.
“Sometimes, an’ sometimes they go straight up Sycamore, an’ again they head in or out of half a dozen different little barrancos comin’ down from the east; but sooner or later I lose ’em—can’t never follow ’em no place in particular. Looks like as if they split up.”