“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 burros, how many hours had elapsed since they came down out of the hills, 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 very wonderful, and very delightful, too, to be able to read stories—true stories—in the trampled dust where men and animals have passed.”
“There is nothing very remarkable about it. Just look at the Apache’s hoofprints, for instance. See how the hind differ from the fore.”
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 Baldy’s,” he said. “See how different the two hoofprints are. Once you know them, you could 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 burros, 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 Evanses’ hay barn.”
The Evanses’ hay barn! A great light illuminated Shannon’s memory. Allen had said, that last night at the bungalow, that the contraband whisky 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 dared 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 spoor upon the hard surface of the paved road.