“I agree with you,” said Pennington.
His mind traveled like lightning, flashing a picture of Shannon Burke riding out of the hills and across the meadow above Jackknife Cañon; of her inquiry that very afternoon as to whether he was coming up here to-night. Had she really wished to dissuade him, or had she only desired to make sure of his intentions? The light would not shine from the big cupola to-night. What message would the darkness carry to Shannon Burke?
CHAPTER XXII
They 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!”