Pennington brightened up as if a great load had been lifted from his shoulders.
“Good!” he cried. “Now the chances are that I’ll not be sent up, for they’ve nothing on me—they can’t have; but if I am, you’ve got to take my place with the folks. You’ve had your lesson. I know you’ll never pull another fool stunt like this again. And quit drinking, Guy. I haven’t much excuse for preaching; but you’re the sort that can’t do it. Leave it alone. Good-by, now; I’d rather you were not here when father comes back—you might weaken.”
Evans took the other’s hand.
“I envy you, Cus—on the level, I do!”
“I know it; but don’t feel too bad about it. It’s one of those things that’s done, and it can’t be undone. Roosevelt would have called what you’ve got to do ‘grasping the nettle.’ Grasp it like a man!”
Evans walked slowly from the jail, entered his car, and drove away. Of the two hearts his was the heavier; of the two burdens his the more difficult to bear.
Custer Pennington, appearing before a United States commissioner that afternoon for his preliminary hearing, was held to the Federal grand jury, and admitted to bail. The evidence brought by the deputies who had searched the Pennington home, taken in connection with the circumstances surrounding his arrest, seemed to leave the commissioner no alternative. Even the colonel had to admit that to himself, though he would never have admitted it to another. The case would probably come up before the grand jury on the following Wednesday.
The colonel wanted to employ detectives at once to ferret out those actually responsible for the theft and bootlegging of the stolen whisky; but Custer managed to persuade him not to do so, on the ground that it would be a waste of time and money, since the government was already engaged upon a similar pursuit.
“Don’t worry, father,” he said. “They haven’t a shred of evidence that I stole the whisky, or that I ever sold any. They found me with it—that is all. I can’t be hanged for that. Let them do the worrying. I want to get home in time to eat one of Hannah’s dinners. I’ll say they don’t set much of a table in the sheriff’s boarding house!”
“Where did you get the three bottles they found in your room?”