Presently he cocked an eye ahead, as if in search of something. A moment later he leaped suddenly sidewise, snorting in apparent terror.
“You old fool!” said Pennington affectionately.
The horse had shied at a large white bowlder lying beside the wagon trail. For nearly three years he had shied at it religiously every time he had passed it. Long before they reached it he always looked ahead to see if it was still there, and he would have been terribly disappointed had it been missing. The man always knew that the horse was going to shy—he would have been disappointed if the Apache had not played this little game of make-believe. To carry the game to its conclusion, the rider should gather him and force him snorting and trembling, right up to the bowlder, talking to him coaxingly and stroking his arched neck, but at the same time not neglecting to press the spurs against his glossy sides if he hesitated.
The Apache loved it. He loved the power that was his as exemplified by the quick, wide leap aside, and he loved the power of the man to force his nose to the bowlder—the power that gave him such confidence in his rider that he would go wherever he was asked to go; but to-day he was disappointed. His pal did not force him to the bowlder. Instead, Custer Pennington merely reined him into the trail again beyond it and rode on up Jackknife Cañon.
Custer was looking over the pasture. It was late July. The hills were no longer green, except where their sides and summits were clothed with chaparral. The lower hills were browning beneath the hot summer sun, but they were still beautiful, dotted as they were with walnut and live oak.
As Pennington rode, he recalled the last time he had ridden through Jackknife with Grace. She had been gone two months now—it seemed as many years. She no longer wrote often, and when she did write her letters were short and unsatisfying. He recalled all the incidents of that last ride, and they reminded him again of the new-made trail they had discovered, and of his oft repeated intention of following it to see where it led. He had never had the time—he did not have the time to-day. The heifers with their calves were still in this pasture. He counted them, examined the condition of the feed, and rode back to the house.
It was Friday. From the hill beyond Jackknife a man had watched through binoculars his every move. Three other men had been waiting below the watcher along the new-made trail. It was well for Pennington that he had not chosen that day to investigate.
After he had turned back toward the ranch, the man with the binoculars descended to the others.
“It was young Pennington,” he said. The speaker was Allen. “I was thinking that it would be a fool trick to kill him, unless we have to. I have a better scheme. Listen—if he ever learns anything that he shouldn’t know, this is what you are to do, if I am away.”
Very carefully and in great detail he elaborated his plan.