It seems just too awful.”
“I am afraid she is,” he replied sadly. “Mother is all broken up about it; but she tries not to let Grace know.”
“I can’t understand it,” said the girl. “It seems to me a selfish thing to do, and yet, Grace has always been so sweet and generous. No matter how much I wanted to go, I don’t believe I could bring myself to do it knowing how terribly it would hurt Papa. Just think, Guy — it is the first break, except for the short time we were away at school, since we have been born. We have all lived here always, it seems, your family and mine, like one big family; but after Grace goes, it will be the beginning of the end. It will never be the same again.”
There was a note of seriousness and sadness in her voice that sounded not at all like Eva Pennington. The boy shook his head.
“It is too bad,” he said, “but Grace is so sure she is right — so positive that she has a great future before her and that we shall all be so proud of her — that sometimes I am convinced myself.”
“I hope she is right,” said the girl, and then, with a return to her joyous self: “Oh, wouldn’t it be spiffy if she really does become famous! I can see just now puffed up we shall all be when we read the reviews of her pictures, like this — ‘Miss Grace Evans, the famous star, has quite outdone her past successes in the latest picture, in which she is ably supported by such well-known actors as Thomas Meighan, Wallace Reid, Gloria Swanson, and Mary Pickford.’”
“Why slight Douglas Fairbanks and Charlie Chaplin?” suggested Guy.
The girl rose.
“Come on!” she said. “Let’s have a look at the pools — it isn’t a perfect day unless I’ve seen fish in every pool. Do you remember how we used to watch and watch and watch for the fish in the lower pools and run as fast as we could to be the first up to the house to tell if we saw them and how many?”
“And do you remember the little turtles and how wild they got?” he put in. “Sometimes we wouldn’t see them for weeks, and then we’d get just a glimpse so that we knew they were still there. Then, after a while, we never saw them again, and how we used to wonder and speculate as to what had become of them!”
“And do you remember the big water snake we found in the upper pool, and how Cus used to lie in wait for him with his little 22?”
“Cus was always the hunter. How we used to trudge after him up and down those steep hills there in the cow pasture while he hunted ground squirrels, and how mad he’d get if we made any noise! Gee, Ev, those were the good old days!”
“And how we used to fight, and what a nuisance Cus thought me; but he always asked me to go along, just the same. He’s a wonderful brother, Guy!”
“He’s a wonderful man, Ev,” replied the boy. “You don’t half know how wonderful he is. He’s always thinking of someone else. Right now, I’ll bet he’s eating his heart out because Grace is going away; and he can’t go, just because he’s thinking more of someone else’s happiness than his own.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“He wants to go to the city. He wants to get into some business there; but he won’t go because he knows your father wants him here.”
“Do you really think that?”
“I know it,” he said.
They walked on in silence along the winding pathways among the flower-bordered pools to stop at last beside the lower one. This had originally been a shallow wading pool for the children when they were small, but it was now given over to water hyacinth and brilliant fantails.
“There!” said the girl, presently. “I have seen fish in each pool.”
“And you can go to bed with a clear conscience tonight,” he laughed.
To the west of the lower pool, there were no trees to obstruct their view of the hills that rolled down from the mountains to form the western wall of the cañon in which the ranch buildings and cultivated fields lay. As the two stood there, hand in hand, the boy’s eyes wandered lovingly over the soft, undulating lines of these lower hills with their parklike beauty of greensward dotted with wild walnut trees. As he looked, he saw, for a brief moment, the figure of a man on horseback passing over the hollow of a saddle before disappearing upon the southern side.
Small though the distant figure was and visible but for a moment, the boy recognized the military carriage of the rider. He glanced quickly at the girl to note if she had seen, but it was evident that she had not.
“Well, Ev,” he said, “I guess I’ll be toddling.”
“So early?” she demanded.
“You see, I’ve got to get busy if I’m going to get the price of that teeny, weeny bungalow,” he explained. “Now that we’re engaged, you might kiss me goodbye — eh?”
“We’re not engaged, and I’ll not kiss you goodbye or good anything else. I don’t believe in people kissing until they’re married.”
“Then why are you always raving about the wonderful kisses Antonio Moreno, or Milton Sills, or some other poor prune gives the heroine at the end of the last reel?” he demanded.
“Oh, that’s different,” she explained. “Anyway, they’re just going to get married. When we are just going to get married, I’ll let you kiss me — once a week, maybe!”
“Thanks!” he cried.
A moment later, he swung into the saddle, and, with a wave of his hand, cantered off up the cañon.
“Now what,” said the girl to herself, “is he going up there for? He can’t make any money back there in the hills. He ought to be headed straight for home and his typewriter!”
CHAPTER VII
ACROSS THE RUSTIC BRIDGE, and once behind the sycamores at the lower end of the cow pasture, Guy Evans let his horse out into a rapid gallop. A few minutes later, he overtook a horseman who was moving at a slow walk farther up the cañon. At the sound of the pounding hoofbeats behind him, the latter turned in his saddle, reined about, and stopped. The boy rode up and drew in his blowing mount beside the other.
“Hello, Allen!” he said.
The man nodded.
“What’s eatin’ you?” he inquired.
“I’ve been thinking over that proposition of yours,” explained Evans.
“Yes?”
“Yes, I’ve been thinking maybe I might swing it; but are you sure it’s safe? How do I know you won’t double-cross me?”
“You don’t know,” replied the other. “All you know is that I got enough on you to send you to San Quentin. You wouldn’t get nothing’ worse if you handled the rest of it, an’ you stand to clean up between twelve and fifteen thousand bucks on the deal. You needn’t worry about me double-crossin’ you. What good would it do me? I ain’t got nothin’ against you, kid. If you don’t double-cross me, I won’t double-cross you; but look
