← catalogue

The U. P. Trail

by Zane Grey · English · Gutenberg #4684 · 719,174 chars · public domain (US)

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The U. P. Trail
    
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: The U. P. Trail

Author: Zane Grey


        
Release date: November 1, 2003 [eBook #4684]
                Most recently updated: August 1, 2017

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4684

Credits: Produced by Charles Franks, David Widger,
        and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE U. P. TRAIL ***




Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team





THE U. P. TRAIL


By Zane Grey



...When I think how the railroad has been pushed through this unwatered
wilderness and haunt of savage tribes; how at each stage of the
construction roaring, impromptu cities, full of gold and lust and death,
sprang up and then died away again, and are now but wayside stations in
the desert; how in these uncouth places Chinese pirates worked side
by side with border ruffians and broken men from Europe, gambling,
drinking, quarreling, and murdering like wolves; and then when I go on
to remember that all this epical turmoil was conducted by gentlemen in
frock-coats, with a view to nothing more extraordinary than a fortune
and a subsequent visit to Paris--it seems to me as if this railway
were the one typical achievement of the age in which we live, as if it
brought together into one plot all the ends of the world and all the
degrees of social rank, and offered to some great writer the busiest,
the most extended, and the most varied subject for an enduring literary
work. If it be romance, if it be contrast, if it be heroism that we
require, what was Troy to this?

               --ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
                 In ACROSS THE PLAINS





1

In the early sixties a trail led from the broad Missouri, swirling
yellow and turgid between its green-groved borders, for miles and
miles out upon the grassy Nebraska plains, turning westward over the
undulating prairie, with its swales and billows and long, winding lines
of cottonwoods, to a slow, vast heave of rising ground--Wyoming--where
the herds of buffalo grazed and the wolf was lord and the camp-fire
of the trapper sent up its curling blue smoke from beside some lonely
stream; on and on over the barren lands of eternal monotony, all so gray
and wide and solemn and silent under the endless sky; on, ever on, up
to the bleak, black hills and into the waterless gullies and through the
rocky gorges where the deer browsed and the savage lurked; then slowly
rising to the pass between the great bold peaks, and across the windy
uplands into Utah, with its verdant valleys, green as emeralds, and its
haze-filled cañons and wonderful wind-worn cliffs and walls, and its
pale salt lakes, veiled in the shadows of stark and lofty rocks, dim,
lilac-colored, austere, and isolated; ever onward across Nevada, and
ever westward, up from desert to mountain, up into California, where the
white streams rushed and roared and the stately pines towered, and seen
from craggy heights, deep down, the little blue lakes gleamed like gems;
finally sloping to the great descent, where the mountain world ceased
and where, out beyond the golden land, asleep and peaceful, stretched
the illimitable Pacific, vague and grand beneath the setting sun.




2

Deep in the Wyoming hills lay a valley watered by a stream that ran down
from Cheyenne Pass; a band of Sioux Indians had an encampment there.
Viewed from the summit of a grassy ridge, the scene was colorful
and idle and quiet, in keeping with the lonely, beautiful valley.
Cottonwoods and willows showed a bright green; the course of the stream
was marked in dark where the water ran, and light where the sand had
bleached; brown and black dots scattered over the valley were in reality
grazing horses; lodge-pole tents gleamed white in the sun, and tiny
bits of red stood out against the white; lazy wreaths of blue smoke rose
upward.

The Wyoming hills were split by many such valleys and many such bare,
grassy ridges sloped up toward the mountains. Upon the side of one
ridge, the highest, there stood a solitary mustang, haltered with a
lasso. He was a ragged, shaggy, wild beast, and there was no saddle or
bridle on him, nothing but the halter. He was not grazing, although the
bleached white grass grew long and thick under his hoofs. He looked up
the slope, in a direction indicated by his pointing ears, and watched a
wavering movement of the long grass.

It was wild up on that ridge, bare of everything except grass, and the
strange wavering had a nameless wildness in its motion. No stealthy
animal accounted for that trembling--that forward undulating quiver. It
wavered on to the summit of the ridge.

What a wide and wonderful prospect opened up to view from this lofty
point! Ridge after ridge sloped up to the Wyoming hills, and these in
turn raised their bleak, dark heads toward the mountains, looming pale
and gray, with caps of snow, in the distance. Out beyond the ridges,
indistinct in the glare, stretched an illimitable expanse, gray and
dull--that was the prairie-land. An eagle, lord of all he surveyed,
sailed round and round in the sky.

Below this grassy summit yawned a valley, narrow and long, losing itself
by turns to distant east and west; and through it ran a faint, white,
winding line which was the old St. Vrain and Laramie Trail.

There came a moment when the wavering in the grass ceased on the extreme
edge of the slope. Then it parted to disclose the hideous visage of
a Sioux Indian in war paint. His dark, piercing, malignant glance was
fixed upon the St. Vrain and Laramie Trail. His half-naked body rested
at ease; a rifle lay under his hand.

There he watched while the hours passed. The sun moved on in its course
until it tipped the peaks with rose. Far down the valley black and white
objects appeared, crawling round the bend. The Indian gave an almost
imperceptible start, but there was no change in his expression. He
watched as before.

These moving objects grew to be oxen and prairie-schooners--a small
caravan traveling east. It wound down the trail and halted in a circle
on the bank of a stream.

The Indian scout slid backward, and the parted grass, slowly closing,
hid from his dark gaze the camp scene below. He wormed his way back well
out of sight; then rising, he ran over the summit of the ridge to leap
upon his mustang and ride wildly down the slope.




3

Bill Horn, leader of that caravan, had a large amount of gold which he
was taking back East. No one in his party, except a girl, knew that he
had the fortune.

Horn had gone West at the beginning of the gold strikes, but it was not
until ‘53 that any success attended his labors. Later he struck it rich,
and in 1865, as soon as the snow melted on the mountain passes, he got
together a party of men and several women and left Sacramento. He was a
burly miner, bearded and uncouth, of rough speech and taciturn nature,
and absolutely fearless.

At Ogden, Utah, he had been advised not to attempt to cross the Wyoming
hills with so small a party, for the Sioux Indians had gone on the
war-path.

Horn was leading his own caravan and finding for himself the trail
that wound slowly eastward. He did not have a scout or hunter with him.
Eastward-traveling caravans were wont to be small and poorly outfitted,
for only the homesick, the failures, the wanderers, and the lawless
turned their faces from the Golden State. At the start Horn had eleven
men, three women, and the girl. On the way he had killed one of the
men; and another, together with his wife, had yielded to persuasion of
friends at Ogden and had left the party. So when Horn halted for camp
one afternoon in a beautiful valley in the Wyoming hills there were only
nine men with him.

On a long journey through wild country strangers grow close together or
far apart. Bill Horn did not think much of the men who had accepted the
chance he offered them, and daily he grew more aloof. They were not a
responsible crowd, and the best he could get out of them was the driving
of oxen and camp chores indifferently done. He had to kill the meat
and find the water and keep the watch. Upon entering the Wyoming hills
region Horn showed a restlessness and hurry and anxiety. This in no wise
affected the others. They continued to be aimless and careless as men
who had little to look forward to.

This beautiful valley offered everything desirable for a camp site
except natural cover or protection in case of attack. But Horn had to
take the risk. The oxen were tired, the wagons had to be greased, and it
was needful to kill meat. Here was an abundance of grass, a clear brook,
wood for camp-fires, and sign of game on all sides.

“Haul round--make a circle!” Horn ordered the drivers of the oxen.

This was the first time he had given this particular order, and the men
guffawed or grinned as they hauled the great, clumsy prairie-schooners
into a circle. The oxen were unhitched; the camp duffle piled out; the
ring of axes broke the stillness; fires were started.

Horn took his rifle and strode away up the brook to disappear in the
green brush of a ravine.

It was early in the evening, with the sun not yet out of sight behind
a lofty ridge that topped the valley slope. High grass, bleached white,
shone brightly on the summit. Soon several columns of blue smoke curled
lazily aloft until, catching the wind high up, they were swept away.
Meanwhile the men talked at their tasks.

“Say, pard, did you come along this here Laramie Trail goin’ West?”
 asked one.

“Nope. I hit the Santa Fe Trail,” was the reply.

“How about you, Jones?”

“Same fer me.”

“Wal,” said another, “I went round to California by ship, an’ I’d hev
been lucky to drown.”

“An’ now we’re all goin’ back poorer than when we started,” remarked a
third.

“Pard, you’ve said somethin’.”

“Wal, I seen a heap of gold, if I didn’t find any.”

“Jones, has this here Bill Horn any gold with him?”

“He acts like it,” answered Jones. “An’ I heerd he struck it rich out
thar.”

The men appeared divided in their opinions of Bill Horn. From him they
drifted to talk of possible Indian raids and scouted the idea; then they
wondered if the famous Pony Express had been over this Laramie Trail;
finally they got on the subject of a rumored railroad to be built from
East to West.

“No railroad can’t be built over this trail,” said Jones, bluntly.

“Sure not. But couldn’t more level ground be dug?” asked another.

“Dug? Across them Utah deserts an’ up them mountains? Hell! Men sure hev
more sense than thet,” exclaimed the third.

And so they talked and argued at their tasks.

The women, however, had little to say. One, the wife of the loquacious
Jones, lived among past associations of happy years that would not come
again--a sober-faced, middle-aged woman. The other woman was younger,
and her sad face showed traces of a former comeliness. They called her
Mrs. Durade. The girl was her daughter Allie. She appeared about fifteen
years old, and was slight of form. Her face did not seem to tan. It was
pale. She looked tired, and was shy and silent, almost ashamed. She had
long, rich, chestnut-colored hair which she wore in a braid. Her eyes
were singularly large and dark, and violet in color.

“It’s a long, long way we are from home yet,” sighed Mrs. Jones.

“You call East home!” replied Mrs. Durade, bitterly.

“For land’s sake! Yes, I do,” exclaimed the other. “If there was a home
in that California, I never saw it. Tents and log cabins and mud-holes!
Such places for a woman to live. Oh, I hated that California! A lot of
wild men, all crazy for gold. Gold that only a few could find and none
could keep!... I pray every night to live to get back home.”

Mrs. Durade had no reply; she gazed away over the ridges toward the east
with a haunting shadow in her eyes.

Just then a rifle-shot sounded from up in the ravine. The men paused in
their tasks and looked at one another. Then reassured by this exchange
of glances, they fell to work again. But the women cast apprehensive
eyes around. There was no life in sight except the grazing oxen.
Presently Horn appeared carrying a deer slung over his shoulders.

Allie ran to meet him. She and Horn were great friends. To her alone was
he gentle and kind. She saw him pause at the brook, then drop the deer
carcass and bend over the ground, as if to search for something. When
Allie reached his side he was on his knees examining a moccasin print in
the sand.

“An Indian track!” exclaimed Allie.

“Allie, it sure ain’t anythin’ else,” he replied. “Thet is what I’ve
been lookin’ fer.... A day old--mebbe more.”

“Uncle Bill, is there any danger?” she asked, fearfully gazing up the
slope.

“Lass, we’re in the Wyoming hills, an’ I wish to the Lord we was out,”
 he answered.

Then he picked up the deer carcass, a heavy burden, and slung it, hoofs
in front, over his shoulders.

“Let me carry your gun,” said Allie.

They started toward camp.

“Lass, listen,” began Horn, earnestly. “Mebbe there’s no need to fear.
But I don’t like Injun tracks. Not these days. Now I’m goin’ to scare
this lazy outfit. Mebbe thet’ll make them rustle. But don’t you be
scared.”

In camp the advent of fresh venison was hailed with satisfaction.

“Wal, I’ll gamble the shot thet killed this meat was heerd by Injuns,”
 blurted out Horn, as he deposited his burden on the grass and whipped
out his hunting-knife. Then he glared at the outfit of men he had come
to despise.

“Horn, I reckon you ‘pear more set up about Injuns than usual,” remarked
Jones.

“Fresh Sioux track right out thar along the brook.”

“No!”

“Sioux!” exclaimed another.

“Go an’ look fer yourself.”

Not a man of them moved a step. Horn snorted his disdain and without
more talk began to dress the deer.

Meanwhile the sun set behind the ridge and the day seemed far spent. The
evening meal of the travelers was interrupted when Horn suddenly leaped
up and reached for his rifle.

“Thet’s no Injun, but I don’t like the looks of how he’s comin’.”

All gazed in the direction in which Horn pointed. A horse and rider
were swiftly approaching down the trail from the west. Before any of
the startled campers recovered from their surprise the horse reached the
camp. The rider hauled up short, but did not dismount.

“Hello!” he called. The man was not young. He had piercing gray eyes
and long hair. He wore fringed gray buckskin, and carried a long, heavy,
muzzle-loading rifle.

“I’m Slingerland--trapper in these hyar parts,” he went on, with glance
swiftly taking in the group. “Who’s boss of this caravan?”

“I am--Bill Horn,” replied the leader, stepping out.

“Thar’s a band of Sioux redskins on your trail.”

Horn lifted his arms high. The other men uttered exclamations of amaze
and dread. The women were silent.

“Did you see them?” asked Horn.

“Yes, from a ridge back hyar ten miles. I saw them sneakin’ along the
trail an’ I knowed they meant mischief. I rode along the ridges or I’d
been hyar sooner.”

“How many Injuns?”

“I counted fifteen. They were goin’ along slow. Like as not they’ve sent
word fer more. There’s a big Sioux camp over hyar in another valley.”

“Are these Sioux on the war-path?”

“I saw dead an’ scalped white men a few days back,” replied Slingerland.

Horn grew as black as a thundercloud, and he cursed the group of
pale-faced men who had elected to journey eastward with him.

“You’ll hev to fight,” he ended, brutally, “an’ thet’ll be some
satisfaction to me.”

“Horn, there’s soldiers over hyar in camp,” went on Slingerland. “Do you
want me to ride after them?”

“Soldiers!” ejaculated Horn.

“Yes. They’re with a party of engineers surveyin’ a line fer a railroad.
Reckon I could git them all hyar in time to save you--IF them Sioux keep
comin’ slow.... I’ll go or stay hyar with you.”

“Friend, you go--an’ ride thet hoss!”

“All right. You hitch up an’ break camp. Keep goin’ hard down the trail,
an’ I’ll fetch the troops an’ head off the redskins.”

“Any use to take to the hills?” queried Horn, sharply.

“I reckon not. You’ve no hosses. You’d be tracked down. Hurry along.
Thet’s best.... An’ say, I see you’ve a young girl hyar. I can take her
up behind me.”

“Allie, climb up behind him,” said Horn, motioning to the girl.

“I’ll stay with mother,” she replied.

“Go child--go!” entreated Mrs. Durade.

Others urged her, but she shook her head. Horn’s big hand trembled as he
held it out, and for once there was no trace of hardness about his face.

“Allie, I never had no lass of my own.... I wish you’d go with him.
You’d be safe--an’ you could take my--”

“No!” interrupted the girl.

Slingerland gave her a strange, admiring glance, then turned his quick
gray eyes upon Horn. “Anythin’ I can take?”

Horn hesitated. “No. It was jest somethin’ I wanted the girl to hev.”

Slingerland touched his shaggy horse and called over his shoulder:
“Rustle out of hyar!” Then he galloped down the trail, leaving the
travelers standing aghast.

“Break camp!” thundered Horn.

A scene of confusion followed. In a very short while the
prairie-schooners were lumbering down the valley. Twilight came just as
the flight got under way. The tired oxen were beaten to make them run.
But they were awkward and the loads were heavy. Night fell, and the road
was difficult to follow. The wagons rolled and bumped and swayed from
side to side; camp utensils and blankets dropped from them. One
wagon broke down. The occupants, frantically gathering together their
possessions, ran ahead to pile into the one in front.

Horn drove on and on at a gait cruel to both men and beasts. The women
were roughly shaken. Hours passed and miles were gained. That valley led
into another with an upgrade, rocky and treacherous. Horn led on foot
and ordered the men to do likewise. The night grew darker. By and by
further progress became impossible, for the oxen failed and a wild
barrier of trees and rocks stopped the way.

Then the fugitives sat and shivered and waited for dawn. No one slept.
All listened intently to the sounds of the lonely night, magnified now
by their fears. Horn strode to and fro with his rifle--a grim, dark,
silent form. Whenever a wolf mourned, or a cat squalled, or a night bird
voiced the solitude, or a stone rattled off the cliff, the fugitives
started up quiveringly alert, expecting every second to hear the
screeching yell of the Sioux. They whispered to keep up a flickering
courage. And the burly Horn strode to and fro, thoughtful, as though he
were planning something, and always listening. Allie sat in one of the
wagons close to her mother. She was wide awake and not so badly scared.
All through this dreadful journey her mother had not seemed natural to
Allie, and the farther they traveled eastward the stranger she grew.
During the ride that night she had moaned and shuddered, and had clasped
Allie close; but when the flight had come to a forced end she grew
silent.

Allie was young and hopeful. She kept whispering to her mother that the
soldiers would come in time.

“That brave fellow in buckskin--he’ll save us,” said Allie.

“Child, I feel I’ll never see home again,” finally whispered Mrs.
Durade.

“Mother!”

“Allie, I must tell you--I must!” cried Mrs. Durade, very low and
fiercely. She clung to her daughter.

“Tell me what?” whispered Allie.

“The truth--the truth! Oh, I’ve deceived you all your life!”

“Deceived me! Oh, mother! Then tell me--now.”

“Child--you’ll forgive me--and never--hate me?” cried the mother,
brokenly.

“Mother, how can you talk so! I love you.” And Allie clasped the shaking
form closer. Then followed a silence during which Mrs. Durade recovered
her composure.

“Allie, I ran off with Durade before you were born,” began the mother,
swiftly, as if she must hurry out her secret. “Durade is not your
father.... Your name is Lee. Your father is Allison Lee. I’ve heard he’s
a rich man now.... Oh, I want to get back--to give you to him--to beg
his forgiveness.... We were married in New Orleans in 1847. My father
made me marry him. I never loved Allison Lee. He was not a kind man--not
the sort I admired.... I met Durade. He was a Spaniard--a blue-blooded
adventurer. I ran off with him. We joined the gold-seekers traveling to
California. You were born out there in 1850.... It has been a hard
life. But I taught you--I did all I could for you. I kept my secret from
you--and his!... Lately I could endure it no longer. I’ve run off from
Durade.”

“Oh, mother, I knew we were running off from him!” cried Allie,
breathlessly. “And I know he will follow us.”

“Indeed, I fear he will,” replied the mother. “But Lord spare me his
revenge!”

“Mother! Oh, it is terrible!... He is not my father. I never loved him.
I couldn’t.... But, mother, you must have loved him!”

“Child, I was Durade’s slave,” she replied, sadly.

“Then why did you run away? He was kind--good to us.”

“Allie, listen. Durade was a gambler--a man crazy to stake all on the
fall of a card. He did not love gold. But he loved games of chance. It
was a terrible passion with him. Once he meant to gamble my honor away.
But that other gambler was too much of a man. There are gamblers who
are men!... I think I began to hate Durade from that time.... He was a
dishonest gambler. He made me share in his guilt. My face lured miners
to his dens.... My face--for I was beautiful once!... Oh, I sunk so low!
But he forced me.... Thank God I left him--before it was too late--too
late for you.”

“Mother, he will follow us!” cried Allie.

“But he shall never have you. I’ll kill him before I let him get you,”
 replied the mother.

“He’d never harm me, mother, whatever he is,” murmured Allie.

“Child, he would use you exactly as he used me. He wanted me to let him
have you--already. He wanted to train you--he said you’d be beautiful
some day.”

“Mother!” gasped Allie, “is THAT what he meant?”

“Forget him, child. And forget your mother’s guilt!... I’ve suffered.
I’ve repented.... All I ask of God is to take you safely home to Allison
Lee--the father whom you have never known.”

The night hour before dawn grew colder and blacker. A great silence
seemed wedged down between the ebony hills. The stars were wan. No cry
of wolf or moan of wind disturbed the stillness. And the stars grew
warmer. The black east changed and paled. Dawn was at hand. An opaque
and obscure grayness filled the world; all had changed, except that
strange, oppressive, and vast silence of the wild.

That silence was broken by the screeching, blood-curdling yell of the
Sioux.

At times these bloody savages attacked without warning and in the
silence of the grave; again they sent out their war-cries, chilling the
hearts of the bravest. Perhaps that warning yell was given only when
doom was certain.

Horn realized the dread omen and accepted it. He called the fugitives
to him and, choosing the best-protected spot among the rocks and wagons,
put the women in the center.

“Now, men--if it’s the last for us--let it be fight! Mebbe we can hold
out till the troops come.”

Then in the gray gloom of dawn he took a shovel; prying up a piece of
sod, he laid it aside and began to dig. And while he dug he listened
for another war-screech and gazed often and intently into the gloom. But
there was no sound and nothing to see. When he had dug a hole several
feet deep he carried an armful of heavy leather bags and deposited
them in it. Then he went back to the wagon for another armful. The men,
gray-faced as the gloom, watched him fill up the hole, carefully replace
the sod, and stamp it down.

He stood for an instant gazing down, as if he had buried the best of his
life. Then he laughed grim and hard.

“There’s my gold! If any man wins through this he can have it!”

Bill Horn divined that he would never live to touch his treasure again.
He who had slaved for gold and had risked all for it cared no more
what might become of it. Gripping his rifle, he turned to await the
inevitable.

Moments of awful suspense passed. Nothing but the fitful beating of
hearts came to the ears of the fugitives--ears that strained to the
stealthy approach of the red foe--ears that throbbed prayerfully for
the tramp of the troopers’ horses. But only silence ensued, a horrible
silence, more nerve-racking than the clash of swift, sure death.

Then out of the gray gloom burst jets of red flame; rifles cracked, and
the air suddenly filled with hideous clamor. The men began to shoot at
gliding shadows, grayer than the gloom. And every shot brought a volley
in return. Smoke mingled with the gloom. In the slight intervals between
rifleshots there were swift, rustling sounds and sharp thuds from
arrows. Then the shrill strife of sound became continuous; it came from
all around and closed in upon the doomed caravan. It swelled and rolled
away and again there was silence.




4

In 1865, just after the war, a party of engineers was at work in the
Wyoming hills on a survey as hazardous as it was problematical. They had
charge of the laying out of the Union Pacific Railroad.

This party, escorted by a company of United States troops under Colonel
Dillon, had encountered difficulties almost insurmountable. And now,
having penetrated the wild hills to the eastern slope of the Rockies
they were halted by a seemingly impassable barrier--a gorge too deep to
fill, too wide to bridge.

General Lodge, chief engineer of the corps, gave an order to one of
his assistants. “Put young Neale on the job. If we ever survey a line
through this awful place we’ll owe it to him.”

The assistant, Baxter, told an Irishman standing by and smoking a short,
black pipe to find Neale and give him the chief’s orders. The Irishman,
Casey by name, was raw-boned, red-faced, and hard-featured, a man inured
to exposure and rough life. His expression was one of extreme and fixed
good humor, as if his face had been set, mask-like, during a grin. He
removed the pipe from his lips.

“Gineral, the flag I’ve been holdin’ fer thot dom’ young surveyor is the
wrong color. I want a green flag.”

Baxter waved the Irishman to his errand, but General Lodge looked up
from the maps and plans before him with a faint smile. He had a dark,
stern face and the bearing of a soldier.

“Casey, you can have any color you like,” he said. “Maybe green would
change our luck.”

“Gineral, we’ll niver git no railroad built, an’ if we do it’ll be the
Irish thot builds it,” responded Casey, and went his way.

Truly only one hope remained--that the agile and daring Neale, with his
eye of a mountaineer and his genius for estimating distance and grade,
might run a line around the gorge.

While waiting for Neale the engineers went over the maps and drawings
again and again, with the earnestness of men who could not be beaten.

Lodge had been a major-general in the Civil War just ended, and before
that he had traveled through this part of the West many times, and
always with the mighty project of a railroad looming in his mind. It had
taken years to evolve the plan of a continental railroad, and it came
to fruition at last through many men and devious ways, through plots and
counterplots. The wonderful idea of uniting East and West by a railroad
originated in one man’s brain; he lived for it, and finally he died
for it. But the seeds he had sown were fruitful. One by one other men
divined and believed, despite doubt and fear, until the day arrived when
Congress put the Government of the United States, the army, a group of
frock-coated directors, and unlimited gold back of General Lodge, and
bade him build the road.

In all the length and breadth of the land no men but the chief engineer
and his assistants knew the difficulty, the peril of that undertaking.
The outside world was interested, the nation waited, mostly in doubt.
But Lodge and his engineers had been seized by the spirit of some great
thing to be, in the making of which were adventure, fortune, fame,
and that strange call of life which foreordained a heritage for future
generations. They were grim; they were indomitable.

Warren Neale came hurrying up. He was a New Englander of poor family,
self-educated, wild for adventure, keen for achievement, eager, ardent,
bronze-faced, and keen-eyed, under six feet in height, built like a
wedge, but not heavy--a young man of twenty-three with strong latent
possibilities of character.

General Lodge himself explained the difficulties of the situation and
what the young surveyor was expected to do. Neale flushed with pride;
his eyes flashed; his jaw set. But he said little while the engineers
led him out to the scene of the latest barrier. It was a rugged gorge,
old and yellow and crumbled, cedar-fringed at the top, bare and white at
the bottom. The approach to it was through a break in the walls, so that
the gorge really extended both above and below this vantage-point.

“This is the only pass through these foot-hills,” said Engineer Henney,
the eldest of Lodge’s corps.

The passage ended where the break in the walls fronted abruptly upon the
gorge. It was a wild scene. Only inspired and dauntless men could have
entertained any hope of building a railroad through such a place. The
mouth of the break was narrow; a rugged slope led up to the left; to the
right a huge buttress of stone wall bulged over the gorge; across stood
out the seamed and cracked cliffs, and below yawned the abyss. The
nearer side of the gorge could only be guessed at.

Neale crawled to the extreme edge of the precipice, and, lying flat, he
tried to discover what lay beneath. Evidently he did not see much, for
upon getting up he shook his head. Then he gazed at the bulging wall.

“The side of that can be blown off,” he muttered.

“But what’s around the corner? If it’s straight stone wall for miles and
miles we are done,” said Boone, another of the engineers.

“The opposite wall is just that,” added Henney. “A straight stone wall.”

General Lodge gazed at the baffling gorge. His face became grimmer,
harder. “It seems impossible to go on, but we must go on!” he said.

A short silence ensued. The engineers faced one another like men
confronted by a last and crowning hindrance. Then Neale laughed. He
appeared cool and confident.

“It only looks bad,” he said. “We’ll climb to the top and I’ll go down
over the wall on a rope.”

Neale had been let down over many precipices in those stony hills. He
had been the luckiest, the most daring and successful of all the men
picked out and put to perilous tasks. No one spoke of the accidents that
had happened, or even the fatal fall of a lineman who a few weeks
before had ventured once too often. Every rod of road surveyed made the
engineers sterner at their task, just as it made them keener to attain
final success.

The climb to the top of the bluff was long and arduous. The whole corps
went, and also some of the troopers.

“I’ll need a long rope,” Neale had said to King, his lineman.

It was this order that made King take so much time in ascending the
bluff. Besides, he was a cowboy, used to riding, and could not climb
well.

“Wal--I--shore--rustled--all the line--aboot heah,” he drawled,
pantingly, as he threw lassoes and coils of rope at Neale’s feet.

Neale picked up some of the worn pieces. He looked dubious. “Is this all
you could get?” he asked.

“Shore is. An’ thet includes what Casey rustled from the soldiers.”

“Help me knot these,” went on Neale.

“Wal, I reckon this heah time I’ll go down before you,” drawled King.

Neale laughed and looked curiously at his lineman. Back somewhere in
Nebraska this cowboy from Texas had attached himself to Neale. They
worked together; they had become friends. Larry Red King made no bones
of the fact that Texas had grown too hot for him. He had been born
with an itch to shoot. To Neale it seemed that King made too much of a
service Neale had rendered--the mere matter of a helping hand. Still,
there had been danger.

“Go down before me!” exclaimed Neale.

“I reckon,” replied King.

“You will not,” rejoined the other, bluntly. “I may not need you at all.
What’s the sense of useless risk?”

“Wal, I’m goin’--else I throw up my job.”

“Oh, hell!” burst out Neale as he strained hard on a knot. Again he
looked at his lineman, this time with something warmer than curiosity in
his glance.

Larry Red King was tall, slim, hard as iron, and yet undeniably graceful
in outline--a singularly handsome and picturesque cowboy with flaming
hair and smooth, red face and eyes of flashing blue. From his belt swung
a sheath holding a heavy gun.

“Wal, go ahaid,” added Neale, mimicking his comrade. “An’ I shore hope
thet this heah time you-all get aboot enough of your job.”

One by one the engineers returned from different points along the wall,
and they joined the group around Neale and King.

“Test that rope,” ordered General Lodge.

The long rope appeared to be amply strong. When King fastened one end
round his body under his arms the question arose among the engineers,
just as it had arisen for Neale, whether or not it was needful to let
the lineman down before the surveyor. Henney, who superintended this
sort of work, decided it was not necessary.

“I reckon I’ll go ahaid,” said King. Like all Texans of his type,
Larry King was slow, easy, cool, careless. Moreover, he gave a singular
impression of latent nerve, wildness, violence.

There seemed every assurance of a deadlock when General Lodge stepped
forward and addressed his inquiry to Neale.

“Larry thinks the rope will break. So he wants to go first,” replied
Neale.

There were broad smiles forthcoming, yet no one laughed. This was one
of the thousands of strange human incidents that must be enacted in the
building of the railroad. It might have been humorous, but it was big.
It fixed the spirit and it foreshadowed events.

General Lodge’s stern face relaxed, but he spoke firmly. “Obey orders,”
 he admonished Larry King.

The loop was taken from Larry’s waist and transferred to Neale’s. Then
all was made ready to let the daring surveyor with his instrument down
over the wall.

Neale took one more look at the rugged front of the cliff. When he
straightened up the ruddy bronze had left his face.

“There’s a bulge of rock. I can’t see what’s below it,” he said. “No
use for signals. I’ll go down the length of the rope and trust to find a
footing. I can’t be hauled up.”

They all conceded this silently.

Then Neale sat down, let his legs dangle over the wall, firmly grasped
his instrument, and said to the troopers who held the rope, “All right!”

They lowered him foot by foot.

It was windy and the dust blew up from under the wall. Black cañon
swifts, like swallows, darted out with rustling wings, uttering
frightened twitterings. The engineers leaned over, watching Neale’s
progress. Larry King did not look over the precipice. He watched the
slowly slipping rope as knot by knot it passed over. It fascinated him.

“He’s reached the bulge of rock,” called Baxter, craning his neck.

“There, he’s down--out of sight!” exclaimed Henney.

Casey, the flagman, leaned farther out than any other. “Phwat a dom’
sthrange way to build a railroad, I sez,” he remarked.

The gorge lay asleep in the westering sun, silent, full of blue haze.
Seen from this height, far above the break where the engineers had first
halted, it had the dignity and dimensions of a cañon. Its walls had
begun to change color in the sunset light.

Foot by foot the soldiers let the rope slip, until probably two hundred
had been let out, and there were scarcely a hundred feet left. By this
time all that part of the cable which had been made of lassoes had
passed over; the remainder consisted of pieces of worn and knotted and
frayed rope, at which the engineers began to gaze fearfully.

“I don’t like this,” said Henney, nervously. “Neale surely ought to have
found a ledge or bench or slope by now.”

Instinctively the soldiers held back, reluctantly yielding inches where
before they had slacked away feet. But intent as was their gaze, it
could not rival that of the cowboy.

“Hold!” he yelled, suddenly pointing to where the strained rope curved
over the edge of the wall.

The troopers held hard. The rope ceased to pay out. The strain seemed to
increase. Larry King pointed with a lean hand.

“It’s a-goin’ to break!”

His voice, hoarse and swift, checked the forward movement of the
engineers. He plunged to his knees before the rope and reached
clutchingly, as if he wanted to grasp it, yet dared not.

“Ropes was my job! Old an’ rotten! It’s breakin’!”

Even as he spoke the rope snapped. The troopers, thrown off their
balance, fell backward. Baxter groaned; Boone and Henney cried out in
horror; General Lodge stood aghast, dazed. Then they all froze rigid in
the position of intense listening.

A dull sound puffed up from the gorge, a low crash, then a slow-rising
roar and rattle of sliding earth and rock. It diminished and ceased with
the hollow cracking of stone against stone.

Casey broke the silence among the listening men with a curse. Larry Red
King rose from his knees, holding the end of the snapped rope, which
he threw from him with passionate violence. Then with action just as
violent he unbuckled his belt and pulled it tighter and buckled it
again. His eyes were blazing with blue lightning; they seemed to accuse
the agitated engineers of deliberate murder. But he turned away without
speaking and hurried along the edge of the gorge, evidently searching
for a place to go down.

General Lodge ordered the troopers to follow King and if possible
recover Neale’s body.

“That lad had a future,” said old Henney, sadly. “We’ll miss him.”

Boone’s face expressed sickness and horror.

Baxter choked. “Too bad!” he murmured, “but what’s to be done?”

The chief engineer looked away down the shadowy gorge where the sun was
burning the ramparts red. To have command of men was hard, bitter. Death
stalked with his orders. He foresaw that the building of this railroad
was to resemble the war in which he had sent so many lads and men to
bloody graves.

The engineers descended the long slope and returned to camp, a mile down
the narrow valley. Fires were blazing; columns of smoke were curling
aloft; the merry song and reckless laugh of soldiers were ringing out,
so clear in the still air; horses were neighing and stamping.

Colonel Dillon reported to General Lodge that one of the scouts had
sighted a large band of Sioux Indians encamped in a valley not far
distant. This tribe had gone on the war-path and had begun to harass the
engineers. Neale’s tragic fate was forgotten in the apprehension of
what might happen when the Sioux discovered the significance of that
surveying expedition.

“The Sioux could make the building of the U. P. impossible,” said
Henney, always nervous and pessimistic.

“No Indians--nothing can stop us!” declared his chief.

The troopers sent to follow Larry King came back to camp, saying that
they had lost him and that they could not find any place where it was
possible to get down into that gorge.

In the morning Larry King had not returned.

Detachments of troopers were sent in different directions to try again.
And the engineers went out once more to attack their problem. Success
did not attend the efforts of either party, and at sunset, when all had
wearily returned to camp, Larry King was still absent. Then he was given
up for lost.

But before dark the tall cowboy limped into camp, dusty and torn,
carrying Neale’s long tripod and surveying instrument. It looked the
worse for a fall, but apparently was not badly damaged. King did not
give the troopers any satisfaction. Limping on to the tents of the
engineers, he set down the instrument and called. Boone was the first
to come out, and his summons brought Henney, Baxter, and the younger
members of the corps. General Lodge, sitting at his campfire some rods
away, and bending over his drawings, did not see King’s arrival.

No one detected any difference in the cowboy, except that he limped.
Slow, cool, careless he was, yet somehow vital and impelling. “Wal, we
run the line around--four miles up the gorge whar the crossin’ is easy.
Only ninety-foot grade to the mile.”

The engineers looked at him as if he were crazy.

“But Neale! He fell--he’s dead!” exclaimed Henney.

“Daid? Wal, no, Neale ain’t daid,” drawled Larry.

“Where is he, then?”

“I reckon he’s comin’ along back heah.”

“Is he hurt?”

“Shore. An’ hungry, too, which is what I am,” replied Larry, as he
limped away.

Some of the engineers hurried out in the gathering dusk to meet Neale,
while others went to General Lodge with the amazing story.

The chief received the good news quietly but with intent eyes. “Bring
Neale and King here--as soon as their needs have been seen to,” he
ordered. Then he called after Baxter, “Ninety feet to the mile, you
said?”

“Ninety-foot grade, so King reported.”

“By all that’s lucky!” breathed the chief, as if his load had been
immeasurably lightened. “Send those boys to me.”

Some of the soldiers had found Neale down along the trail and were
helping him into camp. He was crippled and almost exhausted. He made
light of his condition, yet he groaned when he dropped into a seat
before the fire.

Some one approached Larry King to inform him that the general wanted to
see him.

“Wal, I’m hungry--an’ he ain’t my boss,” replied Larry, and went on with
his meal. It was well known that the Southerner would not talk.

But Neale talked; he blazed up in eloquent eulogy of his lineman; before
an hour had passed away every one in camp knew that Larry had saved
Neale’s life. Then the loquacious Casey, intruding upon the cowboy’s
reserve, got roundly cursed for his pains.

“G’wan out among thim Sooz Injuns an’ be a dead hero, thin,” retorted
Casey, as the cowboy stalked off to be alone in the gloom. Evidently
Casey was disappointed not to get another cursing, for he turned to his
comrade, McDermott, an axman. “Say, Mac, phwot do you make of cowboys?”

“I tell ye, Pat, I make of thim thet you’ll be full of bulletholes
before this railroad’s built.”

“Thin, b’gosh, I’ll hould drink fer a long time yit,” replied Casey.

Later General Lodge visited Neale and received the drawings and figures
that made plain solution of what had been a formidable problem.

“It was easy, once I landed under that bulge of cliff,” said Neale.
“There’s a slope of about forty-five degrees--not all rock. And four
miles up the gorge peters out. We can cross. I got to where I could see
the divide--and oh! there is where our troubles begin. The worst is all
to come.”

“You’ve said it,” replied the chief, soberly. “We can’t follow the trail
and get the grade necessary. We’ve got to hunt up a pass.”

“We’ll find one,” said Neale, hopefully.

“Neale, you’re ambitious and you’ve the kind of spirit that never gives
up. I’ve watched your work from the start. You’ll make a big position
for yourself with this railroad, if you only live through the building
of it.”

“Oh, I’ll live through it, all right,” replied Neale, laughing. “I’m
like a cat--always on my feet--and have nine lives besides.”

“You surely must! How far did you fall this time?”

“Not far. I landed in a tree, where my instrument stuck. But I crashed
down, and got a hard knock on the head. When Larry found me I was
unconscious and sliding for another precipice.”

“That Texan seems attached to you.”

“Well, if he wasn’t before he will be now,” said Neale, feelingly. “I’ll
tell you, General, Larry’s red-headed, a droll, lazy Southerner,
and he’s made fun of by the men. But they don’t understand him. They
certainly can’t see how dangerous he is. Only I don’t mean that. I do
mean that he’s true like steel.”

“Yes, he showed that. When the rope snapped I was sure he’d pull a gun
on us.... Neale, I would like to have had you and Larry Red King with me
through the war.”

“Thank you, General Lodge.... But I like the prospects now.”

“Neale, you’re hungry for wild life?”

“Yes,” replied Neale, simply.

“I said as much. I felt very much the same way when I was your age. And
you like our prospects?... Well, you’ve thought things out. Neale, the
building of the U. P. will be hell!”

“General, I can see that. It sort of draws me--two ways--the wildness of
it and then to accomplish something.”

“My lad, I hope you will accomplish something big without living out all
the wildness.”

“You think I might lose my head?” queried Neale.

“You are excitable and quick-tempered. Do you drink?”

“Yes--a little,” answered the young man. “But I don’t care for liquor.”

“Don’t drink, Neale,” said the chief, earnestly. “Of course it doesn’t
matter now, for we’re only a few men out here in the wilds. But when our
work is done over the divide, we must go back along the line. You know
ground has been broken and rails laid west of Omaha. The work’s begun.
I hear that Omaha is a beehive. Thousands of idle men are flocking West.
The work will be military. We must have the army to protect us, and
we will hire all the soldiers who apply. But there will be hordes of
others--the dregs of the war and all the bad characters of the frontier.
They will flock to the construction camp. Millions of dollars will go
along with the building. Gold!... Where it’s all coming from I have no
idea. The Government backs us with the army--that’s all. But the gold
will be forthcoming. I have that faith.... And think, lad, what it will
mean in a year or two. Ten thousand soldiers in one camp out here
in these wild hills. And thousands of others--honest merchants and
dishonest merchants, whisky men, gamblers, desperadoes, bandits, and
bad women. Niggers, Greasers, Indians, all together moving from camp to
camp, where there can be no law.”

“It will be great!” exclaimed Neale, with shining eyes.

“It will be terrible,” muttered the elder man, gravely. Then, as he got
up and bade his young assistant good night, the somberness had returned
to his eyes and the weight to his shoulders. He did not underestimate
his responsibility nor the nature of his task, and he felt the coming of
nameless and unknown events beyond all divining.

Henney was Neale’s next visitor. The old engineer appeared elated, but
for the moment he apparently forgot everything else in his solicitude
for the young man’s welfare.

Presently, after he had been reassured, the smile came back to his face.

“The chief has promoted you,” he said.

“What!” exclaimed Neale, starting up.

“It’s a fact. He just talked it over with Baxter and me. This last job
of yours pleased him mightily... and so you go up.”

“Go up!... To what?” queried Neale, eagerly.

“Well, that’s why he consulted us, I guess,” laughed Henney. “You see,
we sort of had to make something to promote you to, for the present.”

“Oh, I see! I was wondering what job there could be,” replied Neale, and
he laughed, too. “What did the chief say?”

“He said a lot. Figured you’d land at the top if the U. P. is ever
built.... Chief engineer!... Superintendent of maintenance of way!”

“Good Lord!” breathed Neale. “You’re not in earnest?”

“Wal, I shore am, as your cowboy pard says,” returned Henney. And then
he spoke with real earnestness. “Listen, Neale. Here’s the matter in a
nutshell. You will be called upon to run these particular and difficult
surveys, just as yesterday. But no more of the routine for you. Added to
that, you will be sent forward and back, inspecting, figuring. You can
make your headquarters with us or in the construction camps, as suits
your convenience. All this, of course, presently, when we get farther
on. So you will be in a way free--your own boss a good deal of the time.
And fitting yourself for that ‘maintenance of way’ job. In fact,
the chief said that--he called you Maintenance-of-Way Neale. Well,
I congratulate you. And my advice is keep on as you’ve begun--go
straight--look out for your wildness and temper.... That’s all. Good
night.”

Then he went out, leaving Neale speechless.

Neale had many callers that night, and the last was Larry Red King. The
cowboy stooped to enter the tent.

“Wal, how aboot you-all?” he drawled.

“Not so good, Red,” replied Neale. “My head’s hot and I’ve got a lot of
pain. I think I’m going to be a little flighty. Would you mind getting
your blankets and staying with me tonight?”

“I reckon I’d be glad,” answered King. He put a hand on Neale’s face.
“You shore have fever.” He left the tent, to return presently with a
roll of blankets and a canteen. Then he awkwardly began to bathe Neale’s
face with cold water. There was a flickering camp-fire outside that
threw shadows on the wall of the tent. By its light Neale saw that
King’s left hand was bandaged and that he used it clumsily.

“What’s wrong with your hand?” he queried.

“I reckon nawthin’.”

“Why is it bound up, then?”

“Wal, some one sent thet fool army doctor to me an’ he said I had two
busted bones in it.”

“He did! I had no idea you were hurt. You never said a word. And you
carried me and my instrument all day--with a broken hand!”

“Wal, I ain’t so shore it’s broke.”

Neale swore at his friend and then he fell asleep. King watched beside
him, ever and anon rewetting the hot brow.

The camp-fire died out, and at length the quietness of late night set
in. The wind mourned and lulled by intervals; a horse thudded his hoofs
now and then; there were the soft, steady footsteps of the sentry on
guard, and the wild cry of a night bird.




5

Neale had not been wrong when he told the engineers that once they had
a line surveyed across the gorge and faced the steep slopes of the other
side their troubles would be magnified.

They found themselves deeper in the Wyoming hills, a range of mountains
that had given General Lodge great difficulty upon former exploring
trips, and over which a pass had not yet been discovered.

The old St. Vrain and Laramie Trail wound along the base of these slopes
and through the valleys. But that trail was not possible for a railroad.
A pass must be found--a pass that would give a grade of ninety feet to
the mile. These mountains had short slopes, and they were high.

It turned out that the line as already surveyed through ravines and
across the gorge had to be abandoned. The line would have to go over the
hills. To that end the camp was moved east again to the first slopes of
the Wyoming hills; from there the engineers began to climb. They reached
the base of the mountains, where they appeared to be halted for good and
all.

The second line, so far as it went, overlooked the Laramie Trail, which
fact was proof that the old trail-finders had as keen eyes as engineers.

With a large band of hostile Sioux watching their movements the engineer
corps found it necessary to have the troops close at hand all the time.
The surveyors climbed the ridges while the soldiers kept them in sight
from below. Day after day this futile search for a pass went on. Many of
the ridges promised well, only to end in impassable cliffs or breaks or
ascents too steep. There were many slopes and they all looked alike.
It took hard riding and hard climbing. The chief and his staff were in
despair. Must their great project fail because of a few miles of steep
ascent? They would not give up.

The vicinity of Cheyenne Pass seemed to offer encouragement. Camp was
made in the valley on a creek. From here observations were taken. One
morning the chief, with his subordinates and a scout, ascended the creek
and then through the pass to the summit. Again the old St. Vrain and
Laramie Trail lay in sight. And again the troops rode along it, with the
engineers above.

The chief with his men rode on and up farther than usual; farther than
they ought to have gone unattended. Once the scout halted and gazed
intently across the valley.

“Smoke signals over thar,” he said.

The engineers looked long, but none of them saw any smoke. They moved
on. But the scout called them back.

“Thet bunch of redskins has split on us. Fust thing we’ll run into some
of them.”

It was Neale’s hawk eye that first sighted Indians. “Look! Look!” he
cried, in great excitement, as he pointed with shaking finger.

Down a grassy slope of a ridge Indians were riding, evidently to head
off the engineers, to get between them and the troops.

“Wal, we’re in fer it now,” declared the scout. “We can’t get back the
way we come up.”

The chief gazed coolly at the Indians and then at the long ridge sloping
away from the summit. He had been in tight places before.

“Ride!” was his order.

“Let’s fight!” cried Neale.

The band of eight men were well armed and well mounted, and if
imperative, could have held off the Sioux for a time. But General Lodge
and the scout headed across a little valley and up a higher ridge, from
which they expected to sight the troops. They rode hard and climbed
fast, but it took a quarter of an hour to gain the ridge-top. Sure
enough the troops were in sight, but far away, and the Sioux were
cutting across to get in front.

It was a time for quick judgment. The scout said they could not ride
down over the ridge, and the chief decided they must follow along it.
The going got to be hard and rough. One by one the men dismounted to
lead their horses. Neale, who rode a mettlesome bay, could scarcely keep
up.

“Take mine,” called Larry King, as he turned to Neale.

“Red, I’ll handle this stupid beast or--”

“Wal, you ain’t handlin’ him,” interrupted King. “Hosses is my job, you
know.”

Red took the bridle from Neale and in one moment the balky horse
recognized a master arm.

“By Heaven! we’ve got to hurry!” called Neale.

It did seem that the Indians would head them off. Neale and King labored
over the rocky ground as best they could, and by dint of hard effort
came up with their party. The Indians were quartering the other ridge,
riding as if on level ground. The going grew rougher. Baxter’s horse
slipped and lamed his right fore leg. Henney’s saddle turned, and more
valuable time was lost. All the men drew their rifles. At every dip
of ground they expected to come to a break that would make a stand
inevitable.

From one point on the ridge they had a good view of the troops.

“Signal!” ordered the chief.

They yelled and shot and waved hats and scarfs. No use--the soldiers
kept moving on at a snail pace far below.

“On--down the ridge!” was the order.

“Wal, General, thet looks bad to me,” objected the scout. Red King
shoved his lean, brown hand between them. There was a flame in his
flashing, blue glance as it swept the slowly descending ridge.

“Judgin’ the lay of land is my job,” he said, in his cool way. “We’ll
git down heah or not at all.”

Neale was sore, lame, and angry as well. He kept gazing across at the
Sioux. “Let’s stop--and fight,” he panted. “We can--whip--that bunch.”

“We may have to fight, but not yet,” replied the chief. “Come on.”

They scrambled on over rocky places, up and down steep banks. Here and
there were stretches where it was possible to ride, and over these they
made better time. The Indians fell out of sight under the side of the
ridge, and this fact was disquieting, for no one could tell how soon
they would show up again or in what quarter. This spurred the men to
sterner efforts.

Meanwhile the sun was setting and the predicament of the engineers grew
more serious. A shout from Neale, who held up the rear, warned all
that the Indians had scaled the ridge behind them and now were in
straightaway pursuit. Thereupon General Lodge ordered his men to face
about with rifles ready. This move checked the Sioux. They halted out of
range.

“They’re waitin’ fer dark to set in,” said the scout.

“Come on! We’ll get away yet,” said the chief, grimly. They went on, and
darkness began to fall about them. This increased both the difficulty
and the danger. On the other hand, it enabled them to try and signal the
troops with fire. One of them would hurry ahead and build a fire while
the others held back to check the Indians if they appeared. And at
length their signals were answered by the troops. Thus encouraged, the
little band of desperate men plunged on down the slope. And just when
night set in black--the fateful hour that would have precipitated the
Indian attack--the troops met the engineers on the slope. The Indians
faded away into the gloom without firing a shot. There was a general
rejoicing. Neale, however, complained that he would rather have fought
them.

“Wal, I shore was achin’ fer trouble,” drawled his faithful ally, King.

The flagman, Casey, removed his black pipe to remark, “All thet cloimb
without a foight.”

General Lodge’s first word to Colonel Dillon was evidently inspired by
Casey’s remark.

“Colonel, did you have steep work getting up to us?”

“Yes, indeed, straight up out of the valley,” was the rejoinder.

But General Lodge did not go back to camp by this short cut down the
valley. He kept along the ridge, and it led for miles slowly down to the
plain. There in the starlight he faced his assistants with singular fire
and earnestness.

“Men, we’ve had a bad scare and a hard jaunt, but we’ve found our pass
over the Wyoming hills. To-morrow we’ll run a line up that long ridge.
We’ll name it Sherman Pass.... Thanks to those red devils!”

On the following morning Neale was awakened from a heavy, dreamless
sleep by a hard dig in the ribs.

“Neale--air you daid?” Larry was saying. “Wake up! An’ listen to thet.”

Neale heard the clear, ringing notes of a bugle-call. He rolled out of
his blankets. “What’s up, Red?” he cried, reaching for his boots.

“Wal, I reckon them Injuns,” drawled Red.

It was just daylight. They found the camp astir--troopers running for
horses, saddles, guns.

“Red, you get our horses and I’ll see what’s up,” cried Neale.

The cowboy strode off, hitching at his belt. Neale ran forward into
camp. He encountered Lieutenant Leslie, whom he knew well, and who told
him a scout had come in with news of a threatened raid; Colonel Dillon
had ordered out a detachment of troopers.

“I’m going,” shouted Neale. “Where’s that scout?”

Neale soon descried a buckskin-clad figure, and he made toward it. The
man, evidently a trapper or hunter, carried a long, brown rifle, and he
had a powder-horn and bullet-pouch slung over his shoulder. There was a
knife in his belt. Neale went directly up to the man.

“My name’s Neale,” he said. “Can I be of any help?”

He encountered a pair of penetrating gray eyes.

“My name’s Slingerland,” replied the other, as he offered his hand. “Are
you an officer?”

“No. I’m a surveyor. But I can ride and shoot. I’ve a cowboy with me--a
Texan. He’ll go. What’s happened?”

“Wal, I ain’t sure yet. But I fear the wust. I got wind of some Sioux
thet was trailin’ some prairie-schooners up in the hills. I warned the
boss--told him to break camp an’ run. Then I come fer the troops. But
the troops had changed camp an’ I jest found them. Reckon we’ll be too
late.”

“Was it a caravan?” inquired Neale, intensely interested.

“Six wagons. Only a few men. Two wimmen. An’ one girl.”

“Girl!” exclaimed Neale.

“Yes. I reckon she was about sixteen. A pretty girl with big, soft eyes.
I offered to take her up behind me on my hoss. An’ they all wanted her
to come. But she wouldn’t.... I hate to think--”

Slingerland did not finish his thought aloud. Just then Larry rode up,
leading Neale’s horse. Slingerland eyed the lithe cowboy.

“Howdy!” drawled Larry. He did not seem curious or eager, and his cool,
easy, reckless air was in sharp contrast to Neale’s fiery daring.

“Red, you got the rifles, I see,” said Neale.

“Sure, an’ I rustled some biscuits.”

In a few moments the troops were mounted and ready. Slingerland led them
up the valley at a rapid trot and soon started to climb. When he reached
the top he worked up for a mile, and then, crossing over, went down
into another valley. Up and down he led, over ridge after ridge, until a
point was reached where the St. Vrain and Laramie Trail could be seen in
the valley below. From there he led them along the top of the ridge, and
just as the sun rose over the hills he pointed down to a spot where the
caravan had been encamped. They descended into this valley. There in the
trail were fresh tracks of unshod horses.

“We ain’t fur behind, but I reckon fur enough to be too late,” said
Slingerland. And he clenched a big fist.

On this level trail he led at a gallop, with the troops behind in the
clattering roar. They made short work of that valley. Then rougher
ground hindered speedy advance.

Presently Slingerland sighted something that made him start. It proved
to be the charred skeleton of a prairie-schooner. The oxen were nowhere
to be seen.

Then they saw that a little beyond blankets and camp utensils littered
the trail. Still farther on the broad wheel-tracks sheered off the road,
where the hurried drivers had missed the way in the dark. This was open,
undulating ground, rock-strewn and overgrown with brush. A ledge of
rock, a few scraggy trees, and more black, charred remains of wagons
marked the final scene of the massacre.



Neale was the first man who dismounted, and Larry King was the second.
They had outstripped the more cautious troopers.

“My Gawd!” breathed Larry.

Neale gripped his rifle with fierce hands and strode forward between two
of the burned wagons. Naked, mutilated bodies, bloody and ghastly, lay
in horrible positions. All had been scalped.

Slingerland rode up with the troops, and all dismounted, cursing and
muttering.

Colonel Dillon ordered a search for anything to identify the dead. There
was nothing. All had been burned or taken away. Of the camp implements,
mostly destroyed, there were two shovels left, one with a burnt handle.
These were used by the troopers to dig graves.

Neale had at first been sickened by the ghastly spectacle. He walked
aside a little way and sat down upon a rock. His face was wet with
clammy sweat. A gnawing rage seemed to affect him in the pit of the
stomach. This was his first experience with the fiendish work of the
savages. A whirl of thoughts filled his mind.

Suddenly he fancied he heard a low moan. He started violently. “Well,
I’m hearing things,” he muttered, soberly.

It made him so nervous that he got up and walked back to where the
troopers were digging. He saw the body of a woman being lowered into a
grave and the sight reminded him of what Slingerland had said. He saw
the scout searching around and he went over to him.

“Have you found the girl?” he asked.

“Not yet. I reckon the devils made off with her. They’d take her, if she
happened to be alive.”

“God! I hope she’s dead.”

“Wal, son, so does Al Slingerland.”

More searching failed to find the body of the girl. She was given up as
lost.

“I’ll find out if she was took captive,” said Slingerland. “This Sioux
band has been friendly with me.”

“Man, they’re on the war-path,” rejoined Dillon.

“Wal, I’ve traded with them same Sioux when they was on the war-path....
This massacre sure is awful, an’ the Sioux will hev to be extarminated.
But they hev their wrongs. An’ Injuns is Injuns.”

Slabs of rock were laid upon the graves. Then the troopers rode away.

Neale and Slingerland and Larry King were the last to mount. And it was
at this moment that Neale either remembered the strange, low moan or
heard it again. He reined in his horse.

“I’m going back,” he called.

“What fer?” Slingerland rejoined.

Larry King wheeled his mount and trotted back to Neale.

“Red, I’m not satisfied,” said Neale, and told his friend what he
thought he had heard.

“Boy, you’re oot of yur haid!” expostulated Red.

“Maybe I am. But I’m going back. Are you coming?”

“Shore,” replied Red, with his easy good nature.

Slingerland sat his horse and watched while he waited. The dust-cloud
that marked the troops drew farther away.

Neale dismounted, threw his bridle, and looked searchingly around.
But Larry, always more comfortable on horseback than on land, kept
his saddle. Suddenly Neale felt inexplicably drawn in a certain
direction--toward a rocky ledge. Still he heard nothing except the wind
in the few scraggy trees. All the ground in and around the scene of
the massacre had been gone over; there was no need to examine it again.
Neale had nothing tangible upon which to base his strange feeling. Yet
absurd or not, he refused to admit it was fancy or emotion. Some voice
had called him. He swore it. If he did not make sure he would always be
haunted. So with clear, deliberate eyes he surveyed the scene. Then he
strode for the ledge of rock.

Tufts of sage grew close at its base. He advanced among them. The
surface of the rock was uneven--and low down a crack showed. At that
instant a slow, sobbing, gasping intake of breath electrified Neale.

“Red--come here!” he yelled, in a voice that made the cowboy jump.

Neale dropped to his knees and parted the tufts of sage. Lower down the
crack opened up. On the ground, just inside that crack he saw the gleam
of a mass of chestnut hair. His first flashing thought was that here was
a scalp the red devils did not get.

Then Red King was kneeling beside him--bending forward. “It’s a girl!”
 he ejaculated.

“Yes--the one Slingerland told me about--the girl with big eyes,”
 replied Neale. He put a hand softly on her head. It was warm. Her hair
felt silky, and the touch sent a quiver over him. Probably she was
dying.

Slingerland came riding up. “Wal, boys, what hev you found?” he asked,
curiously.

“That girl,” replied Neale.

The reply brought Slingerland sliding out of his saddle.

Neale hesitated a moment, then reaching into the aperture, he got his
hands under the girl’s arms and carefully drew her out upon the grass.
She lay face down, her hair a tumbled mass, her body inert. Neale’s
quick eye searched for bloodstains, but found none.

“I remember thet hair,” said Slingerland. “Turn her over.”

“I reckon we’ll see then where she’s hurt,” muttered Red King.

Evidently Neale thought the same, for he was plainly afraid to place her
on her back.

“Slingerland, she’s not such a little girl,” he said, irrelevantly. Then
he slipped his hands under her arms again. Suddenly he felt something
wet and warm and sticky. He pulled a hand out. It was blood-stained.

“Aw!” exclaimed Red.

“Son, what’d you expect?” demanded Slingerland. “She got shot or cut,
an’ in her fright she crawled in thar. Come, over with her. Let’s see.
She might live.”

This practical suggestion acted quickly upon Neale. He turned the girl
over so that her head lay upon his knees. The face thus exposed was
deathly pale, set like stone in horror. The front of her dress was a
bloody mass, and her hands were red.

“Stabbed in the breast!” exclaimed King.

“No,” replied Slingerland. “If she’d been stabbed she’d been scalped,
too. Mebbe thet blood comes from an arrow an’ she might hev pulled it
out.”

Neale bent over her with swift scrutiny. “No cut or hole in her dress!”

“Boys, thar ain’t no marks on her--only thet blood,” added Slingerland,
hopefully.

Neale tore open the front of her blouse and slipped his hand in upon her
breast. It felt round, soft, warm under his touch, but quiet. He shook
his head.

“Those moans I heard must have been her last dying breaths,” he said.

“Mebbe. But she shore doesn’t look daid to me,” replied King. “I’ve seen
daid people. Put your hand on her heart.”

Neale had been feeling for heart pulsations on her right side. He
shifted his hand. Instantly through the soft swell of her breast
throbbed a beat-beat-beat. The beatings were regular and not at all
faint.

“Good Lord, what a fool I am!” he cried. “She’s alive! Her heart’s
going! There’s not a wound on her!”

“Wal, we can’t see any, thet’s sure,” replied Slingerland.

“She might hev a fatal hurt, all the same,” suggested King.

“No!” exclaimed Neale. “That blood’s from some one else--most likely
her murdered mother.... Red, run for some water. Fetch it in your hat.
Slingerland, ride after the troops.”

Slingerland rose and mounted his horse. “Wal, I’ve an idee. Let’s take
the girl to my cabin. Thet’s not fur from hyar. It’s a long ride to the
camp. An’ if she needs the troop doctor we can fetch him to my place.”

“But the Sioux?”

“Wal, she’d be safer with me. The Injuns an’ me are friends.”

“All right. Good. But you ride after the troops, anyhow, and tell Dillon
about the girl--that we’re going to your cabin.” Slingerland galloped
away after the dust cloud down the trail.

Neale gazed strangely down at the face of the girl he had rescued. Her
lips barely parted to make again the low moan. So that was what had
called to him. No--not all! There was something more than this feeble
cry that had brought him back to search; there had been some strong and
nameless and inexplicable impulse. Neale believed in his impulses--in
those strange ones which came to him at intervals. So far in his life
girls had been rather negative influences. But this girl, or the fact
that he had saved her, or both impressions together, struck deep into
him; life would never again be quite the same to Warren Neale.

Red King came striding back with a sombrero full of water.

“Take your scarf and wash that blood off her hands before she comes to
and sees it,” said Neale.

The cowboy was awkward at the task, but infinitely gentle. “Poor kid!
I’ll bet she’s alone in the world now.”

Neale wet his scarf and bathed the girl’s face. “If she’s only fainted
she ought to be reviving now. But I’m afraid--”

Then suddenly her eyes opened. They were large, violet-hued, covered
with a kind of veil or film, as though sleep had not wholly gone; and
they were unseeingly, staringly set with horror. Her breast heaved with
a sharply drawn breath; her hands groped and felt for something to hold;
her body trembled. Suddenly she sat up. She was not weak. Her motions
were violent. The dazed, horror-stricken eyes roved around, but did not
fasten upon anything.

“Aw! Gone crazy!” muttered King, pityingly.

It did seem so. She put her hands to her ears as if to shut out a
horrible sound. And she screamed. Neale grasped her shoulders, turned
her round, and forced her into such a position that her gaze must meet
his.

“You’re safe!” he cried sharply. “The Indians have gone! I’m a white
man!”

It seemed as though his piercing voice stirred her reason. She stared
at him. Her face changed. Her lips parted and her hand, shaking like a
leaf, covered them, clutched at them. The other hand waved before her as
if to brush aside some haunting terror.

Neale held that gaze with all his power--dominant, masterful, masculine.
He repeated what he had said.

Then it became a wonderful and terrible sight to watch her, to divine
in some little way the dark and awful state of her mind. The lines, the
tenseness, the shade, the age faded out of her face; the deep-set frown
smoothed itself out of her brow and it became young. Neale saw those
staring eyes fix upon his; he realized a dull, opaque blackness of
horror, hideous veils let down over the windows of a soul, images of
hell limned forever on a mind. Then that film, that unseeing cold thing,
like the shade of sleep or of death, passed from her eyes. Now they
suddenly were alive, great dark-violet gulfs, full of shadows, dilating,
changing into exquisite and beautiful lights.

“I’m a white man!” he said, tensely. “You’re saved! The Indians are
gone!”

She understood him. She realized the meaning of his words. Then, with
a low, agonized, and broken cry she shut her eyes tight and reached
blindly out with both hands; she screamed aloud. Shock claimed her
again. Horror and fear convulsed her, and it must have been fear that
was uppermost. She clutched Neale with fingers of steel, in a grip he
could not have loosened without breaking her bones.

“Red, you saw--she was right in her mind for a moment--you saw?” burst
out Neale.

“Shore I saw. She’s only scared now,” replied King. “It must hev been
hell fer her.”

At this juncture Slingerland came riding up to them. “Did she come
around?” he inquired, curiously gazing at the girl as she clung to
Neale.

“Yes, for a moment,” replied Neale.

“Wal, thet’s good.... I caught up with Dillon. Told him. He was mighty
glad we found her. Cussed his troopers some. Said he’d explain your
absence, an’ we could send over fer anythin’.”

“Let’s go, then,” said Neale. He tried to loosen the girl’s hold on him,
but had to give it up. Taking her in his arms, he rose and went toward
his horse. King had to help him mount with his burden. Neale did not
imagine he would ever forget that spot, but he took another long look to
fix the scene indelibly on his memory. The charred wagons, the graves,
the rocks over which the naked, gashed bodies had been flung, the three
scraggy trees close together, and the ledge with the dark aperture at
the base--he gazed at them all, and then turned his horse to follow
Slingerland.




6

Some ten miles from the scene of the massacre and perhaps fifteen from
the line surveyed by the engineers, Slingerland lived in a wild valley
in the heart of the Wyoming hills.

The ride there was laborsome and it took time, but Neale scarcely noted
either fact. He paid enough attention to the trail to fix landmarks
and turnings in his mind, so that he would remember how to find the
way there again. He was, however, mostly intent upon the girl he was
carrying.

Twice that he knew of her eyes opened during the ride. But it was to see
nothing and only to grip him tighter, if that were possible. Neale began
to imagine that he had been too hopeful. Her body was a dead weight and
cold. Those two glimpses he had of her opened eyes hurt him. What should
he do when she did come to herself? She would be frantic with horror and
grief and he would be helpless. In a case like hers it might have been
better if she had been killed.

The last mile to Slingerland’s lay through a beautiful green valley with
steep sides almost like a cañon--trees everywhere, and a swift, clear
brook running over a bed of smooth rock. The trail led along this brook
up to where the valley boxed and the water boiled out of a great spring
in a green glade overhung by bushy banks and gray rocks above. A rude
cabin with a red-stone chimney and clay-chinked cracks between the logs,
stuffed to bursting with furs and pelts and horns and traps, marked the
home of the trapper.

“Wal, we’re hyar,” sung out Slingerland, and in the cheery tones there
was something which told that the place was indeed home to him.

“Shore is a likely-lookin’ camp,” drawled Red, throwing his bridle.
“Been heah a long time, thet cabin.”

“Me an’ my pard was the first white men in these hyar hills,” replied
Slingerland. “He’s gone now.” Then he turned to Neale. “Son, you must
be tired. Thet was a ways to carry a girl nigh onto dead.... Look how
white! Hand her down to me.”

The girl’s hands slipped nervelessly and limply from their hold upon
Neale. Slingerland laid her on the grass in a shady spot. The three men
gazed down upon her, all sober, earnest, doubtful.

“I reckon we can’t do nothin’ but wait,” said the trapper.

Red King shook his head as if the problem were beyond him.

Neale did not voice his thought, yet he wanted to be the first person
her eyes should rest upon when she did return to consciousness.

“Wal, I’ll set to work an’ clean out a place fer her,” said Slingerland.

“We’ll help,” rejoined Neale. “Red, you have a look at the horses.”

“I’ll slip the saddles an’ bridles,” replied King, “an’ let ‘em go.
Hosses couldn’t be chased out of heah.”

Slingerland’s cabin consisted really of two adjoining cabins with a door
between, one part being larger and of later construction. Evidently he
used the older building as a storeroom for his pelts. When all these had
been removed the room was seen to be small, with two windows, a table,
and a few other crude articles of home-made furniture. The men cleaned
this room and laid down a carpet of deer hides, fur side up. A bed was
made of a huge roll of buffalo skins, flattened and shaped, and covered
with Indian blankets. When all this had been accomplished the trapper
removed his fur cap, scratched his grizzled head, and appealed to Neale
and King.

“I reckon you can fetch over some comfortable-like necessaries--fixin’s
fer a girl,” he suggested.

Red King laughed in his cool, easy, droll way. “Shore, we’ll rustle fer
a lookin’-glass, an’ hair-brush, an’ such as girls hev to hev. Our camp
is full of them things.”

But Neale did not see any humor in Slingerland’s perplexity or in the
cowboy’s facetiousness. It was the girl’s serious condition that worried
him, not her future comfort.

“Run out thar!” called Slingerland, sharply.

Neale, who was the nearest to the door, bolted outside, to see the girl
sitting up, her hair disheveled, her manner wild in the extreme. At
sight of him she gave a start, sudden and violent, and uttered a
sharp cry. When Neale reached her it was to find her shaking all over.
Terrible fear had never been more vividly shown, yet Neale believed she
saw in him a white man, a friend. But the fear in her was still stronger
than reason.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“My name’s Neale--Warren Neale,” he replied, sitting down beside her.
He took one of the shaking hands in his. He was glad that she talked
rationally.

“Where am I?”

“This is the home of a trapper. I brought you here. It was the best--in
fact, the only place.”

“You saved me--from--from those devils?” she queried, hoarsely, and
again the cold and horrible shade veiled her eyes.

“Yes--yes--but don’t think of them--they’re gone,” replied Neale,
hastily. The look of her distressed and frightened him. He did not know
what to say.

The girl fell back with a poignant cry and covered her eyes as if to
shut out a hateful and appalling sight. “My--mother!” she moaned,
and shuddered with agony. “They--murdered--her!... Oh! the terrible
yells!... I saw--killed--every man--Mrs. Jones! My mother--she fell--she
never spoke! Her blood was on me!... I crawled away--I hid!... The
Indians--they tore--hacked--scalped--burned!... I couldn’t die!--I
saw!... Oh!--Oh!--Oh!” Then she fell to moaning in inarticulate fashion.

Slingerland and King came out and looked down at the girl.

“Wal, the life’s strong in her,” said the trapper. “I reckon I know when
life is strong in any critter. She’ll git over thet. All we can do now
is to watch her an’ keep her from doin’ herself harm. Take her in an’
lay her down.”

For two days and nights Neale watched over her, except for the hours
she slept, when he divided his vigil with King. She had periods of
consciousness, in which she knew Neale, but most of the time she raved
or tossed or moaned or lay like one dead. On the third day, however.
Neale felt encouraged. She awoke weak and somber, but quiet and
rational. Neale talked earnestly to her, in as sensible a way as he knew
how, speaking briefly of the tragic fate that had been hers, bidding her
force it out of her mind by taking interest in her new surroundings. She
listened to him, but did not seem impressed. It was a difficult matter
to get her to eat. She did not want to move. At length Neale told her
that he must go back to the camp of the engineers, where he had work to
do; he promised that he would return to see her soon and often. She did
not speak or raise her eyes when he left her.

Outside, when Red brought up the horses, Slingerland said to Neale: “See
hyar, son, I reckon you needn’t worry. She’ll come around all right.”

“Shore she will,” corroborated the cowboy. “Time’ll cure her. I’m from
Texas, whar sudden death is plentiful in all families.”

Neale shook his head. “I’m not so sure,” he said. “That girl’s more
sensitively and delicately organized than you fellows see. I doubt
if she’ll ever recover from the shock. It’ll take a mighty great
influence.... But let’s hope for the best. Now, Slingerland, take care
of her as best you can. Shut her in when you leave camp. I’ll ride over
as often as possible. If she gets so she will talk, then we can find out
if she has any relatives, and if so I’ll take her to them. If not I’ll
do whatever else I can for her.”

“Wal, son, I like the way you’re makin’ yourself responsible fer thet
kid,” replied the trapper. “I never had no wife nor daughter. But I’m
thinkin’--wouldn’t it jest be hell to be a girl--tender an’ young an’
like Neale said--an’ sudden hev all you loved butchered before your
eyes?”

“It shore would,” said Red, feelingly. “An’ thet’s what she sees all the
time.”

“Slingerland, do we run any chance of meeting Indians?” queried Neale.

“I reckon not. Them Sioux will git fur away from hyar after thet
massacre. But you want to keep sharp eyes out, an’ if you do meet any,
jest ride an’ shoot your way through. You’ve the best horses I’ve seen.
Whar’d you git them?”

“They belong to King. He’s a cowboy.”

“Hosses was my job. An’ we can shore ride away from any redskins,”
 replied King.

“Wal, good luck, an’ come back soon,” was Slingerland’s last word.

So they parted. The cowboy led the way with the steady, easy, trotting
walk that saved a horse yet covered distance; in three hours they were
hailed by a trooper outpost, and soon they were in camp.

Shortly after their arrival the engineers returned, tired, dusty,
work-stained, and yet in unusually good spirits. They had run the line
up over Sherman Pass, and now it seemed their difficulties were to
lessen as the line began to descend from the summit of the divide.
Neale’s absence had been noticed, for his services were in demand.
But all the men rejoiced in his rescue of the little girl, and were
sympathetic and kind in their inquiries. It seemed to Neale that his
chief looked searchingly at him, as if somehow the short absence
had made a change in him. Neale himself grew conscious of a strange
difference in his inner nature; he could not forget the girl, her
helplessness, her pathetic plight.

“Well, it’s curious,” he soliloquized. “But--it’s not so, either. I’m
sorry for her.”

And he remembered the strange change in her eyes when he had watched
the shadow of horror and death and blood fade away before the natural
emotions of youth and life and hope.

Next day Neale showed more than ever his value to the engineering
corps, and again won a word of quiet praise from his chief. He liked the
commendation of his superiors. He began to believe heart and soul in
the coming greatness of the railroad. And that strenuous week drove his
faithful lineman, King, to unwonted complaint.

Larry tugged at his boots and groaned as he finally pulled them off.
They were full of holes, at which he gazed ruefully. “Shore I’ll be done
with this heah job when they’re gone,” he said.

“Why do you work in high-heeled boots?” inquired Neale. “You can’t walk
or climb in them. No wonder they’re full of holes.”

“Wal, I couldn’t wear no boots like yours,” declared Red.

“You’ll have to. Another day will about finish them, and your feet,
too.”

Red eyed his boss with interest. “You-all cussed me to-day because I was
slow,” he complained.

“Larry, you always are slow, except with a horse or gun. And lately
you’ve been--well, you don’t move out of your tracks.”

Neale often exaggerated out of a desire to tease his friend. Nobody else
dared try and banter King.

“Wal, I didn’t sign up with this heah outfit to run up hills all day,”
 replied Red.

“I’ll tell you what. I’ll get Casey to be my lineman. No, I’ve a better
idea. Casey is slow, too. I’ll use one of the niggers.”

Red King gave a hitch to his belt and a cold gleam chased away the lazy
blue warmth from his eyes. “Go ahaid,” he drawled, “an’ they’ll bury the
nigger to-morrow night.”

Neale laughed. He knew Red hated darkies--he suspected the Texan had
thrown a gun on more than a few--and he knew there surely would be a
funeral in camp if he changed his lineman.

“All right, Red. I don’t want blood spilled,” he said, cheerfully. “I’ll
be a martyr and put up with you.... What do you say to a day off? Let’s
ride over to Slingerland’s.”

The cowboy’s red face slowly wrinkled into a smile. “Wal, I shore was
wonderin’ what in the hell made you rustle so lately. I reckon nothin’
would suit me better. I’ve been wonderin’, too, about our little girl.”

“Red, let’s wade through camp and see what we can get to take over.”

“Man, you mean jest steal?” queried King, in mild surprise.

“No. We’ll ask for things. But if we can’t get what we want
that way--why, we’ll have to do the other thing,” replied Neale,
thoughtfully. “Slingerland did not have even a towel over there.
Think of that girl! She’s been used to comfort, if not luxury. I could
tell.... Let’s see. I’ve a mirror and an extra brush.... Red, come on.”

Eagerly they went over their scant belongings, generously appropriating
whatever might be made of possible use to an unfortunate girl in a wild
and barren country. Then they fared forth into the camp. Every one in
the corps contributed something. The chief studied Neale’s heated face,
and a smile momentarily changed his stern features--a wise smile, a
little sad, and full of light.

“I suppose you’ll marry her,” he said.

Neale blushed like a girl. “It--that hadn’t occurred to me, sir,” he
stammered.

Lodge laughed, but his glance was kind. “Sure you’ll marry her,” he
said. “You saved her life. And, boy, you’ll be a big man of the U. P.
some day. Chief engineer or superintendent of maintenance of way or some
other big job. What could be finer? Romance, boy. The little waif of
the caravan--you’ll send her back to Omaha to school; she’ll grow into a
beautiful woman! She’ll have a host of admirers, but you’ll be the king
of the lot--sure.”

Neale got out of the tent with tingling ears. He was used to the
badinage of the men, and had always retaliated with a sharp and ready
tongue. But this half-kind, half-humorous talk encroached upon what he
felt to be the secret side of his nature--the romantic and the dreamful
side--to which such fancies were unconscionably dear.

Early the next morning Neale and King rode out on the way to
Slingerland’s.

The sun was warm when they reached the valley through which ran the
stream that led up to the cabin. Spring was in the air. The leaves of
cottonwood and willow added their fresh emerald to the darker green
of the pine. Bluebells showed in the grass along the trail; there grew
lavender and yellow flowers unfamiliar to Neale; trout rose and splashed
on the surface of the pools; and the way was melodious with the humming
of bees and the singing of birds.

Slingerland saw them coming and strode out to meet them with hearty
greeting.

“Is she all right?” queried Neale, abruptly.

“No, she ain’t,” replied Slingerland, shaking his shaggy head. “She
won’t eat or move or talk. She’s wastin’ away. She jest sits or lays
with that awful look in her eyes.”

“Can’t you make her talk?”

“Wal, she’ll say no to ‘most anythin’. There was three times she asked
when you was comin’ back. Then she quit askin’. I reckon she’s forgot
you. But she’s never forgot thet bloody massacre. It’s there in her
eyes.”

Neale dismounted, and, untying the pack from his saddle, he laid it
down, removed saddle and bridle; then he turned the horse loose. He did
this automatically while his mind was busy.

“Where is she?” he asked.

“Over thar under the pines whar the brook spills out of the spring.
Thet’s the only place she’ll walk to. I believe she likes to listen to
the water. An’ she’s always afraid.”

“I’ve fetched a pack of things for her,” said Neale. “Come on, Red.”

“Shore you go alone,” replied the cowboy, hanging back. “Girls is not my
job.”

So Neale approached alone. The spot was green, fragrant, shady, bright
with flowers, musical with murmuring water. Presently he spied her--a
drooping, forlorn little figure. The instant he saw her he felt glad and
sad at once. She started quickly at his step and turned. He remembered
the eyes, but hardly the face. It had grown thinner and whiter than the
one he had in mind.

“My Lord! she’s going to die!” breathed Neale. “What can I do--what can
I say to her?”

He walked directly but slowly up to her, aware of her staring eyes, and
confused by them.

“Hello! little girl, I’ve brought you some things,” he said, and tried
to speak cheerfully.

“Oh--is--it you?” she said, brokenly.

“Yes, it’s Neale. I hope you’ve not forgotten me.”

There came a fleeting change over her, but not in her face, he thought,
because not a muscle moved, and the white stayed white. It must have
been in her eyes, though he could not certainly tell. He bent over to
untie the pack.

“I’ve brought you a lot of things,” he said. “Hope you’ll find them
useful. Here--”

She did not look at the open pack or pay any attention to him. The
drooping posture had been resumed, together with the somber staring at
the brook. Neale watched her in despair, and, watching, he divined that
only the most infinite patience and magnetism and power could bring her
out of her brooding long enough to give nature a chance. He recognized
how unequal he was to the task. But the impossible or the unattainable
had always roused Neale’s spirit. Defeat angered him. This girl was
alive; she was not hurt physically; he believed she could be made to
forget that tragic night of blood and death. He set his teeth and swore
he would display the tact of a woman, the patience of a saint, the skill
of a physician, the love of a father--anything to hold back this girl
from the grave into which she was fading. Reaching out, he touched her.

“Can you understand me?” he asked.

“Yes,” she murmured. Her voice was thin, far away, an evident effort.

“I saved your life.”

“I wish you had let me die.” Her reply was quick with feeling, and
it thrilled Neale because it was a proof that he could stimulate or
aggravate her mind.

“But I DID save you. Now you owe me something.”

“What?”

“Why, gratitude--enough to want to live, to try to help yourself.”

“No--no,” she whispered, and relapsed into the somber apathy.

Neale could scarcely elicit another word from her; then by way of
change he held out different articles he had brought--scarfs, a shawl,
a mirror--and made her look at them. Her own face in the mirror did not
interest her. He tried to appeal to a girl’s vanity. She had none.

“Your hair is all tangled,” he said, bringing forth comb and brush.
“Here, smooth it out.”

“No--no--no,” she moaned.

“All right, I’ll do it for you,” he countered. Surprised at finding
her passive when he had expected resistance, he began to comb out the
tangled tresses. In his earnestness he did not perceive how singular his
action might seem to an onlooker. She had a mass of hair that quickly
began to smooth out and brighten under his hand. He became absorbed in
his task and failed to see the approach of Larry King.

The cowboy was utterly amazed, and presently he grinned his delight.
Evidently the girl was all right and no longer to be feared.

“Wal, shore thet’s fine,” he drawled. “Neale, I always knowed you was a
lady’s man.” And Larry sat down beside them.

The girl’s face was half hidden under the mass of hair, and her head was
lowered. Neale gave Larry a warning glance, meant to convey that he was
not to be funny.

“This is my cowboy friend, Larry Red King,” said Neale. “He was with me
when I--I found you.”

“Larry--Red--King,” murmured the girl. “My name is--Allie.”

Again Neale had penetrated into her close-locked mind. What she said
astounded him so that he dropped the brush and stared at Larry. And
Larry lost his grin; he caught a glimpse of her face, and his own grew
troubled.

“Allie--I shore--am glad to meet you,” he said, and there was more
feeling in his voice than Neale had ever before heard. Larry was not
slow of comprehension. He began to talk in his drawling way. Neale heard
him with a smile he tried to hide, but he liked Larry the better for his
simplicity. This gun-throwing cowboy had a big heart.

Larry, however, did not linger for long. His attempts to get the girl
to talk grew weaker and ended; then, after another glance at the tragic,
wan face he got up and thoughtfully slouched away.

“So your name is Allie,” said Neale. “Well, Allie what?”

She did not respond to one out of a hundred questions, and this query
found no lodgment in her mind.

“Will you braid your hair now?” he asked.

The answer was the low and monotonous negative, but, nevertheless, her
hands sought her hair and parted it, and began to braid it mechanically.
This encouraged Neale more than anything else; it showed him that there
were habits of mind into which he could turn her. Finally he got her to
walk along the brook and also to eat and drink.

At the end of that day he was more exhausted than he would have been
after a hard climb. Yet he was encouraged to think that he could get
some kind of passive unconscious obedience from her.

“Reckon you’d better stay over to-morrow,” suggested Slingerland. His
concern for the girl could not have been greater had she been his own
daughter. “Allie--thet was her name, you said. Wal, it’s pretty an’ easy
to say.”

Next day Allie showed an almost imperceptible improvement. It might have
been Neale’s imagination leading him to believe that there were really
grounds for hope. The trapper and the cowboy could not get any response
from her, but there was certain proof that he could. The conviction
moved him to deep emotion.

An hour before sunset Neale decided to depart, and told Larry to get the
horses. Then he went to Allie, undecided what to say, feeling that he
must have tortured her this day with his ceaseless importunities.
How small the chance that he might again awaken the springs of life
interest. Yet the desire was strong within him to try.

“Allie.” He repeated her name before she heard him. Then she looked up.
The depths--the tragic lonesomeness--of her eyes--haunted Neale.

“I’m going back. I’ll come again soon.”

She made a quick movement--seized his arm. He remembered the close,
tight grip of her hands.

“Don’t go!” she implored. Black fear stared out of her eyes.

Neale was thunderstruck at the suddenness of her speech--at its
intensity. Also he felt an unfamiliar kind of joy. He began to explain
that he must return to work, that he would soon come to see her again;
but even as he talked she faded back into that dull and somber apathy.

Neale rode away with only one conviction gained from the developments
of the two days; it was that he would be restless and haunted until he
could go to her again. Something big and moving--something equal to his
ambition for his work on the great railroad--had risen in him and would
not be denied.




7

Neale rode to Slingerland’s cabin twice during the ensuing fortnight,
but did not note any improvement in Allie’s condition or demeanor. The
trapper, however, assured Neale that she was gradually gaining a little
and taking some slight interest in things; he said that if Neale could
only spend enough time there the girl might recover. This made Neale
thoughtful.

General Lodge and his staff had decided to station several engineers
in camp along the line of the railroad for the purpose of studying the
drift of snow. It was important that all information possible should be
obtained during the next few winters. There would be severe hardships
attached to this work, but Neale volunteered to serve, and the chief
complimented him warmly. He was to study the action of the snowdrift
along Sherman Pass.

Upon his next visit to Slingerland Neale had the project soberly in mind
and meant to broach it upon the first opportunity.

This morning, when Neale and King rode up to the cabin, Allie did not
appear as upon the last occasion of their arrival. Neale missed her.

Slingerland came out with his usual welcome.

“Where’s Allie?” asked Neale.

“Wal, she went in jest now. She saw you comin’ an’ then run in to hide,
I reckon. Girls is queer critters.”

“She watched for me--for us--and then ran?” queried Neale, curiously.

“Wal, she ain’t done nothin’ but watch fer you since you went away last.
An’, son, thet’s a new wrinkle fer Allie, An’ run? Wal, like a skeered
deer.”

“Wonder what that means?” pondered Neale. Whatever it meant, it sent
a little tingle of pleasure along his pulses. “Red, I want to have a
serious talk with Slingerland,” he announced, thoughtfully.

“Shore; go ahaid an’ talk,” drawled the Southerner, as he slipped his
saddle and turned his horse loose with a slap on the flank. “I reckon
I’ll take a gun an’ stroll off fer a while.”

Neale led the trapper aside to a shady spot under the pines and there
unburdened himself of his plan for the winter.

“Son, you’ll freeze to death!” ejaculated the trapper.

“I must build a cabin, of course, and prepare for severe weather,”
 replied Neale.

Slingerland shook his shaggy head. “I reckon you ain’t knowin’ these
winters hyar as I know them. But thet long ridge you call Sherman
Pass--it ain’t so fur we couldn’t get thar on snow-shoes except in the
wust weather. I reckon you can stay with me hyar.”

“Good!” exclaimed Neale. “And now about Allie.”

“Wal, what about her?”

“Shall I leave her here or send her back to Omaha with the first
caravan, or let her go to Fort Fetterman with the troops?”

“Son, she’s your charge, but I say leave her hyar, ‘specially now you
can be with us. She’d die or go crazy if you sent her. Why, she won’t
even say if she’s got a livin’ relation. I reckon she hain’t. She’d be
better hyar. I’ve come to be fond of Allie. She’s strange. She’s like a
spirit. But she’s more human lately.”

“I’m glad you say that, Slingerland,” replied Neale. “What to do about
her had worried me. I’ll decide right now. I’ll leave her with you, and
I hope to Heaven I’m doing best by her.”

“Wal, she ain’t strong enough to travel fur. We didn’t think of thet.”

“That settles it, then,” said Neale, in relief. “Time enough to decide
when she is well again.... Tell me about her.”

“Son, thar’s nuthin’ to tell. She’s done jest the same, except fer thet
takin’ to watchin’ fer you. Reckon thet means a good deal.”

“What?”

“Wal, I don’t figger girls as well as I do other critters,” answered
Slingerland, reflectively. “But I’d say Allie shows interest in you.”

“Slingerland! You don’t mean she--she cares for me?” demanded Neale.

“I don’t know. Mebbe not. Mebbe she’s beyond carin’. But I believe you
an’ thet red memory of bloody death air all she ever thinks of. An’
mostly of it.”

“Then it’ll be a fight between me and that memory?”

“So I take it, son. But recollect I ain’t no mind-doctor. I jest feel
you could make her fergit thet hell if you tried hard enough.”

“I’ll try--hard as I can,” replied Neale, resolutely, yet with a certain
softness. “I’m sorry for her. I saved her. Why shouldn’t I do everything
possible?”

“Wal, she’s alone.”

“No, Allie has friends--you and King and me. That’s three.”

“Son, I reckon you don’t figger me. Listen. You’re a fine, strappin’
young feller an’ good-lookin’. More ‘n thet, you’ve got some--some
quality like an Injun’s--thet you can feel but can’t tell about. You
needn’t be insulted, fer I know Injuns thet beat white men holler fer
all thet’s noble. Anyway, you attract. An’ now if you keep on with all
thet--thet--wal, usin’ yourself to make Allie fergit the bloody murder
of all she loved, to make her mind clear again--why, sooner or later
she’s a-goin’ to breathe an’ live through you. Jest as a flower lives
offen the sun. Thet’s all, I reckon.”

Neale’s bronze cheek had paled a little. “Well, if that’s all, that’s
easy,” he replied, with a cool, bright smile which showed the latent
spirit in him. “If it’s only that--why she can have me.... Slingerland,
I’ve no ties now. The last one was broken when my mother died--not long
ago. I’m alone, too.... I’d do as much for any innocent girl--but for
this poor child Allie--whose life I saved--I’d do anything.”

Slingerland shoved out a horny hand and made a giant grip express what
evidently just then he could not express in speech.

Upon returning to the cabin they found Allie had left her room. From
appearances Neale concluded that she had made little use of the things
he had brought her. He was conscious of something akin to impatience.
He was not sure what he did feel. The situation had subtly changed and
grown, all in that brief talk with Slingerland. Neale slowly walked out
toward the brook, where he expected to find her. It struck him suddenly
that if she had watched for him all week and had run when he came, then
she must have wanted to see him, but was afraid or shy or perverse. How
like any girl! Possibly in the week past she had unconsciously grown a
little away from her grief.

“I’ll try something new on you, Allie,” he muttered, and the boy in him
that would never grow into a man meant to be serious even in his fun.

Allie sat in the shady place under the low pine where the brook spilled
out of the big spring. She drooped and appeared oblivious to her
surroundings. A stray gleam of sunlight, touching her hair, made it
shine bright. Neale’s quick eye took note of the fact that she had
washed the blood-stain from the front of her dress. He was glad. What
hope had there been for her so long as she sat hour after hour with her
hands pressed to that great black stain on her dress--that mark where
her mother’s head had rested? Neale experienced a renewal of hope. He
began to whistle, and, drawing his knife, he went into the brush to cut
a fishing-pole. The trout in this brook had long tempted his fisherman’s
eye, and upon this visit he had brought a line and hooks. He made a lot
of noise all for Allie’s benefit; then, tramping out of the brush, he
began to trim the rod within twenty feet of where she sat. He whistled;
he even hummed a song while he was rigging up the tackle. Then it became
necessary to hunt for some kind of bait, and he went about this with
pleasure, both because he liked the search and because, out of the
corner of his eye, he saw that Allie was watching him. Therefore he
redoubled his efforts at pretending to be oblivious of her presence and
at keeping her continually aware of his. He found crickets, worms, and
grubs under the dead pine logs, and with this fine variety of bait he
approached the brook.

The first cast Neale made fetched a lusty trout, and right there his
pretensions of indifference vanished, together with his awareness of
Allie’s proximity. Neale loved to fish. He had not yet indulged his
favorite pastime in the West. He saw trout jumping everywhere. It was a
beautiful little stream, rocky, swift here and eddying there, clear as
crystal, murmurous with tiny falls, and bordered by a freshness of green
and gold; there were birds singing in the trees, but over all seemed to
hang the quiet of the lonely hills. Neale forgot Allie--forgot that he
had meant to discover if she could be susceptible to a little neglect.
The brook was full of trout, voracious and tame; they had never been
angled for. He caught three in short order.

When his last bait, a large and luscious grub, struck the water there
was a swirl, a splash, a tug. Neale excitedly realized that he had
hooked a father of the waters. It leaped. That savage leap, the splash,
the amazing size of the fish, inflamed in Neale the old boyish desire
to capture, and, forgetting what little skill he possessed, he gave a
mighty pull. The rod bent double. Out with a vicious splash lunged the
huge, glistening trout, to dangle heavily for an instant in the air.
Neale thought he heard a cry behind him. He was sitting down, in awkward
posture. But he lifted and swung. The line snapped. The fish dropped in
the grass and began to thresh. Frantically Neale leaped to prevent the
escape of the hugest trout he had ever seen. There was a dark flash--a
commotion before him. Then he stood staring in bewilderment at Allie,
who held the wriggling trout by the gills.

“You don’t know how to fish!” she exclaimed, with great severity.

“I don’t, eh?” ejaculated Neale, blankly.

“You should play a big trout. You lifted him right out. He broke your
line. He’d have--gotten--away--but for me.”

She ended, panting a little from her exertion and quick speech. A red
spot showed in each white cheek. Her eyes were resolute and flashing. It
dawned upon Neale that he had never before seen a tinge of color in her
face, nor any of the ordinary feelings of life glancing in her eyes. Now
she seemed actually pretty. He had made a discovery--perhaps he had now
another means to distract her from herself. Then the squirming trout
drew his attention and he took it from her.

“What a whopper! Oh, say, Allie, isn’t he a beauty? I could hug--I--You
bet I’m thankful. You were quick.... He certainly is slippery.”

Allie dropped to her knees and wiped her hands on the grass while Neale
killed the fish and strung it upon a willow with the others he had
caught. Then turning to Allie, he started to tell her how glad he was to
see her again, to ask her if she were glad to see him. But upon looking
at her he decided to try and keep her mind from herself. She was
different now and he liked the difference. He feared he might frighten
it away.

“Will you help me get more bait?” he asked.

Allie nodded and got up. Then Neale noticed her feet were bare. Poor
child! She had no shoes and he did not know how to procure any suitable
footwear in that wilderness.

“Have you ever fished for trout?” he asked, as he began to dig under a
rotting log.

“Yes. In California,” she replied, with sudden shadowing of her eyes.

“Let’s go down the brook,” said Neale, hastily, fearful that he had been
tactless. “There are some fine holes below.”

She walked beside him, careful of the sharp stones that showed here and
there. Presently they came to a likely-looking pool.

“If you hook another big one don’t try to pull him right out,”
 admonished Allie.

Neale could scarcely conceal his delight, and in his effort to appear
natural made a poor showing at this pool, losing two fish and scaring
others so they would not rise.

“Allie, won’t you try?” he asked, offering the rod.

“I’d rather look on. You like it so much.”

“How do you know that?” he asked, more to hear her talk than from
curiosity.

“You grow so excited,” she said.

Thankfully he accepted the realization that after all these weeks of
silence it was possible to make her speak. But he must exercise extreme
caution. One wrong word might send her back into that apathy--that
senseless, voiceless trance.

In every pool where Neale cast he caught or lost a trout. He was
enjoying himself tremendously and at the same time feeling a warmth
in his heart that was not entirely due to the exhilaration of fishing.
Below the head of the valley, where the stream began and the cabin
nestled, the ground was open, like a meadow, with grass and flowers
growing to the edge of the water. There were deep, swirling pools
running under the banks, and in these Neale hooked fish he could not
handle with his poor tackle, and they broke away. But he did not care.
There was a brightness, a beauty, a fragrance along the stream that
seemed to enhance the farther down he went. Presently they came to a
place where the water rushed over a rocky bed, and here Neale wanted to
cross. He started to wade, curious and eager to see what Allie would do.

“I can’t wade that,” she called.

Neale returned to her side. “I’ll carry you,” he said. “You hold the
rod. We’ll leave the fish here.” Then he lifted her in his arms. How
light she was--how much lighter than upon that first occasion of his
carrying her. He slipped in the middle of the brook and nearly fell with
her. Allie squealed. The sound filled Neale with glee. After all, and
whatever she had gone through, she was feminine--she was a girl--she was
squeamish. Thereupon he slipped purposely and made a heroic effort to
save himself. She clasped his neck convulsively with her free arm, and
as he recovered his balance her head bumped into his and her hair got
into his eyes. He laughed. This was great fun. But it could scarcely
have been the exertion that made his heart beat out of time. At last he
gained the opposite bank.

“You nearly fell with me,” she said.

“Well, I’d have got wet, too,” he replied, wondering if it were possible
to make her laugh or even smile. If he could do that to-day, even in the
smallest degree, he would be assured that happiness might come back to
her.

Soon they met Larry, who came stooping along, burdened with a deer
carcass on his shoulder. Relieving himself, he hailed them.

“How air you-all?” he drawled, addressing himself mostly to Allie.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Allie, he’s my friend and partner,” replied Neale. “Larry King. But I
call him Red--for obvious reasons.”

“Wal, Miss Allie, I reckon no tall kick would be a-comin’ if you was to
call me Red,” drawled Larry. “Or better--Reddy. No other lady ever had
thet honor.”

Allie looked at him steadily, as if this was the first time she had seen
him, but she did not reply. And Larry, easily disconcerted, gathered up
his burden and turned toward camp.

“Wal, I’m shore wishin’ you-all good luck,” he called, significantly.

Neale shot a quick glance at Allie to see if the cowboy’s good-humored
double meaning had occurred to her. But apparently she had not heard.
She seemed to be tiring. Her lips were parted and she panted.

“Are you tired? Shall we go back?” he asked.

“No--I like it,” she returned, slowly, as if the thought were strange to
her.

They fished on, and presently came to a wide, shallow place with smooth
rock bottom, where the trail crossed. Neale waded across alone. And he
judged that the water in the middle might come up to Allie’s knees.

“Come on,” he called.

Allie hesitated. She gathered up her faded skirt, slowly waded in and
halted, uncertain of her footing. She was not afraid, Neale decided, and
neither did she seem aware that her slender, shapely legs gleamed white
against the dark water.

“Won’t you come and carry me?” she asked.

“Indeed I won’t,” replied Neale. “Carry a big girl like you!”

She took him seriously and moved a little farther. “My feet slip so,”
 she said.

It became fascinating to watch her. The fun of it--the pleasure of
seeing a girl wade a brook, innocently immodest, suddenly ceased for
Neale. There was something else. He had only meant to tease; he was
going to carry her; he started back. And then he halted. There was a
strange earnestness in Allie’s face--a deliberateness in her intent, out
of all proportion to the exigency of the moment. It was as if she must
cross that brook. But she kept halting. “Come on!” Neale called. And she
moved again. Every time this happened she seemed to be compelled to go
on. When she got into the swift water, nearly to her knees, then she
might well have faltered. Yet she did not falter. All at once Neale
discovered that she was weak. She did not have the strength to come
on. It was that which made her slip and halt. What then made her try so
bravely? How strange that she tried at all! Stranger than all was her
peculiar attitude toward the task--earnest, sober, grave, forced.

Neale was suddenly seized with surprise and remorse. That which actuated
this girl Allie was merely the sound of his voice--the answer to his
demand. He plunged in and reached her just as she was slipping. He
carried her back to the side from which she had started. It cost him
an effort not to hold her close. Whatever she was--orphan or waif, left
alone in the world by a murdering band of Sioux--an unfortunate girl to
be cared for, succored, pitied--none of these considerations accounted
for the change that his power over her had wrought in him.

“You’re not strong,” he said, as he put her down.

“Was that it?” she asked, with just a touch of wonder. “I used to
wade--anywhere.”

He spoke little on the way back up the brook, for he hesitated to tell
her that he must return to his camp so as to be ready for important work
on the morrow, and not until they were almost at the cabin did he make
up his mind. She received the intelligence in silence, and upon reaching
the cabin she went to her room.

Neale helped Larry and Slingerland with the task of preparing a meal
that all looked forward to having Allie share with them. However, when
Slingerland called her there was no response.

Neale found her sunk in the old, hopeless, staring, brooding mood. He
tried patience at first, and gentleness, but without avail. She would
not come with him. The meal was eaten without her. Later Neale almost
compelled her to take a little food. He felt discouraged again. Time had
flown all too swiftly, and there was Larry coming with the horses and
sunset not far off. It might be weeks, even months, before he would see
her again.

“Allie, are you ever going to cheer up?” he demanded.

“No--no,” she sighed.

He put his hand under her chin, and, forcing her face up, studied it
earnestly. Strained, white, bloodless, thin, with drooping lips and
tragic eyes, it was not a beautiful, not even a pretty face. But it
might have been one--very easily. The veiled, mournful eyes did
not evade his; indeed, they appeared to stare deeply, hopelessly,
yearningly. If he could only say and do the right thing to kill that
melancholia. She needed to be made to live. Suddenly he had the impulse
to kiss her. That, no doubt, was owing to the proximity of her lips. But
he must not kiss her. She might care for him some day--it was natural
to imagine she would. But she did not care now, and that made kisses
impossible.

“You just won’t cheer up?” he went on.

“No--no.”

“But you were so different out there by the brook.”

She made no reply. The veil grew darker, more shadowy, over her eyes.
Neale divined a deadness in her.

“I’m going away,” he said, sharply.

“Yes.”

“Do you care?” He went on, with greater intensity.

She only stared at him.

“You MUST care!” he exclaimed.

“Why?” she asked, dully.

“Why!... Because--because--” he stammered, angry with himself. After
all, why should she care?

“I wish--you’d--left me--to die!” she moaned.

“Oh! Allie! Allie!” began Neale, in distress. Then he caught the
different quality in her voice. It carried feeling. She was thinking
again. He swore that he would overcome this malady of hers, and he grew
keen, subtle, on fire with his resolve. He watched her. He put his hands
on her shoulders and pulled her gently. She slid off the pile of buffalo
robes to her knees before him. Then she showed the only hint of shyness
he had ever noted in her. Perhaps it was fear. At any rate, she half
averted her face, so that her loosened hair hid it.

“Allie! Allie! Listen! Have you nothing to LIVE for?” he asked.

“No.”

“Why, yes, you have.”

“What?”

“Why, I--The thing is--Allie--you have ME!” he said, a little hoarsely.
Then he laughed. How strange his laugh sounded! He would always remember
that rude room of logs and furs and the kneeling girl in the dim light.

“YOU!”

“Yes, me,” he replied, with a ring in his voice. Never before had she
put wonder in a word. He had struck the right chord at last. Now it
seemed that he held a live creature under his hands, as if the deadness
and the dread apathy had gone away forever with the utterance of that
one syllable. This was a big moment. If only he could make up to her for
what she had lost! He felt his throat swell, and speech was difficult.

“Allie, do you understand me now? You--have something--to live for!...
Do you hear?”

When his ear caught the faint “Yes” he suddenly grew glad and strong
with what he felt to be a victory over her gloom and despair.

“Listen. I’m going to my work,” he began, swiftly. “I’ll be gone
weeks--maybe more. BUT I’LL COME BACK!... Early in the fall. I’ll be
with you all winter. I’m to work here on the pass.... Then--then--Well,
I’ll be a big man on the U. P. some day. Chief engineer or
superintendent of maintenance of way.... You’re all alone--maybe you’ll
care for me some day. I’ll work hard. It’s a great idea--this railroad.
When it’s done--and I’ve my big job--will you--you’ll marry me then?”

Neale heard her gasp and felt her quiver. He let go of her and stood
up, for fear he might suddenly take her in his arms. His words had been
shock enough. He felt remorse, anxiety, tenderness, and yet he was glad.
Some delicate and fine consciousness in him told him he had not done
wrong, even if he had been dominating. She was alone in the world; he
had saved her life. His heart beat quick and heavy.

“Good-by, Allie.... I’ll come back. Never forget!”

She stayed motionless on her knees with the mass of hair hiding her
face, and she neither spoke nor made a sign.

Neale went out. The air seemed to wave in his face, cool and relieving.
Larry was there with the horses. Slingerland stood by with troubled
eyes. Both men stared at Neale. He was aware of that, and conscious
of his agitation. And suddenly, as always at a climax of emotion, he
swiftly changed and grew cool.

“Red, old pard, congratulate me! I’m engaged to marry Allie!” he said,
with a low laugh that had pride in it.

“Wal, damn me!” ejaculated Larry King. Then he shot out the hand that
was so quick with rope and gun. “Put her thar! Shore if you hadn’t made
up to her I’d have.... An’, Neale, if you say Pard, I’m yours till I’m
daid!”

“Pard!” replied Neale, as he met the outstretched hand.

Slingerland’s hard and wrinkled face softened.

“Strange how we all cottoned to thet girl! No--I reckon it ain’t so
strange. Wal, it’s as it oughter be. You saved her. May you both be
happy, son!”

Neale slipped a ring from his little finger.

“Give Allie this. Tell her it’s my pledge. I’ll come back to her. And
she must think of that.”




8

That summer the engineers crossed the Wyoming hills and ran the line
on into Utah, where they met the surveying party working in from the
Pacific.

The initial step of the great construction work was done, the engineers
with hardship and loss of life had proved that a railroad across the
Rockies was a possibility. Only, they had little conception of the
titanic labor involved in the building.

For Neale the months were hard, swift, full. It came to him that love of
the open and the wild was incorporated in his ambition for achievement.
He wondered if he would have felt the one without the other. Camp life
and the daily climbing over the ridges made of him a lithe, strong,
sure-footed mountaineer. They made even the horse-riding cowboy a good
climber, though nothing, Neale averred, would ever straighten Larry’s
bow legs.

Only two incidents or accidents marred the work and pleasure of those
fruitful weeks.

The first happened in camp. There was a surly stake-driver by the name
of Shurd who was lazy and otherwise offensive among hard-working men.
Having been severely handled by Neale, he had nursed a grievance and
only waited for an opportunity for revenge. Neale was quick-tempered,
and prone to sharp language and action when irritated or angered. Shurd,
passing through the camp, either drunk or unusually surly, had kicked
Neale’s instrument out of his way. Some one saw him do it and told
Neale. Thereupon Neale, in high dudgeon, had sought out the fellow.
Larry King, always Neale’s shadow, came slouching after with his
cowboy’s gait. They found Shurd at the camp of the teamsters and other
laborers. Neale did not waste many words. He struck Shurd a blow that
staggered him, and would have followed it up with more had not the man,
suddenly furious, plunged away to pick up a heavy stake with which he
made at Neale to brain him.

Neale could not escape. He yelled at Shurd, trying to intimidate him.

Then came a shot from behind. It broke Shurd’s arm. The stake fell and
the man began to bawl curses.

“Get out of heah!” called Larry King, advancing slowly. The maddened
Shurd tried to use the broken arm, perhaps to draw on King. Thereupon
the cowboy, with gun low and apparently not aiming, shot again, this
time almost tearing Shurd’s arm off. Then he prodded Shurd with the
cocked gun. The man turned ghastly. He seemed just now to have realized
the nature of this gaunt flaming-eyed cowboy.

“Shore your mind ain’t workin’,” said Larry. “Get out of heah. Mozey
over to thet camp doctor or you’ll never need one.”

Shurd backed away, livid and shaking, and presently he ran.

“Red!...” expostulated Neale. “You--you shot him all up! You nearly
killed him.”

“Why in hell don’t you pack a gun?” drawled Larry.

“Red, you’re--you’re--I don’t know what to call you. I’d have licked
him, club and all.”

“Mebbe,” replied the cowboy, as he sheathed the big gun. “Neale. I’m
used to what you ain’t. Shore I can see death a-comin’. Wal, every day
the outfit grows wilder. A little whisky ‘ll burn hell loose along this
heah U.P. line.”

Larry strode on in the direction Shurd had taken. Neale pondered a
moment, perplexed, and grateful to his comrade. He heard remarks among
the laborers, and he saw the flagman Casey remove his black pipe from
his lips--an unusual occurrence.

“Mac, it wus thot red-head cowboy wot onct p’inted his gun at me!” burst
out Casey.

“Did yez see him shoot?” replied Mac, with round eyes. “Niver aimed an’
yit he hit!”

Mike Shane, the third of the trio of Irish laborers in Neale’s corps,
was a little runt of a sandy-haired wizened man, and he spoke up:
“Begorra, he’s wan of thim Texas Jacks. He’d loike to kill yez, Pat
Casey, an’ if he ever throwed thot cannon at yez, why, runnin’ ‘d be
slow to phwat yez ‘d do.”

“I niver run in me loife,” declared Casey, doggedly.

Neale went his way. It was noted that from that day he always carried a
gun, preferably a rifle when it was possible. In the use of the long gun
he was an adept, but when it came to Larry’s kind of a gun Neale needed
practice. Larry could draw his gun and shoot twice before Neale could
get his hand on his weapon.

It was through Neale’s habit of carrying the rifle out on his surveying
trips that the second incident came about.

One day in early summer Neale was waiting near a spring for Larry to
arrive with the horses. On this occasion the cowboy was long in coming.
Neale fell asleep in the shade of some bushes and was awakened by the
thud of hoofs. He sat up to see Larry in the act of kneeling at the
brook to drink. At the same instant a dark moving object above Larry
attracted Neale’s quick eye. It was an Indian sneaking along with a gun
ready to level. Quick as a flash Neale raised his own weapon and fired.
The Indian fell and lay still.

Larry’s drink was rudely disturbed by plunging horses. When he had
quieted them he turned to Neale.

“So you-all was heah. Shore you scared me. What’d you shoot at?”

Neale stared and pointed. His hand shook. He felt cold, sick, hard, yet
he held the rifle ready to fire again. Larry dropped the bridles and,
pulling his gun, he climbed the bank with unusual quickness for him.
Neale saw him stand over the Indian.

“Wal, plumb center!” he called, with a new note in his usually indolent
voice. “Come heah!”

“No!” shouted Neale, violently. “Is he dead?”

“Daid! Wal, I should smile.... An’ mebbe he ain’t alone.”

The cowboy ran down to his horse and Neale followed suit. They rode up
on the ridge to reconnoiter, but saw no moving objects.

“I reckon thet redskin was shore a-goin’ to plug me,” drawled Larry, as
they trotted homeward.

“He certainly was,” replied Neale, with a shudder.

Larry reached a long hand to Neale’s shoulder. He owed his life to his
friend. But he did not speak of that. Instead he glanced wisely at Neale
and laughed.

“Kinda weak in the middle, eh?” he said. “I felt thet way once.... Pard,
if you ever get r’iled you’ll be shore bad.”

For Neale shooting at an Indian was strikingly different from boyish
dreams of doing it. He had acted so swiftly that it seemed it must have
been instinctive. Yet thinking back, slowly realizing the nature of
the repellent feeling within him, he remembered a bursting gush of hot
blood, a pantherish desire to leap, to strike--and then cool, stern
watchfulness. The whole business had been most unpleasant.

Upon arriving at camp they reported the incident, and they learned
Indians had showed up at various points along the line. Troopers had
been fired upon. Orders were once more given that all work must be
carried on under the protection of the soldiers, so that an ambush would
be unlikely. Meanwhile a detachment of troops would be sent out to drive
back the band of Sioux.

These two hard experiences made actuality out of what Neale’s chief had
told him would be a man’s game in a wild time. This work on the U. P.
was not play or romance. But the future unknown called alluringly to
him. In his moments of leisure, by the camp-fire at night, he reflected
and dreamed and wondered. And these reflections always turned finally to
memory of Allie.

The girl he had saved seemed far away in mind as well as in distance. He
tried to call up her face--to see it in the ruddy embers. But he could
visualize only her eyes. They were unforgettable--the somber, haunting
shadows of thoughts of death. Yet he remembered that once or twice they
had changed, had become wonderful, with promise of exceeding beauty.

It seemed incredible that he had pledged himself. But he had no regrets.
Time had not made any difference, only it had shown him that his pity
and tenderness were not love. Still there had been another emotion
connected with Allie--a strange thing too subtle and brief for him to
analyze; when away from her he lost it. Could that have been love? He
thought of the day she waded the brook, the feel of her as he carried
her in his arms; and of that last sight of her, on her knees in the
cabin, her face hidden, her slender form still as a statue. His own
heart was touched. Yet this was not love. It was enough for Neale to
feel that he had done what he would have applauded in another man, that
he seemed the better for his pledge, that the next meeting with Allie
was one he looked forward to with a strange, new interest.

September came and half sped by before Neale, with Larry and an engineer
named Service, arrived at the head of Sherman Pass with pack-burros and
supplies, ready to begin the long vigil of watching the snow drift over
the line in winter.

They were to divide the pass between them, Service to range the upper
half and Neale the lower. As there were but few trees up in that
locality, and these necessary for a large supply of fire-wood, they
decided not to attempt building a cabin for Service, but to dig a
dugout. This was a hole hollowed out in a hillside and covered with a
roof of branches and earth.

No small job, indeed, was it to build a satisfactory dugout--one that
was not conspicuous from every ridge for Indian eyes to spy out--and
warm and dry and safe. They started several before they completed one.

“It’ll be lonesomer for you--and colder,” observed Neale.

“I won’t mind that,” replied the other.

“We’ll see each other before the snow flies, surely.”

“Not unless you come up. I’m no climber. I’ve got a bad leg.”

“I’ll come, then. We may have weeks of fine weather yet. I’m going to
hunt some.”

“Good luck to you.”

So these comrades parted. They were only two of the intrepid engineers
selected to brave the perils and hardships of that wild region in
winter, to serve the great cause.

The golds and purples of autumn mingled with the predominating green of
Slingerland’s valley. In one place beaver had damned the stream, forming
a small lake, and here cranes and other aquatic birds had congregated.
Neale saw beaver at work, and deer on the hillside.

“It’s been three months,” he soliloquized, as he paused at the ford
which Allie had so bravely and weakly tried to cross at his bidding.
“Three months! So much can have happened. But Slingerland is safe from
Indians. I hope--I believe I’ll find her well.”

He was a prey to dread and yet he did not hurry. Larry, driving the
pack-train, drew on ahead and passed out of sight in a green bend of the
brook. At length Neale saw a column of blue smoke curling up above the
trees, and that sight relieved him. If the trapper was there, the girl
would be with him.

At this moment his horse shot up his long ears and snorted.

A gray form glided out of the green and began to run down the trail
toward him--a lithe, swift girl in buckskin.

“An Indian girl!” ejaculated Neale.

But her face was white, her hair tawny and flying in the wind. Could
that be Allie? It must be she. It was.

“Lord! I’m in for it!” muttered Neale, dismounting, and he gazed with
eager eyes. She was approaching quickly.

“Neale! You’ve come!” she cried, and ran straight upon him.

He hardly recognized her face or her voice, but what she said proclaimed
her to be Allie. She enveloped him. Her arms, strong, convulsive,
clasped him. Up came her face, white, gleaming, joyous, strange to
Neale, but he knew somehow that it was held up to be kissed. Dazedly he
kissed her--felt cool sweet lips touch his lips again and then again.

“Allie!... I--I hardly knew you!” was his greeting. Now he was holding
her, and he felt her press her head closely to his breast, felt the
intensity of what must have been her need of physical contact to make
sure he was here in the flesh. And as he held her, looking down upon
her, he recognized the little head and the dull gold and ripple of
chestnut hair. Yes--it was Allie. But this new Allie was taller--up to
his shoulder--and lithe and full-bosomed and strong. This was not the
frail girl he had left.

“I thought--you’d--never, never come,” she murmured, clinging to him.

“It was--pretty long,” he replied, unsteadily. “But I’ve come.... And
I’m very glad to see you.”

“You didn’t know me,” she said, shyly. “You looked--it.”

“Well, no wonder. I left a thin, pale little girl, all eyes--and what do
I find?... Let me look at you.”

She drew back and stood before him, shy and modest, but without a trace
of embarrassment, surely the sweetest and loveliest girl he had ever
beheld. Some remembered trace he found in her features, perhaps the
look, the shape of her eyes--all else was unfamiliar. And that all else
was a white face, blue-veined, with rich blood slowly mantling to the
broad brow, with sweet red lips haunting in their sadness, with glorious
eyes, like violets drenched in dew, shadowy, exquisite, mournful and
deep, yet radiant with beautiful light.

Neale recognized her beauty at the instant he realized her love, and
he was so utterly astounded at the one, and overwhelmed with the other,
that he was mute. A powerful reaction took place within him, so strong
that it helped to free him from the other emotions. He found his tongue
and controlled his glance.

“I took you for an Indian girl in all this buckskin,” he said.

“Dress, leggings, moccasins, I made them all myself,” she replied,
sweeping a swift hand from fringe to beads. “Not a single button! Oh, it
was hard--so much work! But they’re more comfortable than any clothes I
ever had.”

“So you’ve not been--altogether idle since I left?”

“Since that day,” and she blushed exquisitely at the words, “I’ve
been doing everything under the sun except that grieving which you
disliked--everything--cooking, sewing, fishing, bathing, climbing,
riding, shooting--AND watching for you.”

“That accounts,” he replied, musingly.

“For what?”

“Your--your improvement. You seem happy--and well.”

“Do you mean the activity accounts for that--or my watching for you?”
 she queried, archly. She was quick, bright, roguish. Neale had no idea
what qualities she might have possessed before that fateful massacre,
but she was bewilderingly different from the sick-minded girl he had
tried so hard to interest and draw out of her gloom. He was so amazed,
so delighted with her, and so confused with his own peculiar state of
mind, that he could not be natural. Then his mood shifted and a little
heat at his own stupidity aroused his wits.

“Allie, I want to realize what’s happened,” he said. “Let’s sit down
here. We sat here once before, if you remember. Slingerland can wait to
see me.”

Neale’s horse grazed along the green border of the brook. The water ran
with low, swift rush; there were bees humming round the autumn flowers
and a fragrance of wood-smoke wafted down from the camp; over all lay
the dreaming quietness of the season and the wild.

Allie sat down upon the rock, but Neale, changing his mind, stood beside
her. Still he did not trust himself to face her. He was unsettled,
uncertain. All this was like a dream.

“So you watched for me?” he asked, gently.

“For hours and days and weeks,” she sighed.

“Then you--cared--cared a little for me?”

She kept silence. And he, wanting intensely to look up, did not.

“Tell me,” he insisted, with a hint of the old dominance. He remembered
again the scene at the crossing of the brook. Could he control this
wonderful girl now?

“Of course,” she replied.

“But--how do you care?” he added, more forcibly. He felt ashamed, yet he
could not resist it. What was happening to him?

“I--I love you.” Her voice was low, almost faltering, rich with
sweetness, and full of some unutterable emotion.

Neale sustained a shock. He never could have told how that affected him,
except in his sudden fury at himself. Then he stole a glance at her.
Her eyes were downcast, hidden under long lashes; her face was soft and
sweet, dreaming and spiritual, singularly pure; her breast heaved under
the beaded buckskin. Neale divined she had never dreamed of owing him
anything except the maiden love which quivered on her tremulous lips and
hovered in the exquisite light of her countenance. And now he received
a great and impelling change in his spirit, an uplift, a splendid and
beautiful consciousness of his good fortune. But what could he say to
her? If only he could safely pass over this moment, so he could have
time to think, to find himself. Another glance at her encouraged him.
She expected nothing--not a word; she took all for granted. She was lost
in dreams of her soul.

He looked down again to see her hand--small, shapely, strong and brown;
and upon the third finger he espied his ring. He had forgotten to look
to see if she wore it. Then softly he touched it and drew her hand in
his.

“My ring. Oh, Allie!” he whispered.

The response was a wonderful purple blaze of her eyes. He divined
then that his ring had been the tangible thing upon which she had
reconstructed her broken life.

“You rode away--so quickly--I had no chance to--tell,” she replied,
haltingly and low-voiced. All was sweet shame about her now, and he had
to fight himself to keep from gathering her to his breast. Verily this
meeting between Allie and him was not what he had anticipated.

He kissed her hand.

“You’ve all the fall and all the winter to tell me such sweet things,”
 he said. “Perhaps to-morrow I’ll find my tongue and tell you something.”

“Tell me now,” she said, quickly.

“Well, you’re beautiful,” he replied, with strong feeling.

“Really?” she smiled, and that smile was the first he had ever seen upon
her face. It brought out the sadness, the very soul of her great beauty.
“I used to be pretty,” she went on, naively. “But if I remember how I
used to look I’m not pretty any more.”

Neale laughed. He had begun to feel freer, and to accept this
unparalleled situation with some composure.

“Tell me,” he said, with gentle voice and touch--“tell me your name.
Allie--what?”

“Didn’t you ever know?” she asked.

“You said Allie. That was all.”

He feared this call to her memory, yet he wanted to put her to a test.
Her eyes dilated--the light shaded; they grew sad, dark, humid gulfs of
thought. But the old, somber veil, the insane, brooding stare, did not
return.

“Allie what?” he repeated.

Then the tears came, softening and dimming the pain. “Allie Lee,” she
said.




9

Slingerland appeared younger to Neale. The burden of loneliness did not
weigh upon him, and the habit of silence had been broken. Neale guessed
why, and was actually jealous.

“Wal, it’s beyond my calculatin’,” the trapper said, out by the spring,
where Neale followed him. “She jest changed thet’s all. Not so much at
first, though she sparked up after I give her your ring. I reckon
it come little by little. An’ one day, why, the cabin was full of
sunshine!... Since then I’ve seen how she’s growed an’ brightened.
Workin’, runnin’ after me--an’ always watchin’ fer you. Allie’s changed
to what she is now. Onct, fur back, I recollect she said she had you to
live fer. Mebbe thet’s the secret. Anyhow, she loves you as I never seen
any man loved.... An’, son, I reckon you oughter be somewhars near the
kingdom of heaven!”

Neale stole off by himself and walked in the twilight. The air was warm
and sultry, full of fragrance and the low chirp of crickets. Within his
breast was a full uneasy sensation of imminent catastrophe. Something
was rising in him--great--terrible--precious. It bewildered him to try
to think of himself, of his strange emotions, when his mind seemed to
hold only Allie.

What then had happened? After a long absence up in the mountains he had
returned to Slingerland’s valley home, and to the little girl he had
rescued and left there. He had left her frail, sick-minded, silent,
somber, a pale victim to a horrible memory. He had found her an amazing
contrast to what she had been in the past. She had grown strong, active,
swift. She was as lovely as a wild rose. No dream of his idle fancy, but
a fact! Then last--stirring him even as he tried to clarify and arrange
this magic, this mystery--had come the unbelievable, the momentous and
dazzling assurance that she loved him. It was so plain that it seemed
unreal. While near her he saw it, yet could not believe his eyes;
he felt it, but doubted his sensibilities. But now, away from the
distraction of her presence and with Slingerland’s eloquent words
ringing in his ears, he realized the truth. Love of him had saved the
girl’s mind and had made her beautiful and wonderful. He had heard
of the infinite transforming power of love; here in Allie Lee was its
manifestation. Whether or not he deserved such a blessing was not the
question. It was his, and he felt unutterably grateful and swore he
would be worthy of this great gift.

Darkness had set in when Neale returned to the cabin, the interior of
which was lighted by blazing sticks in a huge stone fireplace.

Slingerland was in the shadow, busy as usual, but laughing at some sally
of Larry’s. The cowboy and Allie, however, were in plain sight. Neale
needed only one look at Larry to divine what had come over that young
man. Allie appeared perplexed.

“He objects to my calling him Mr. King and even Larry,” she said.

Larry suddenly looked sheepish.

“Allie, this cowboy is a bad fellow with guns, ropes, horses--and I
suspect with girls,” replied Neale, severely.

“Neale, he doesn’t look bad,” she rejoined. “You’re fooling me.... He
wants me to call him Reddy.”

“Ahuh!” grunted Neale. He laughed grimly at himself, for again he had
felt a pang of jealousy. He knew what to expect from Larry or any other
young man who ever had the wonderful good luck to get near Allie Lee.
“All right, call him Reddy,” he went on. “I guess I can allow my future
wife so much familiarity with my pard.”

This confused Allie out of her sweet gravity, and she blushed.

“Shore you’re mighty kind,” drawled Larry, recovering. “More ‘n I
reckoned on from a fellar who’s shore lost his haid.”

“I’ve lost more ‘n that,” retorted Neale, “and I’m afraid a certain wild
young cowboy I know has lost as much.”

“Wal, I reckon somethin’ abbot this heah place of Slingerland’s draws on
a fellar,” admitted Larry, resignedly.

Allie did not long stay embarrassed by their sallies.

“Neale, tell me--”

“See heah, Allie, if you call me Reddy an’ him only Neale--why he’s
a-goin’ to pitch into me,” interrupted Larry, with twinkling eyes. “An’
he’s shore a bad customer when he’s r’iled.”

“Only Neale? What does he mean?” inquired Allie.

“Beyond human conjecture,” replied Neale, laughing.

“Wal, don’t you know his front name?” asked Larry.

“Neale. I call him that,” she replied.

“Haw! Haw! But it ain’t thet.”

“Allie, my name is Warren,” said Neale. “You’ve forgotten.”

“Oh!... Well, it’s always been Neale--and always will be.”

Larry rose and stretched his long arms for the pipe on the rude stone
chimney.

“Slingerland,” he drawled, “these heah young people need to find out who
they are. An’ I reckon we’d do wal to go out an’ smoke an’ talk.”

The trapper came forth from the shadows, and as he filled his pipe his
keen, bright gaze shifted from the task to his friends.

“It’s good to see you an’ hyar you,” he said. “I was a youngster once I
missed--but thet’s no matter.... Live while you may!... Larry, come with
me. I’ve got a trap to set yit.”

Allie flashed a glance at them.

“It’s not so. You never set traps after dark.”

“Wal, child, any excuse is better ‘n none. Neale wouldn’t never git to
hyar you say all thet sweet talk as is comin’ to him--if two old fools
hung round.”

“Slingerland, I’ve throwed a gun for less ‘n thet,” drawled Larry.
“Aboot the fool part I ain’t shore, but I was twenty-five yesterday--an’
I’m sixteen to-day.”

They lit their pipes with red embers scraped from the fire, and with
wise nods at Neale and Allie passed out into the dark.

Allie’s eyes were upon Neale, with shy, eloquent intent, and directly
the others had departed she changed her seat to one close to Neale; she
nestled against his shoulder, her face to the fire.

“They thought we wanted to make love, didn’t they?” she said, dreamily.

“I guess they did,” replied Neale.

He was intensely fascinated. Did she want him to make love to her? A
look at her face was enough to rebuke him for the thought. The shadows
from the flickering fire played over her.

“Tell me all about yourself,” she said. “Then about your work.”

Neale told all that he thought would interest her about his youth in the
East with a widowed mother, the home that was broken up after she died,
and his working his way through a course of civil engineering.

“I was twenty when I first read about this U. P. railroad project,”
 he went on. “That was more than three years ago. It decided me on my
career. I determined to be an engineer and be in the building of the
road. No one had any faith in the railroad. I used to be laughed at.
But I stuck. And--well, I had to steal some rides to get as far west as
Omaha.

“That was more than a year ago. I stayed there--waiting. Nothing
was sure, except that the town grew like a mushroom. It filled with
soldiers--and the worst crowd I ever saw. You can bet I was shaky when
I finally got an audience with General Lodge and his staff. They had
an office in a big storehouse. The place was full of men--soldiers and
tramps. It struck me right off what a grim and discouraged bunch those
engineers looked. I didn’t understand them, but I do now.... Well,
I asked for a job. Nobody appeared to hear me. It was hard to make
yourself heard. I tried again--louder. An old engineer, whom I know
now--Henney--waved me aside. Just as if a job was unheard of!”

Neale quickened and warmed as he progressed, aware now of a little hand
tight in his, of an interest that would have made any story-telling a
pleasure.

“Well, I felt sick. Then mad. When I get mad I do things. I yelled at
that bunch: ‘Here, you men! I’ve walked and stole rides to get here. I’m
a surveyor. You’re going to build a railroad. I want a job and I’m going
to get it.’

“My voice quieted the hubbub. The old engineer, Henney, looked queerly
at me.

“‘Young man, there’s not going to be any railroad.’

“Then I blurted out that there WAS going to be a railroad. Some one
spoke up: ‘Who said that? Fetch him here.’ Pretty soon I was looking at
Major-General Lodge. He was just from the war and he looked it. Stern
and dark, with hard lines and keen eyes. He glanced me over.

“‘There is going to be a railroad?’ he questioned sharply.

“‘Of course there is,’ I replied. I felt foolish, disappointed.

“‘You’re right,’ he said, ‘and I’ll never forget his eyes.’

“‘I can use a few more young fellows like you.’ And that’s how I got on
the staff.

“Well, we ran a quick survey west to the Bad Lands--for it was out here
that we must find success or failure. And Allie, it’s all been like
the biggest kind of an adventure. The troops and horses and camps and
trails--the Indian country with its threats from out of the air--the
wild places with their deer, buffalo, panthers, trappers like
Slingerland, scouts, and desperadoes. It began to get such a hold on me
that I was wild. That might have been bad for me but for my work. I
did well. Allie, I ran lines for the U. P. that no other engineer could
run.”

Neale paused, as much from the squeeze Allie suddenly gave him as for an
instant’s rest to catch his breath.

“I mean I had the nerve to tackle cliffs and dangerous slopes,” he
went on. Then he told how Larry Red King had saved his life, and that
recollection brought back his service to the cowboy; then naturally
followed the two dominating incidents of the summer.

Allie lifted a blanched face and darkening eyes. “Neale! You were in
danger.”

“Oh, not much, I guess. But Red thought so.”

“He saved you again!... I--I’ll never forget that.”

“Anyway, we’re square, for he’d have got shot sure the day the Indian
sneaked up on him.” Allie shuddered and shrank back to Neale, while he
hastily resumed his story. “We’re great pards now, Red and I. He doesn’t
say much, but his acts tell. He will not let me alone. He follows
me everywhere. It’s a joke among the men.... Well Allie, it seems
unbelievable that we have crossed the mountains and the desert--grade
ninety feet to the mile! The railroad can and will be built. I wish I
could tell you how tremendously all this has worked upon me--upon all
the engineers. But somehow I can’t. It chokes me. The idea is big. But
the work--what shall I call that?... Allie, if you can, imagine
some spirit seizing hold of you and making you see difficulties as
joys--impossible tasks as only things to strike fire from genius,
perils of death as merely incidents of daring adventure to treasure in
memory--well that’s something like it. The idea of the U. P. has got me.
I believe in it. I shall see it accomplished.... I’ll live it all.”

Allie moved her head on his shoulder, and, looking up at him with eyes
that made him ashamed of his egotism, she said, “Then, when it’s done
you’ll be chief of engineers or superintendent of maintenance of way?”

She had remembered his very words.

“Allie, I hope so,” he replied, thrilling at her faith. “I’ll work--I’ll
get some big position.”



Next day ushered in for Neale a well-earned rest, and he proceeded to
enjoy it to the full.

The fall had always been Neale’s favorite season. Here, as elsewhere,
the aspect of it was flaming and golden, but different from what he
had known hitherto. Dreaming silence of autumn held the wildness and
loneliness of the Wyoming hills. The sage shone gray and purple, the
ridges yellow and gold; the valleys were green and amber and red. No
dust, no heat, no wind--a clear, blue, cloudless sky, sweet odors in the
still air--it was a beautiful time.

Days passed and nights passed, as if on wings. Every waking hour drew
him closer to this incomparable girl who had arisen upon his horizon
like a star. He knew the hour was imminent when he must read his heart.
He fought it off; he played with his bliss. Allie was now his shadow
instead of the faithful Larry, although the cowboy was often with them,
adapting himself to the changed conditions, too big and splendid to
be envious or jealous. They fished down the brook, and always at the
never-to-be-forgotten ford he would cross first and turn to see her
follow. She could never understand why Neale would delight in carrying
her across at other points, yet made her ford this one by herself.

“It’s such a bother to take off moccasins and leggings,” she would say.

They rode horseback up and down the trails that Slingerland assured them
were safe. And it was the cowboy Larry who lent his horse and taught her
a flying mount; he said she would make a rider.

In the afternoons they would climb the high ridge, and on the summit
sit in the long whitening grass and gaze out over the dim and purple
vastness of the plains. In the twilight they walked under the pines.
When night set in and the air grew cold they would watch the ruddy fire
on the hearth and see pictures of the future there, and feel a warmth on
hand and cheek that was not all from the cheerful blaze.

Neale found it strange to realize how his attachment for Larry had
changed to love. All Neale’s spiritual being was undergoing a great and
vital change, but this was not the reason he loved Larry. It was because
of Allie. The cowboy was a Texan and he had inherited the Southerner’s
fine and chivalric regard for women. Neale never knew whether Larry had
ever had a sister or a sweetheart or a girl friend. But at sight Larry
had become Allie’s own; not a brother or a friend or a lover, but
something bigger and higher. The man expanded under her smiles, her
teasing, her playfulness, her affection. Neale had no pang in divining
the love Larry bore Allie. Drifter, cowboy, gun-thrower, man-killer,
whatever he had been, the light of this girl’s beautiful eyes, her
voice, her touch, had worked the last marvel in man--forgetfulness of
self. And so Neale loved him.

It made Neale quake inwardly to think of the change being wrought in
himself. It made him thoughtful of many things. There was much in life
utterly new to him. He had listened to a moan in his keen ear; he had
felt a call of something helpless; he had found a gleam of chestnut
hair; he had stirred two other men to help him befriend a poor,
broken-hearted, half-crazed orphan girl. And, lo! the world had changed,
his friends had grown happier in their unloved lives, a strange strength
had come to him, and, sweetest, most wonderful of all, in the place of
the helpless and miserable waif appeared a woman, lovely of face and
form, with only a ghost of sadness haunting her eyes, a woman adorable
and bright, with the magic of love on her lips.

October came. In the early morning and late afternoon a keen cold breath
hung in the air. Slingerland talked of a good prospect for fur. He
chopped great stores of wood. Larry climbed the hills with his rifle.
Neale walked the trails hand in hand with Allie.

He had never sought to induce her to speak of her past, though at times
the evidence of refinement and education and mystery around her made
strong appeal to him. She could, tell her story whenever she liked or
never--it did not greatly matter.

Then,--one day, quite naturally, but with a shame she did not try to
conceal, she confided to him part of the story her mother had told her
that dark night when the Sioux were creeping upon the caravan.

Neale was astounded, agitated, intensely concerned.

“Allie!... Your father lives!” he exclaimed.

“Yes.”

“Then I must find him--take you to him.”

“Do what you think best,” she replied, sadly. “But I never saw him. I’ve
no love for him. And he never knew I was born.”

“Is it possible? How strange!... If any man could see you now! Allie, do
you resemble your mother?”

“Yes, we were alike.”

“Where is your father?” Neale went on, curiously.

“How should I know? It was in New Orleans that mother ran off from him.
I--I never blamed her--since she said what she said.... Do you? Will
this--make any difference to you?”

“My God, no! But I’m so--so thunderstruck.... This man--this
Durade--tell me more of him.”

“He was a Spaniard of high degree, an adventurer, a gambler. He was
mad to gamble. He forced my mother to use her beauty to lure men to his
gambling-hell.... Oh, it’s terrible to remember. She said he meant to
use me for that purpose. That’s why she left him. But in a way he was
good to me. I can see so many things now to prove he was wicked.... And
mother said he would follow her--track her to the end of the world.”

“Allie! If he should find you some day!” exclaimed Neale, hoarsely.

She put her arms up round his neck. And that, following a terrible pang
of dread in Neale’s breast, was too much for him. The tide burst. Love
had long claimed him, but its utterance had been withheld. He had been
happy in her happiness. He had trained himself to spare her.

“But some day--I’ll be--your wife,” she whispered.

“Soon? Soon?” he returned, trembling.

The scarlet fired her temples, her brow, darkening the skin under her
bright hair.

“That’s for you to say.”

She held up her lips, tremulous and sweet.

Neale realized the moment had come. There had never been but the one
kiss between them--that of the meeting upon his return in September.

“Allie, I love you!” He spoke thickly.

“And I love you,” she replied, with sweet courage.

“This news you’ve told--this man Durade,” he went on, hoarsely, “I’m
suddenly alive--stinging--wild!... If I lost you!”

“Dear, you will never lose me--never in this world or any other,” she
replied, tenderly.

“My work, my hope, my life, they all get spirit now from you... Allie!
You’re sweet--oh, so sweet! You’re glorious!” he rang out, passionately.

Surprise momentarily checked the rising response of her feeling.

“Neale! You’ve never before said--such-things!... And the way you look!”

“How do I look?” he queried, seeing the joyousness of her surprise.

Then she laughed and that was new to him--a sound low, unutterably rich
and full, sweet-toned like a bell, and all resonant of youth.

“Oh, you look like Durade when he was gambling away his soul... You
should see him!”

“Well, how’s that?”

“So white--so terrible--so piercing!”

Neale drew her closer, slipped her arms farther up round his neck. “I’m
gambling my soul away now,” he said. “If I kiss you I lose it--and I
must!”

“Must what?” she whispered, with all a woman’s charm.

“I must kiss you!”

“Then hurry!”

So their lips met.

In the sweetness of that embrace, in the simplicity and answering
passion of her kiss, in the overwhelming sense of her gift of herself,
heart and soul, he found a strength, a restraint, a nobler fire that
gave him peace.

Allie was to amaze Neale again before the sun set on that memorable day.

“I forgot to tell you about the gold!” she exclaimed, her face paling.

“Gold!” ejaculated Neale.

“Yes. He buried it--there--under the biggest of the three trees
together. Near a rock! Oh, I can see him now!”

“Him! Who? Allie, what’s this wild talk?”

She pressed his hand to enjoin silence.

“Listen! Horn had gold. How much I don’t know. But it must have been
a great deal. He owned the caravan with which we left California. Horn
grew to like me. But he hated all the rest.... That night we ended
the awful ride! The wagons stalled!... The grayness of dawn--the
stillness--oh, I feel them now!... That terrible Indian yell rang
out. All my life I’ll hear it!... Then Horn dug a hole. He buried his
gold.... And he said whoever escaped could have it. He had no hope.”

“Allie, you’re a mine of surprises. Buried gold! What next?”

“Neale, I wonder--did the Sioux find that gold?” she asked.

“It’s not likely. There certainly wasn’t any hole left open around that
place. I saw every inch of ground under those trees.... Allie, I’ll go
there to-morrow and hunt for it.”

“Let me go,” she implored. “Ah! I forgot! No--no!... There must be my
mother’s grave.”

“Yes, it’s there. I saw. I will mark it.... Allie, how glad I am that
you can speak of her--of her past--her grave there without weakening.
You are brave! But forget... Allie, if I find that gold it’ll be yours.”

“No. Yours.”

“But I wasn’t one of the caravan. He did not give it to any outsider.
You escaped. Therefore it will belong to you.”

“Dearest, I am yours.”

Next day, without acquainting Slingerland or Larry with his purpose,
Neale rode down the valley trail.

He expected the road to cross the old St. Vrain and Laramie Trail,
but if it did cross he could not find the place. It was easy to lose
bearings in these hills. Neale had to abandon the hunt for that day,
and turning back, with some annoyance at his failure, he decided that it
would be best to take Larry and Slingerland into his confidence.

Allie was waiting for him at the brook ford.

“Oh, it was gone!” she cried.

“Allie, I couldn’t find the place. Come, ride back and let me walk
beside you.... We’ll have fun telling Larry and Slingerland.”

“Neale, let me tell them,” she begged.

“Go ahead. Make a strong story. Larry always had leanings toward
gold-strikes.”

And that night, after supper, when the log fire had begun to blaze,
and all were comfortable before it, Allie glanced demurely at Larry and
said:

“Reddy, if you had known that I was heiress to great wealth, would you
have proposed to me?”

Slingerland roared. Larry seemed utterly stricken.

“Wealth!” he echoed, feebly.

“Yes. Gold! Lots of gold!”

Slingerland’s merry face suddenly grew curious and earnest.

Larry struggled with his discomfiture.

“I reckon I’d done thet anyhow--without knowin’ you was rich--if it
hadn’t been fer this heah U. P. surveyor fellar.”

And then the joke was on Allie, as her blushes proved. Neale came to her
rescue and told the story of Horn’s buried gold, and of his own search
that day for the place.

“Shore I’ll find it,” declared Larry. “We’ll go to-morrow....”

Slingerland stroked his beard thoughtfully.

“If thar’s gold been buried thar it’s sure an’ certain thar yet,” he
said. “But I’m afraid we won’t git thar tomorrow.”

“Why not? Surely you or Larry can find the place?”

“Listen.”

Neale listened while he was watching Allie’s parted lips and speaking
eyes. A low, whining wind swept through the trees and over the roof of
the cabin.

“Thet wind says snow,” declared the trapper.

Neale went outside. The wind struck him cold and keen, with a sharp edge
to it. The stars showed pale and dim through hazy atmosphere. Assuredly
there was a storm brewing. Neale returned to the fire, shivering and
holding his palms to the heat.

“Cold, you bet, with the wind rising,” he said. “But, Slingerland,
suppose it does snow. Can’t we go, anyhow?”

“It ain’t likely. You see, it snows up hyar. Mebbe we’ll be snowed in
fer a spell. An’ thet valley is open down thar. In deep snow what could
we find? We’ll wait an’ see.”

On the morrow a storm raged and all was dim through a ghostly, whirling
pall. The season of drifting snow had come, and Neale’s winter work had
begun.

Five miles by short cut over the ridges curved the long survey over
which Neale must keep watch; and the going and coming were Neale’s
hardest toil. It was laborsome to trudge up and down in soft snow.

That first snow of winter, however, did not last long, except in the
sheltered places. Fortunately for Neale, almost all of his section of
the survey ran over open ground. But this fact augured seriously for his
task when the dry and powdery snow of midwinter began to fall and sweep
before the wind and drift over the lee side of the ridge.

During the first week of tramping he thoroughly learned the lay of the
land, the topography of his particular stretch of Sherman Pass. And one
day, taking an early start from camp, he set forth to make his first
call upon his nearest associate in this work, the engineer Service.
Once high up on the pass he found the snow had not all melted, and still
higher it lay white and unbroken as far as he could see. The air was
keener up there. Neale gathered that Service would have a colder job
than his own, if it was not so long and hard.

He found Service at home in his dugout, warm and comfortable and in
excellent spirits. They compared notes, and even in this early work they
decided it would be a wise plan for the engineering staff to study the
problem of drifting snow.

Neale enjoyed a meal with Service, and then, early in the afternoon, he
started back on his long tramp homeward. He gathered from his visit that
Service did not mind the lonesomeness, but that he did suffer from the
cold more than he had expected. Service was not an active, full-blooded
man, and Neale had some misgivings. Judging from the trapper’s remarks,
winter high up in the Wyoming hills was something to dread.

November brought the real storms--the gray banks of rolling cloud, the
rain and sleet and snow and ice, and the wind. Neale concluded he had
never before faced a real wind, and when, one day on a ridge-top, he was
blown off his feet he was sure of it. Some days he could not go out at
all. Other days it was not imperative, for it was only during and after
snow-storms that he could make observations. He learned to travel on
snow-shoes, and ten miles of such traveling up and down the steep slopes
was the most killing hard toil he had ever attempted. After such trips
he would reach the cabin utterly fagged out, too tired to eat, too
weary, to talk, almost too dead to hear the solicitations of his friends
or to appreciate Allie’s tender, anxious care. If he had not been strong
and robust and in good training to begin with, he would have failed
under the burden. Gradually he grew used to the strenuous toil, and
became hardened, tough, and enduring.

Though Neale hated the cold and the wind, there were moments when an
exceedingly keen exhilaration uplifted him. These experiences visited
him while on the heights, looking far over the snowy ridges to, the
white, monotonous plain or up toward the shining peaks. All seemed
barren and cold. He never saw a living creature or a track upon those
slopes. When the sun shone all was so dazzlingly, glaringly white that
his eyes were struck by temporary blindness.

Upon one of the milder days, which were getting rarer in mid-December,
Neale again visited his comrade on the summit. He found Service in bad
shape. In falling down a slippery ledge he had injured or broken his
lame leg. Neale, with great concern, tried to ascertain the nature
and extent of the harm done, but he was unable to do so. Service was
practically helpless, although not suffering any great pain. The two of
them decided, at length, that he had not broken any bones, but that it
was necessary to move him to where he could be waited upon and
treated, or else some one must be brought in to take care of him. Neale
deliberated a moment.

“I’ll tell you what,” he said, finally. “You can be moved down to
Slingerland’s cabin without pain to you. I’ll get Slingerland and his
sled. You’ll be more comfortable there. It’ll be better all around.”

So that was decided upon. And Neale, after doing all he could for
Service, and assuring him that he would return in less than twenty-four
hours, turned his steps for the valley.

The sunset that night struck him as singularly dull, pale, menacing.
He understood its meaning later, when Slingerland said they were in for
another storm. Before dark the wind began to moan through the trees like
lost spirits. The trapper shook his shaggy head ominously.

“Reckon thet sounds bad to me,” he said. And from moan it rose to wail,
and from wail to roar.

That alarmed Neale. He went outside and Slingerland followed. Snow
was sweeping down-light, dry, powdery. The wind was piercingly cold.
Slingerland yelled something, but Neale could not distinguish what. When
they got back inside the trapper said:

“Blizzard!”

Neale grew distressed.

“Wal, no use to worry about Service,” argued the trapper. “If it is a
blizzard we can’t git up thar, thet’s all. Mebbe this’ll not be so bad.
But I ain’t bettin’ on thet.”

Even Allie couldn’t cheer Neale that night. Long after she and the
others had retired he kept up the fire and listened to the roar of the
wind. When the fire died down a little the cabin grew uncomfortably
cold, and this fact attested to a continually dropping temperature. But
he hoped against hope and finally sought his blankets.

Morning came, but the cabin was almost as dark as by night. A blinding,
swirling snow-storm obscured the sun.

A blizzard raged for forty-eight hours. When the snow finally ceased
falling the cold increased until Neale guessed the temperature might be
forty degrees below zero. The trapper claimed sixty. It was necessary to
stay indoors till the weather moderated.

On the fifth morning Slingerland was persuaded to attempt the trip to
aid Service. Larry wanted to accompany them, but Slingerland said he
had better stay with Allie. So, muffled up, the two men set out on
snow-shoes, dragging a sled. A crust had frozen on the snow, otherwise
traveling would have been impossible. Once up on the slope the north
wind hit them square in the face. Heavily clad as he was, Neale thought
the very marrow in his bones would freeze. That wind blew straight
through him. There were places where it took both men to hold the sled
to keep it from getting away. They were blown back one step for every
two steps they made. On the exposed heights they could not walk upright.
At last, after hours of desperate effort, they got over the ridge to a
sheltered side along which they labored up to Service’s dugout.

Up there the snow had blown away in places, leaving bare spots, bleak,
icy, barren, stark. No smoke appeared to rise above the dugout. The rude
habitation looked as though no man had been there that winter. Neale
glanced in swift dismay at Slingerland.

“Son, look fer the wust,” he said. “An’ we hain’t got time to waste.”

They pushed open the canvas framework of a door and, stooping low,
passed inside. Neale’s glance saw first the fireplace, where no fire
had burned for days. Snow had sifted into the dugout and lay in little
drifts everywhere. The blankets on the bunk covered Service, hiding his
face. Both men knew before they uncovered him what his fate had been.

“Frozen to death!” gasped Neale.

Service lay white, rigid, like stone, with no sign of suffering upon his
face.

“He jest went to sleep--an’ never woke up,” declared Slingerland.

“Thank God for that!” exclaimed Neale. “Oh, why did I not stay with
him?”

“Too late, son. An’ many a good man will go to his death before thet
damn railroad is done.”

Neale searched for Service’s notes and letters and valuables which could
be turned over to the engineering staff.

Slingerland found a pick and shovel, which Neale remembered to have used
in building the dugout; and with these the two men toiled at the frozen
sand and gravel to open up a grave; It was like digging in stone.
At length they succeeded. Then, rolling Service in the blankets and
tarpaulin, they lowered him into the cold ground and hurriedly filled up
his grave.

It was a grim, gruesome task. Another nameless grave! Neale had already
seen nine graves. This one was up the slope not a hundred feet from the
line of survey.

“Slingerland,” exclaimed Neale, “the railroad will run along there!
Trains will pass this spot. In years to come travelers will look out of
the train windows along here. Boys riding away to seek their fortunes!
Bride and groom on their honeymoon! Thousands of people--going, coming,
busy, happy at their own affairs, full of their own lives--will pass by
poor Service’s grave and never know it’s there!”

“Wal, son, if people must hev railroads, they must kill men to build
them,” replied the trapper.

Neale conceived the idea that Slingerland did, not welcome the coming
of the steel rails. The thought shocked him. But then, he reflected, a
trapper would not profit by the advance of civilization.

With the wind in their backs Neale and Slingerland were practically
blown home. They made it up between them to keep knowledge of the
tragedy from Allie. So ended the coldest and hardest and grimmest day
Neale had ever known.

The winter passed, the snows melted, the winds quieted, and spring came.

Long since Neale had decided to leave Allie with Slingerland that
summer. She would be happy there, and she wished to stay until Neale
could take her with him. That seemed out of the question for the
present. A construction camp full of troopers and laborers was no place
for Allie. Neale dreaded the idea of taking her to Omaha. Always in
his mind were haunting fears of this Spaniard, Durade, who had ruined
Allie’s mother, and of the father whom Allie had never seen. Neale
instinctively felt that these men were to crop up somewhere in his life,
and before they did appear he wanted to marry Allie. She was now little
more than sixteen years old.

Neale’s plans for the summer could not be wholly known until he had
reported to the general staff, which might be at Fort Fetterman or North
Platte or all the way back in Omaha. But it was probable that he would
be set to work with the advancing troops and trains and laborers.
Engineers had to accompany both the grading gangs and the rail gangs.

Neale, in his talks with Larry and Slingerland, had dwelt long and
conjecturingly upon what life was going to be in the construction camps.

To Larry what might happen was of little moment. He lived in the
present. But Neale was different. He had to be anticipating events; he
lived in the future, his mind was centered on future work, achievement,
and what he might go through in attaining his end. Slingerland was his
appreciative listener.

“Wal,” he would say, shaking his grizzled head, “I reckon I don’t
believe all your General Lodge says is goin’ to happen.”

“But, man, can’t you imagine what it will be?” protested Neale. “Take
thousands of soldiers--the riffraff of the war--and thousands of
laborers of all classes, niggers, greasers, pigtail chinks, and Irish.
Take thousands of men who want to earn an honest dollar, but not
honestly. All the gamblers, outlaws, robbers, murderers, criminals,
adventurers in the States, and perhaps many from abroad, will be on the
trail. Think, man, of the money--the gold! Millions spilled out in these
wilds!... And last and worst--the bad women!”

Slingerland showed his amazement at the pictures drawn by Neale,
especially at the final one.

“Wal, I reckon thet’s all guff too,” he said. “A lot of bad women out in
these wilds ain’t to be feared. Supposin’ thar was a lot of them which
ain’t likely--how’d they ever git out to the camps?”

“Slingerland, the trains--the trains will follow the laying of the
rails!”

“Oho! An’ you mean thar’ll be towns grow up overnightall full of bad
people who ain’t workin’ on the railroad, but jest followin’ the gold?”

“Exactly. Now listen. Remember all these mixed gangs--the gold--and the
bad women--out here in the wild country--no law--no restraint--no fear,
except of death--drinking-hells--gambling-hells--dancing-hells! What’s
going to happen?”

The trapper meditated a while, stroking his beard, and then he said:
“Wal, thar ain’t enough gold to build thet railroad--an’ if thar was it
couldn’t never be done!”

“Ah!” cried Neale, raising his head sharply. “It’s a matter of gold
first. Streams of gold! And then--can it be done?”

One day, as the time for Neale’s departure grew closer, Slingerland’s
quiet and peaceful valley was violated by a visit from four
rough-looking men.

They rode in without packs. It was significant to Neale that Larry swore
at sight of them, and then in his cool, easy way sauntered between them
and the cabin door, where Allie stood with astonishment fixed on her
beautiful face. The Texan always packed his heavy gun, and certainly no
Western men would mistake his quality. These visitors were civil enough,
asked for a little tobacco, and showed no sign of evil intent.

“Way off the beaten track up hyar,” said one.

“Yes. I’m a trapper,” replied Slingerland. “Whar do you hail from?”

“Ogden. We’re packin’ east.”

“Much travel on the trail?”

“Right smart fer wild country. An’ all goin’ east. We hain’t met an
outfit headin’ west. Hev you heerd any talk of a railroad buildin’ out
of Omaha?”

Here Larry put a word in.

“Shore. We’ve had soldiers campin’ around aboot all heah.”

“Soldiers!” ejaculated one of the gang.

“Shore, the road’s bein’ built by soldiers.”

The men made no further comment and turned away without any good-bys.
Slingerland called out to them to have an eye open for Indians on the
war-path.

“Wal, I don’t like the looks of them fellars,” he declared.

Neale likewise took an unfavorable view of the visit, but Larry scouted
the idea of there being any danger in a gang like that.

“Shore they’d be afraid of a man,” he declared.

“Red, can you look at men and tell whether or not there’s danger in
them?” inquired Neale.

“I shore can. One man could bluff thet outfit.... But I reckon I’d hate
to have them find Allie aboot heah alone.”

“I can take care of myself,” spoke up Allie, spiritedly.

Neale and Slingerland, for all their respect for the cowboy’s judgment,
regarded the advent of these visitors as a forerunner of an evil time
for lonely trappers.

“I’ll hev to move back deeper in the mountains, away from the railroad,”
 said Slingerland.

This incident also put a different light upon the intention Neale had of
hunting for the buried gold. Just now he certainly did not want to risk
being seen digging gold or packing it away; and Slingerland was just as
loath to have it concealed in or near his cabin.

“Wal, seein’ we’re not sure it’s really there, let’s wait till you come
back in summer or fall,” he suggested. “If it’s thar it’ll stay thar.”

All too soon the dawn came for Neale’s departure with Larry. Allie was
braver than he. At the last he was white and shaken. She kissed Larry.

“Reddy, you’ll take care of yourself--and him,” she said.

“Allie, I shore will. Good-by.” Larry rode down the trail in the dim
gray dawn.

“Watch sharp for Indians,” she breathed, and her face whitened
momentarily. Then the color returned. Her eyes welled full of sweet,
soft light.

“Allie, I can’t go,” said Neale, hoarsely. The clasp of her arms
unnerved him.

“You must. It’s your work. Remember the big job!... Dearest! Dearest!
Hurry--and--go!”

Neale could no longer see her face clearly. He did not know what he was
saying.

“You’ll always--love me?” he implored.

“Do you need to ask? All my life!... I promise.”

“Kiss me, then,” he whispered, hoarsely, blindly leaning down. “It’s
hell--to leave you!... Wonderful girl--treasure--precious--Allie!...
Kiss me--enough!... I--”

She held him with strong and passionate clasp and kissed him again and
again.

“Good-by!” Her last word was low, choked, poignant, and had in it a
mournful reminder of her old tragic woe.

Then he was alone. Mounting clumsily, with blurred eyes, he rode into
the winding trail.




10

Neale and King traveled light, without pack-animals, and at sunrise they
reached the main trail.

It bore evidence of considerable use and was no longer a trail, but
a highroad. Fresh tracks of horses and oxen, wagon-wheel ruts, dead
camp-fires, and scattered brush that had been used for wind-breaks--all
these things attested to the growing impetus of that movement; soon it
was to become extraordinary.

All this was Indian country. Neale and his companion had no idea whether
or not the Sioux had left their winter quarters for the war-path. But
it was a vast region, and the Indians could not be everywhere. Neale and
King took chances, as had all these travelers, though perhaps the risk
was not so great, because they rode fleet horses. They discovered no
signs of Indians, and it appeared as if they were alone in a wilderness.

They covered sixty miles from early dawn to dark, with a short rest at
noon, and reached Fort Fetterman safely without incident or accident.
Troops were there, but none of the U. P. engineering staff. Neale did
not meet any soldiers with whom he was acquainted. Orders were there for
him, however, to report to North Platte as soon as it was possible to
reach there. Troops were to be moving soon, so Neale learned, and the
long journey could be made in comparative safety.

Here Neale received the tidings that forty miles of railroad had been
built during the last summer, and trains had been run that distance west
from Omaha. His heart swelled. Not for many a week had he heard anything
favorable to the great U. P. project, and here was news of rails laid,
trains run. Already this spring the graders were breaking ground far
ahead of the rail-layers. Report and rumor at the fort had it that
lively times had attended the construction. But the one absorbing topic
was the Sioux Indians, who were expected to swarm out of the hills that
summer and give the troops hot work.

In due time Neale and Larry arrived at North Platte, which was little
more than a camp. The construction gangs were not expected to reach
there until late in the fall. Baxter was at North Platte, with a lame
surveyor, and no other helpers; consequently he hailed Neale and Larry
with open arms. A summer’s work on the hot monotonous plains stared
Neale in the face, but he must resign himself to the inevitable. He
worked, as always, with that ability and energy which had made him
invaluable to his superiors. Here, however, the labor was a dull, hot
grind, without any thrills. Neale filled the long days with duty and
seldom let his mind-wander. In leisure hours, however, he dreamed of
Allie and the future. He found no trouble in passing time that way. Also
he watched eagerly for arrivals from the west, whom he questioned about
Indians in the Wyoming hills; and from troops or travelers coming from
the east he heard all the news of the advancing railroad construction.
It was absorbingly interesting, yet Neale could credit so few of the
tales.

The summer and early fall passed.

Neale was ordered to Omaha. The news stunned him. He had built all
his hopes on another winter out in the Wyoming hills, and this
disappointment was crushing. It made him ill for a day. He almost threw
up his work. It did not seem possible to live that interminable stretch
without seeing Allie Lee. The nature of his commission, however, brought
once again to mind the opportunity that knocked at his door. Neale had
run all the different surveys for bridges in the Wyoming hills and now
he was needed in the office of the staff, where plans and drawings
were being made. Again he bowed to the inevitable. But he determined
to demand in the spring that he be sent ahead to the forefront of the
construction work.

Another disappointment seemed in order. Larry King refused to go any
farther back east. Neale was exceedingly surprised.

“Do you throw up your job?” he asked.

“Shore not. I can work heah,” replied Larry.

“There won’t be any outside work on these bleak plains in winter.”

“Wal, I reckon I’ll loaf, then,” he drawled.

Neale could not change him. Larry vowed he would take his old place with
Neale next spring, if it should be open to him.

“But why? Red, I can’t figure you,” protested Neale.

“Pard, I reckon I’m fur enough back east right heah,” said Larry,
significantly.

A light dawned upon Neale. “Red! You’ve done something bad!” exclaimed
Neale, in genuine dismay.

“Wal, I don’t know jest how bad it was, but it shore was hell,” replied
Larry, with a grin.

“Red, you aren’t afraid,” asserted Neale, positively.

The cowboy flushed and looked insulted. “If any one but you said thet to
me he’d hev to eat it.”

“I beg your pardon, old man. But I’m surprised. It doesn’t seem like
you.... And then--Lord! I’ll miss you.”

“No more ‘n I’ll miss you, pard,” replied Larry.

Suddenly Neale had a happy thought. “Red, you go back to Slingerland’s
and help take care of Allie. I’d feel she was safer.”

“Wal, she might be safer, but I wouldn’t be,” declared the cowboy,
bluntly.

“You red-head! What do you mean?” demanded Neale.

“I mean this heah. If I stayed around another winter near Allie
Lee--with her alone, fer thet trapper never set up before thet
fire--I’d--why, Neale, I’d ambush you like an Injun when you come back!”

“You wouldn’t,” rejoined Neale. He wanted to laugh but had no mirth.

Larry did not mean that, but neither did he mean to be funny. “I’ll be
hangin’ round heah, waitin’ fer you. It’s only a few months. Go on to
your work, pard. You’ll be a big man on the road some day.”

Neale left North Platte with a wagon-train.

After a long, slow journey the point was reached where the graders had
left off work for that year. Here had been a huge construction camp;
and the bare and squalid place looked as if it once had been a town of
crudest make, suddenly wrecked by a cyclone and burned by prairie
fire. Fifty miles farther on, representing two more long, tedious, and
unendurable days, and Neale heard the whistle of a locomotive. It came
from far off. But it was a whistle. He yelled, and the men journeying
with him joined in.

Smoke showed on the horizon, together with a wide, low, uneven line of
shacks and tents.

Neale was all eyes when he rode into that construction camp. The place
was a bedlam. A motley horde of men appeared to be doing everything
under the sun but work, and most of them seemed particularly eager to
board a long train of box-cars and little old passenger-coaches. Neale
made a dive for the train, and his sojourn in that camp was a short and
exciting one of ten minutes.

He felt unutterably proud. He had helped survey the line along which the
train was now rattling and creaking and swaying. All that swiftly passed
under his keen eyes was recorded in his memory--the uncouth crowd of
laborers, the hardest lot he had ever seen; the talk, noise, smoke;
the rickety old clattering coaches; the wayside dumps and heaps and
wreckage. But they all seemed parts of a beautiful romance to him. Neale
saw through the eyes of golden ambition and illimitable dreams.

And not for a moment of that endless ride, with interminable stops, did
he weary of the two hundred and sixty miles of rails laid that year,
and of the forty miles of the preceding year. Then came Omaha, a
beehive--the making of a Western metropolis!

Neale plunged into the bewildering turmoil of plans, tasks, schemes,
land-grants, politics, charters, inducements, liens and loans,
Government and army and State and national interests, grafts and deals
and bosses--all that mass of selfish and unselfish motives, all that
wealth of cunning and noble aims, all that congested assemblage of
humanity which went to make up the building of the Union Pacific.

Neale was a dreamer, like the few men whose minds had first given birth
to the wonderful idea of a railroad from East to West. Neale found
himself confronted by a singularly disturbing fact. However grand this
project, its political and mercenary features could not be beautiful to
him. Why could not all men be right-minded about a noble cause and work
unselfishly for the development of the West and the future generations?
It was a melancholy thing to learn that men of sincere and generous
purpose had spent their all trying to raise the money to build the Union
Pacific; on the other hand, it was a satisfaction to hear that many
capitalists with greedy claws had ruined themselves in like efforts.

The President of the United States and Congress had their own troubles
at the close of the war, and the Government could do but little
money-raising with land-grants and loans. But they offered a great bonus
to the men who would build the railroad.

The first construction company subscribed over a million and a half
dollars, and paid in one-quarter of that. The money went so swiftly
that it opened the company’s eyes to the insatiable gulf beneath that
enterprise, and they quit.

Thereupon what was called the Credit Mobilier was inaugurated, and it
became both famous and infamous.

It was a type of the construction company by which it was the custom
to build railroads at that time. The directors, believing that whatever
money was to be made out of the Union Pacific must be collected during
the construction period, organized a clever system for just this
purpose.

An extravagant sum was to be paid to the Credit Mobilier for the
construction work, thus securing for stockholders of the Union Pacific,
who now controlled the Credit Mobilier, the bonds loaned by the United
States Government.

The operations of the Credit Mobilier finally gave rise to one of the
most serious political scandals in the history of the United States
Congress.

The cost of all material was high, and it rose with leaps and bounds
until it was prodigious. Omaha had no railroad entering it from the
east, and so all the supplies, materials, engines, cars, machinery, and
laborers had to be transported from St. Louis up the swift Missouri
on boats. This in itself was a work calling for the limit of practical
management and energy. Out on the prairie-land, for hundreds of miles,
were to be found no trees, no wood, scarcely any brush. The prairie-land
was beautiful ground for buffalo, but it was a most barren desert for
the exigencies of railroad men. Moreover, not only did wood and fuel and
railroad-ties have to be brought from afar, but also stone for bridges
and abutments. Then thousands of men had to be employed, and those who
hired out for reasonable money soon learned that others were getting
more; having the company at their mercy, they demanded exorbitant wages
in their turn.

One of the peculiar features of the construction, a feature over which
Neale grew impotently furious, was the law that when a certain section
of so many miles had been laid and equipped the Government of the United
States would send out expert commissioners, who would go over the line
and pass judgment upon the finished work. No two groups of commissioners
seemed to agree. These experts, who had their part to play in the
bewildering and labyrinthine maze of men’s contrary plans and plots,
reported that certain sections would have to be done over again.

The particular fault found with one of these sections was the alleged
steepness of the grade, and as Neale had been the surveyor in charge, he
soon heard of his poor work. He went over his figures and notes with the
result that he called on Henney and absolutely swore that the grade was
right. Henney swore too, in a different and more forcible way, but he
agreed with Neale and advised him to call upon the expert commissioners.

Neale did so, and found them, with one exception, open to conviction.
The exception was a man named Allison Lee. The name Lee gave Neale
a little shock. He was a gray-looking man, with lined face, and that
concentrated air which Neale had learned to associate with those who
were high in the affairs of the U. P.

Neale stated that his business was to show that his work had been done
right, and he had the figures to prove it. Mr. Lee replied that the
survey was poor and would have to be done over.

“Are you a surveyor?” queried Neale, sharply, with the blood beating in
his temples.

“I have some knowledge of civil engineering,” replied the commissioner.

“Well, it can’t be very much,” declared Neale, whose temper was up.

“Young man, be careful what you say,” replied the other.

“But Mr.--Mr. Lee--listen to me, will you?” burst out Neale. “It’s all
here in my notes. You’ve hurried over the line and you just slipped up a
foot or so in your observations of that section.”

Mr. Lee refused to look at the notes and waved Neale aside.

“It’ll hurt my chances for a big job,” Neale said, stubbornly.

“You probably will lose your job, judging from the way you address your
superiors.”

That finished Neale. He grew perfectly white.

“All this expert-commissioner business is rot,” he flung at Lee. “Rot!
Lodge knows it. Henney knows it. We all do. And so do you. It’s a lot of
damn red tape! Every last man who can pull a stroke with the Government
runs in here to annoy good efficient engineers who are building the
road. It’s an outrage. It’s more. It’s not honest... That
section has forty miles in it. Five miles you claim must be
resurveyed--regraded--relaid. Forty-six thousand dollars a mile!...
That’s the secret--two hundred and thirty thousand dollars more for a
construction company!”

Neale left the office and, returning to Henney, repeated the interview
to him word for word. Henney complimented Neale’s spirit, but deplored
the incident. It could do no good and might do harm. Many of these
commissioners were politicians, working in close touch with the
directors, and not averse to bleeding the Credit Mobilier.

All the engineers, including the chief, though he was noncommittal, were
bitter about this expert-commissioner law. If a good road-bed had been
surveyed, the engineers knew more about it than any one else. They were
the pioneers of the work. It was exceedingly annoying and exasperating
to have a number of men travel leisurely in trains over the line and
criticize the labors of engineers who had toiled in heat and cold and
wet, with brain and heart in the task. But it was so.

In May, 1866, a wagon-train escorted by troops rolled into the growing
camp of North Platte, and the first man to alight was Warren Neale,
strong, active, eager-eyed as ever, but older and with face pale from
his indoor work and hope long deferred.

The first man to greet him was Larry King, in whom time did not make
changes.

They met as long-separated brothers.

“Red how’re your horses?” was Neale’s query, following the greeting.

“Wintered well, but cost me all I had. I’m shore busted,” replied Larry.

“I’ve plenty of money,” said Neale, “and what’s mine is yours. Come on,
Red. We’ll get light packs and hit the trail for the Wyoming hills.”

“Wal, I reckoned so... Neale, it’s shore goin’ to be risky. The Injuns
are on the rampage already. You see how this heah camp has growed. Men
ridin’ in all since winter broke. An’ them from west tell some hard
stories.”

“I’ve got to go,” replied Neale, with emotion. “It’s nearly a year since
I saw Allie. Not a word between us in all that time!... Red, I can’t
stand it longer.”

“Shore, I know,” replied King, hastily. “You ain’t reckonin’ I wanted to
crawfish? I’ll go. We’ll pack light, hit the trail at night, an’ hide up
in the daytime.”

Neale had arrived in North Platte before noon, and before sunset he and
King were far out on the swelling slopes of plainland, riding toward the
west.

Traveling by night, camping by day, they soon left behind them the
monotonous plains of Nebraska. The Sioux had been active for two summers
along the southern trails of Wyoming. The Texan’s long training on the
ranges stood them in good stead here. His keen eye for tracks and smoke
and distant objects, his care in hiding trails and selecting camps, and
his skill and judgment in all pertaining to the horses--these things
made the journey possible. For they saw Indian signs more than once
before the Wyoming hills loomed up in the distance. More than one
flickering camp-fire they avoided by a wide detour.

Slingerland’s valley showed all the signs of early summer. The familiar
trail, however, bore no tracks of horses or man or beast. A heavy rain
had fallen recently and it would have obliterated tracks.

Neale’s suspense sustained the added burden of dread. In the oppressive
silence of the valley he read some nameless reason for fear. The trail
seemed the same, the brook flowed and murmured as of old, the trees
shone soft and green, but Neale sensed a difference. He dared not look
at Larry for confirmation of his fears. The valley had not of late been
lived in!

Neale rode hard up the trail under the pines. A blackened heap lay where
once the cabin had stood. Neale’s heart gave a terrible leap and then
seemed to cease beating. He could not breathe nor speak nor move. His
eyes were fixed on the black remains of Slingerland’s cabin.

“Gawd Almighty!” gasped Larry, and he put out a shaking hand to clutch
Neale. “The Injuns! I always feared this--spite of Slingerland’s talk.”

The feel of Larry’s fierce fingers, like hot, stinging arrows in his
flesh, pierced Neale’s mind and made him realize what his stunned
faculties had failed to grasp. It seemed to loosen the vise-like hold
upon his muscles, to liberate his tongue.

He fell off his horse.

“Red! Look--look around!”

Allie was gone! The disappointment at not seeing her was crushing, and
the fear of utter loss was terrible. Neale lay on the ground, blind,
sick, full of agony, with his fingers tearing at the grass. The evil
presentiments that had haunted him for months had not been groundless
fancies. Perhaps Allie had called to him again, in another hour of
calamity, and this time he had not responded. She was gone! That idea
struck him cold. It meant the most dreadful of all happenings. For a
while he lay there, prostrate under the shock. He was dimly aware of
Larry’s coming and sitting down beside him.

“No sign of any one,” he said, huskily. “Not even a track!... Thet fire
must hev been about two weeks ago. Mebbe more, but not much. There’s
been a big rain an’ the ground’s all washed clean an’ smooth ... Not a
track!”

It was the cowboy’s habit to calculate the past movements of people and
horses by the nature of the tracks they left.

Then Neale awoke to violence. He sprang up and rushed to the ruins of
the cabin, frantically tore and dug around the burnt embers, and did not
leave off until he had overhauled the whole pile. There was nothing but
ashes and embers. Whereupon he ran to the empty corrals, to the sheds,
to the wood-pile, to the spring, and all around the space once so
habitable. There was nothing to reward his fierce energy--nothing to
scrutinize. Already grass was springing in the trails and upon spots
that had once been bare.

Neale halted, sweating, hot, wild, before his friend. Larry avoided his
gaze.

“She’s gone!... She’s gone!” Neale panted.

“Wal, mebbe Slingerland moved camp an’ burned this place,” suggested
Larry. “He was sore after them four road-agents rustled in heah.”

“No--no. He’d have left the cabin. In case he moved--Allie was to write
me a note--telling me how to find them. I remember--we picked out the
place to hide the note... Oh! she’s gone! She’s gone!”

“Wal, then, mebbe Slingerland got away an’ the cabin was burned after.”

“I can’t hope that... I tell you--it means hell’s opened up before me.”

“Wal, it’s tough, I know, Neale, but mebbe--”

Neale wheeled fiercely upon him. “You’re only saying those things! You
don’t believe them! Tell me what you do really think.”

“Lord, pard, it couldn’t be no wuss,” replied Larry, his lean face
working. “I figger only one way. This heah. Slingerland had left Allie
alone... Then--she was made away with an’ the cabin burned.”

“Indians?”

“Mebbe. But I lean more to the idee of an outfit like thet one what was
heah.”

Neale groaned in his torture. “Not that, Reddy--not that!... The Indians
would kill her--scalp her--or take her captive into their tribe... But
a gang of cutthroat ruffians like these... My God! if I KNEW that had
happened it’d kill me.”

Larry swore at his friend. “It can’t do no good to go to pieces,” he
expostulated. “Let’s do somethin’.”

“What--in Heaven’s name!” cried Neale, in despair.

“Wal, we can rustle up every trail in these heah Black Hills. Mebbe we
can find Slingerland.”

 Then began a search--frantic, desperate, and forlorn on the part of
Neale; faithful and dogged and keen on the part of King. Neale was like
a wild man. He heeded no advice or caution. Only the cowboy’s iron arm
saved Neale and his horse. It was imperative to find water and grass,
and to eat, necessary things which Neale seemed to have forgotten. He
seldom slept or rested or ate. They risked meeting the Sioux in every
valley and on every ridge. Neale would have welcomed the sight of
Indians; he would have rushed into peril in the madness of his grief.
Still, there was hope! He lived all the hours in utter agony of mind,
but his heart did not give up.

They coursed far and near, always keeping to the stream beds, for if
Slingerland had made another camp it would be near water. More than
one trail led nowhere; more than one horse track roused hopes that were
futile. The Wyoming hills country was surely a lonely and a wild one,
singularly baffling to the searchers, for in two weeks of wide travel it
did not yield a sign or track of man. Neale and King used up all their
scant supply of food, threw away all their outfit except a bag of salt,
and went on, living on the meat they shot.

Then one day, unexpectedly, they came upon two trappers by a beaver-dam.
Neale was overcome by his emotion; he sensed that from these men he
would learn something. The first look from them told him that his errand
was known.

“Howdy!” greeted Larry. “It shore is good to see you men--the fust we’ve
come on in an awful hunt through these heah hills.”

“Thar ain’t any doubt thet you look it, friend,” replied one of the
trappers.

“We’re huntin’ fer Slingerland. Do you happen to know him?”

“Knowed Al fer years. He went through hyar a week ago--jest after the
big rain, wasn’t it, Bill?”

“Wal, to be exact it was eight days ago,” replied the comrade Bill.

“Was--he--alone?” asked Larry, thickly.

“Sure, an’ lookin’ sick. He lost his girl not long since, he said, an’
it broke him bad.”

“Lost her! How?”

“Wal, he was sure it wasn’t redskins,” rejoined the trapper,
reflectively. “Slingerland stood in with the Sioux--traded with ‘em.
He--”

“Tell me quick!” hoarsely interrupted Neale. “What happened to Allie
Lee?”

“Fellars, my pard heah is hurt deep,” said Larry. “The girl you spoke of
was his sweetheart.”

“Young man, we only know what Al told us,” replied the trapper. “He
said the only time he ever left the lass alone was the very day she was
taken. Al come home to find the cabin red-hot ashes. Everythin’ gone. No
sign of the lass. No sign of murder. She was jest carried off. There was
tracks--hoss tracks an’ boot tracks, to the number of three or four men
an’ hosses. Al trailed ‘em. But thet very night he had to hold up to
keep from bein’ drowned, as we had to hyar. Wal, next day he couldn’t
find any tracks. But he kept on huntin’ fer a few days, an’ then give
up. He said she’d be dead by then--said she wasn’t the kind thet could
have lived more ‘n a day with men like them. Some hard customers are
driftin’ by from the gold-fields. An’ Bill an’ I, hyar, ain’t in love
with this railroad idee. It ‘ll ruin the country fer trappin’ an’
livin’.”

 Some weeks later a gaunt and ragged cowboy limped into North
Platte, walking beside a broken horse, upon the back of which swayed and
reeled a rider tied in the saddle.

It was not a sight to interest any except the lazy or the curious,
for in that day such things were common in North Platte. The horse had
bullet creases on his neck; the rider wore a bloody shirt; the gaunt
pedestrian had a bandaged arm.

Neale lay ill of a deeper wound while the bullet-hole healed in his
side. Day and night Larry tended him or sat by him or slept near him
in a shack on the outskirts of the camp. Shock, grief, starvation,
exhaustion, loss of blood and sleep--all these brought Warren Neale
close to death. He did not care to live. It was the patient, loyal
friend who fought fever and heartbreak and the ebbing tide of life.

Baxter and Henney visited North Platte and called to see him, and later
the chief came and ordered Larry to take Neale to the tents of the
corps. Every one was kind, solicitous, earnest. He had been missed. The
members of his corps knew the strange story of Allie Lee; they guessed
the romance and grieved over the tragedy. They did all they could do,
and the troop doctor added his attention; but it was the nursing, the
presence, and the spirit of Larry King that saved Neale.

He got well and went back to work with the cowboy for his helper.

In that camp of toil and disorder none but the few with whom Neale was
brought in close touch noted anything singular about him. The engineers,
however, observed that he did not work so well, nor so energetically,
nor so accurately. His enthusiasm was lacking. The cowboy, always with
him, was the one who saw the sudden spells of somber abstraction and
the poignant, hopeless, sleepless pain, the eternal regret

Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/4684