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.