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. And as Neale
slackened in his duty Larry King grew more faithful.
Neale began to drink and gamble. For long the cowboy fought, argued,
appealed against this order of things, and then, failing to change or
persuade Neale, he went to gambling and drinking with him. But then it
was noted that Neale never got under the influence of liquor or lost
materially at cards. The cowboy spilled the contents of Neale’s glass
and played the game into his hands.
Both of them shrank instinctively from the women of the camp. The sight
of anything feminine hurt.
North Platte stirred with the quickening stimulus of the approach
of the rails and the trains, and the army of soldiers whose duty was to
protect the horde of toilers, and the army of tradesmen and parasites
who lived off them.
The construction camp of the graders moved on westward, keeping ahead of
the camps of the layers.
The first train that reached North Platte brought directors of the U. P.
R.--among them Warburton and Rudd and Rogers; also Commissioners Lee and
Dunn and a host of followers on a tour of inspection.
The five miles of Neale’s section of road that the commissioners had
judged at fault had been torn up, resurveyed, and relaid.
Neale rode back over the line with Baxter and surveyed the renewed part.
Then, returning to North Platte, he precipitated consternation among
directors and commissioners and engineers, as they sat in council, by
throwing on the table figures of the new survey identical with his old
data.
“Gentlemen, the five miles of track torn up and rebuilt had precisely
the same grade, to an inch!” he declared, with ringing scorn.
Baxter corroborated his statement. The commissioners roared and the
directors demanded explanations.
“I’ll explain it,” shouted Neale. “Forty-six thousand dollars a mile!
Five miles--two hundred and thirty thousand dollars! Spent twice! Taken
twice by the same construction company!”
Warburton, a tall, white-haired man in a frock-coat, got up and pounded
the table with his fist. “Who is this young engineer?” he thundered. “He
has the nerve to back his work instead of sneaking to get a bribe. And
he tells the truth. We’re building twice--spending twice when once is
enough!”
An uproar ensued. Neale had cast a bomb into the council. Every man
there and all the thousands in camp knew that railroad ties cost
several dollars each; that wages were abnormally high, often demanded
in advance, and often paid twice; that parallel with the great spirit
of the work ran a greedy and cunning graft. It seemed to be inevitable,
considering the nature and proportions of the enterprise. An absurd law
sent out the commissioners, the politicians appointed them, and both
had fat pickings. The directors likewise played both ends against the
middle; they received the money from the stock sales and loans; they
paid it out to the construction companies; and as they employed and
owned these companies the money returned to their own pockets. But more
than one director was fired by the spirit of the project--the good to
be done--the splendid achievement--the trade to come from across the
Pacific. The building of the road meant more to some of them than a mere
fortune.
Warburton was the lion of this group, and he roared down the dissension.
Then with a whirl he grasped Neale round the shoulders and shoved him
face to face with the others.
“Here’s the kind of man we want on this job!” he shouted, with red face
and bulging jaw. “His name’s Neale. I’ve heard of some of his surveys.
You’ve all seen him face this council. That only, gentlemen, is the
spirit which can build the U. P. R. Let’s push him up. Let’s send him to
Washington with those figures. Let’s break this damned idiotic law for
appointing commissioners to undo the work of efficient men.”
Opportunity was again knocking at Neale’s door.
Allison Lee arose in the flurry, and his calm, cold presence, the steel
of his hard gray eyes, and the motion of his hand entitled him to a
voice.
“Mr. Warburton--and gentlemen,” he said, “_I_ remember this young
engineer Neale. When I got here to-day I inquired about him, remembering
that he had taken severe exception to the judgment of the commissioners
about that five miles of road-bed. I learned he is a strange, excitable
young fellow, who leaves his work for long wild trips and who is a
drunkard and a gambler. It seems to me somewhat absurd seriously to
consider the false report with which he has excited this council.”
“It’s not false,” retorted Neale, with flashing eyes. Then he appealed
to Warburton and he was white and eloquent. “You directors know better.
This man. Lee is no engineer. He doesn’t know a foot-grade from a
forty-five-degree slope. Not a man in that outfit had the right or the
knowledge to pass judgment on our work. It’s political. It’s a damned
outrage. It’s graft.”
Another commissioner bounced up with furious gestures.
“We’ll have you fired!” he shouted.
Neale looked at him and back at Allison Lee and then at Warburton.
“I quit,” he declared, with scorn. “To hell with your rotten railroad!”
Another hubbub threatened in the big tent. Some one yelled for quiet.
And suddenly there was quiet, but it did not come from that individual’s
call. A cowboy had detached himself from the group of curious onlookers
and had confronted the council with two big guns held low.
“Red! Hold on!” cried Neale.
It was Larry. One look at him blanched Neale’s face.
“Everybody sit still an’ let me talk,” drawled Larry, with the cool,
reckless manner that now seemed so deadly.
No one moved, and the silence grew unnatural. The cowboy advanced a few
strides. His eyes, with a singular piercing intentness, were bent upon
Allison Lee, yet seemed to hold all the others in sight. He held one gun
in direct alignment with Lee, low down, and with the other he rapped on
the table. The gasp that went up from round that table proved that some
one saw the guns were both cocked.
“Did I understand you to say Neale lied aboot them surveyin’ figgers?”
he queried, gently.
Allison Lee turned as white as a corpse. The cowboy radiated some
dominating force, but the chill in his voice was terrible. It meant that
life was nothing to him--nor death. What was the U. P. R. to him, or its
directors, or its commissioners, or the law? There was no law in that
wild camp but the law in his hands. And he knew it.
“Did you say my pard lied?” he repeated.
Allison Lee struggled and choked over a halting, “No.”
The cowboy backed away, slowly, carefully, with soft steps, and he faced
the others as he moved.
“I reckon thet’s aboot all,” he said, and, slipping into the crowd, he
was gone.
11
After Neale and Larry left, Slingerland saw four seasons swing round, in
which no visitors disturbed the loneliness of his valley.
All this while he did not leave Allie Lee alone, or at least out of
hearing. When he went to tend his traps or to hunt, to chop wood or
to watch the trail, Allie always accompanied him. She grew strong and
supple; she could walk far and carry a rifle or a pack; she was keen of
eye and ear, and she loved the wilds; she not only was of help to him,
but she made the time pass swiftly.
When a year passed after the departure of Neale and Larry King it seemed
to Slingerland that they would never return. There was peril on the
trails these days. He grew more and more convinced of some fatality, but
he did not confide his fears to Allie. She was happy and full of trust;
every day, almost every hour, she looked for Neale. The long wait did
not drag her down; she was as fresh and hopeful as ever and the rich
bloom mantled her cheek. Slingerland had not the heart to cast a doubt
into her happiness. He let her live her dreams.
There came a day that spring when it was imperative for him to visit
a distant valley, where he had left traps he now needed, and as the
distance was long and time short he decided to go alone. Allie laughed
at the idea of being unsafe at the cabin.
“I can take care of myself,” she said. “I’m not afraid.” Slingerland
scarcely doubted her. She had nerve, courage; she knew how to use a gun;
and underneath her softness and tenderness was a spirit that would not
flinch at anything. Still he did not feel satisfied with the idea of
leaving her alone, and it was with a wrench that he did it now.
Moreover, he was longer at the journey than he had anticipated. The
moment he turned his face homeward, a desire to hurry, an anxiety,
a dread fastened upon him. A presentiment of evil gathered. But,
encumbered as he was with heavy traps, he could not travel swiftly. It
was late afternoon when he topped the last ridge between him and home.
What Slingerland saw caused him to drop his traps and gaze aghast. A
heavy column of smoke rose above the valley. His first thought was of
Sioux. But he doubted if the Indians would betray his friendship.
The cabin had caught on fire by accident or else a band of wandering
desperadoes had happened along to ruin him. He ran down the slope,
stole down round to the group of pines, and under cover, cautiously,
approached the spot where his cabin had stood.
It was a heap of smoking logs and probably had burned for hours. There
was no sign of Allie or of any one. Then he ran into the glade. Almost
at once he saw boot-tracks and hoof-tracks, while pelts and hides and
furs lay scattered around, as if they had been discarded for choicer
ones.
“Robbers!” muttered Slingerland. “An’ they’ve got the lass!”
He shook under the roughest blow he had ever been dealt; his conscience
flayed him; his distress over Allie’s fate was so keen and unfamiliar
that, used as he was to prompt decision and action, he remained
stock-still, staring at the ruins of his home.
Presently he roused himself. He had no hopes. He knew the nature of men
who had done this deed. But it was possible that he might overtake them.
In the dust he found four sizes of boot-tracks and he took the trail
down the valley.
Then he became aware that a storm was imminent and that the air had
become cold and raw. Rain began to fall, and darkness came quickly.
Slingerland sought the shelter of a near-by ledge, and there, hungry,
cold, wet, and unhappy, he waited for sleep that would not come.
It rained hard all night and by morning the brook had become a yellow
flood and the trail was under water. Toward noon the rain turned to a
drizzly snow, and finally ceased. Slingerland passed on down the valley,
searching for tracks. The ground everywhere had been washed clean and
smooth. When he reached the old St. Vrain and Laramie Trail it looked as
though a horse had not passed there in months. He spent another wretched
night, and next day awoke to the necessities of life. Except for his
rifle, and his horses, and a few traps back up in the hills, he had
nothing to show for years of hard and successful work. But that did not
matter. He had begun with as little and he could begin again. He killed
meat, satisfied his hunger, and cooked more that he might carry with
him. Then he spent two more days in that locality, until he had crossed
every outlet from his valley. Not striking a track, he saw nothing but
defeat.
That moment was bitter. “If Neale’d happen along hyar now he’d kill
me--an’ sarve me right,” muttered the trapper.
But he believed that Neale, too, had gone the way of so many who had
braved these wilds. Slingerland saw in the fate of Neale and Allie the
result of civilization marching westward. If before he had disliked the
idea of the railroad entering his wild domain, he hated it now. Before
that survey the Indians had been peaceful; no dangerous men rode the
trails. What right had the Government to steal land from the Indians,
to break treaties, to run a steam track across the plains and mountains?
Slingerland foresaw the bloodiest period ever known in the West, before
that work should be completed. It had struck him deep--this white-man
movement across the Wyoming hills, and it was not the loss of all he had
worked for that he minded. For years his life had been lonely, and then
suddenly it had been full. Never again would it be either.
Slingerland turned his back to the trail made by the advancing march of
the empire-builders, and sought the seclusion of the more inaccessible
hills.
“Some day I’ll work out with a load of pelts,” he said, “an’ then mebbe
I’ll hyar what become of Neale--an’ her.”
He found, as one of his kind knew how to find, the valleys where no
white man had trod--where the game abounded and was tame--where if the
red man came he was friendly--where the silent days and lonely nights
slowly made more bearable his memory of Allie Lee.
12
Allie Lee possessed a mind at once active and contemplative. While she
dreamed of Neale and their future she busied herself with many tasks,
and a whole year flew by without a lagging or melancholy hour.
Neale, she believed, had been detained or sent back to Omaha, or given
more important work than formerly. She divined Slingerland’s doubt, but
she would not give it room in her consciousness. Her heart told her that
all was well with Neale, and that sooner or later he would return to
her.
In Allie love had worked magic. It had freed her from a horrible black
memory. She had been alone; she had wanted to die so as to forget those
awful yells and screams--the murder--the blood--the terror and the
anguish; she had nothing to want to live for; she had almost hated those
two kind men who tried so hard to make her forget. Then suddenly, she
never quite remembered when, she had seen Neale with different eyes. A
few words, a touch, a gift, and a pledge--and life had been transformed
for Allie Lee. Like a flower blooming overnight, her heart had opened
to love, and all the distemper in her blood and all the blackness in her
mind were dispelled. The relief from pain and dread was so great that
love became a beautiful and all-absorbing passion. Freed then, and
strangely happy, she took to the life around her as naturally as if she
had been born there, and she grew like a wild flower. Neale returned to
her that autumn to make perfect the realization of her dreams. When he
went away she could still be happy. She owed it to him to be perfect in
joy, faith, love, and duty; and her adversity had discovered to her an
inward courage and an indomitable will. She lived for Neale.
Summer, autumn, winter passed, short days full of solitude, beauty,
thought, and anticipation, and always achievement, for she could not
stay idle. When the first green brightened the cottonwoods and willows
along the brook she knew that before their leaves had attained their
full growth Neale would be on his way to her. A strange and inexplicable
sense of the heart told her that he was coming.
More than once that spring had she bent over the mossy rock to peer down
at her face mirrored in the crystal spring. Neale had made her aware
of her beauty, and she was proud of it, since it seemed to be such a
strange treasure to him.
On the May morning that Slingerland left her alone she was startled
by the clip-clop of horses trotting up the trail a few hours after his
departure.
Her first thought was that Neale and Larry had returned. All her being
suddenly radiated with rapture. She flew to the door.
Four horsemen rode into the clearing, but Neale was not among them.
Allie’s joy was short-lived, and the reaction to disappointment was a
violent, agonizing wrench. She lost all control of her muscles for a
moment, and had to lean against the cabin to keep from falling.
By this time the foremost rider had pulled in his horse near the door.
He was a young giant with hulking shoulders, ruddy-faced, bold-eyed,
ugly-mouthed. He reminded Allie of some one she had seen in California.
He stared hard at her.
“Hullo! Ain’t you Durade’s girl?” he asked, in gruff astonishment.
Then Allie knew she had seen him out in the gold-fields.
“No, I’m not,” she replied.
“A-huh! You look uncommon like her.... Anybody home round here?”
“Slingerland went over the hill,” said Allie. “He’ll be back presently.”
The fellow brushed her aside and went into the cabin. Then the other
three riders arrived.
“Mornin’, miss,” said one, a grizzled veteran, who might have been
miner, trapper, or bandit. The other two reined in behind him. One wore
a wide-brimmed black sombrero from under which a dark, sinister face
gleamed. The last man had sandy hair and light roving eyes.
“Whar’s Fresno?” he asked.
“I’m inside,” replied the man called Fresno, and he appeared at the
door. He stretched out a long arm and grasped Allie before she could
avoid him. When she began to struggle the huge hand closed on her wrist
until she could have screamed with pain.
“Hold on, girl! It won’t do you no good to jerk, an’ if you holler I’ll
choke you,” he said. “Fellers, get inside the cabin an’ rustle around
lively.”
With one pull he hauled Allie toward his horse, and, taking a lasso off
his saddle, he roped her arms to her sides and tied her to the nearest
tree.
“Keep mum now or it ‘ll be the wuss fer you,” he ordered; then he went
into the cabin.
They were a bad lot, and Slingerland’s reason for worry had at last been
justified. Allie did not fully realize her predicament until she found
herself bound to the tree. Then she was furious, and strained with all
her might to slip free of the rope. But the efforts were useless; she
only succeeded in bruising her arms for nothing. When she desisted she
was ready to succumb to despair, until a flashing thought of Neale, of
the agony that must be his if he lost her or if harm befell her, drew
her up sharply, thrillingly. A girl’s natural and instinctive fear was
vanquished by her love.
She heard the robbers knocking things about in the cabin. They threw
bales of beaver pelts out of the door. Presently Fresno reappeared
carrying a buckskin sack in which Slingerland kept his money and few
valuables, and the others followed, quarreling over a cane-covered
demijohn in which there had once been liquor.
“Nary a drop!” growled the one who got possession of it. And with rage
he threw the thing back into the cabin, where it crashed into the fire.
“Sandy, you’ve scattered the fire,” protested the grizzled robber, as he
glanced into the cabin. “Them furs is catchin’.”
“Let ‘em burn!” called Fresno. “We got all we want. Come on.”
“But what’s the sense burnin’ the feller’s cabin down?”
“Nuthin’ ‘ll burn,” said the dark-faced man, “an’ if it does it ‘ll look
like Indians’ work. Savvy, Old Miles?”
They shuffled out together. Evidently Fresno was the leader, or at
least the strongest force. He looked at the sack in his hand and then at
Allie.
“You fellers fight over thet,” he said, and, throwing the sack on the
ground, he strode toward Allie.
The three men all made a rush for the sack and Sandy got it. The other
two pressed round him, not threateningly, but aggressively, sure of
their rights.
“I’ll divide,” said Sandy, as he mounted his horse. “Wait till we make
camp. You fellers pack the beavers.”
Fresno untied Allie from the tree, but he left the lasso round her;
holding to it and her arm, he rudely dragged her to his horse.
“Git up, an’ hurry,” he ordered.
Allie mounted. The stirrups were too long.
“You fellers clear out,” called Fresno, “an ketch me one of them hosses
we seen along the brook.”
While he readjusted the stirrups, Allie looked down upon him. He was
an uncouth ruffian, and his touch gave her an insupportable disgust.
He wore no weapons, but his saddle holster contained a revolver and the
sheath a Winchester. Allie could have shot him and made a run for it,
and she had the nerve to attempt it. The others, however, did not get
out of sight before Fresno had the stirrups adjusted. He strode after
them, leading the horse. Allie glanced back to see a thin stream of
smoke coming out of the cabin door. Then she faced about, desperately
resolved to take any chance to get away. She decided that she would not
be safe among these men for very long. Whatever she was to do she must
do that day, and she only awaited her opportunity.
At the ford Sandy caught one of Slingerland’s horses--a mustang and
a favorite of Allie’s, and one she could ride. He was as swift as the
wind. Once upon him, she could run away from any horse which these
robbers rode. Fresno put the end of the lasso round the mustang’s neck.
“Can you ride bareback?” he asked Allie.
Allie lied. Her first thought was to lead them astray as to her skill
with a horse; and then it occurred to her that if she rode Fresno’s
saddle there might be an opportunity to use the gun.
Fresno leaped astride the mustang, and was promptly bucked off. The
other men guffawed. Fresno swore and, picking himself up, tried again.
This time the mustang behaved better, but it was plain he did not like
the weight. Then Fresno started off, leading his own horse, and at a
trot that showed he wanted to cover ground.
Allie heard the others quarreling over something, probably the gold
Slingerland had been so many years in accumulating.
They rode on to where the valley opened into another, along which wound
the old St. Vrain and Laramie Trail. They kept to this, traveling east
for a few miles, and then entered an intersecting valley, where some
distance up they had a camp. They had not taken the precaution to hide
either packs or mules, and so far as Allie could tell they had no
fear of Indians. Probably they had crossed from California, and, being
dishonest and avoiding caravans and camps, they had not become fully
acquainted with the perils of that region.