companions, but Allie was not with them. All he could learn from the
frightened women was that Allie had been in their company when they
started to run from the cabin. They had not seen her since.
Still Neale did not despair, though his heart sank. Allie was hiding
somewhere. Frantically he searched the inclosure, questioned every man
he met, rushed back to the burning cabin, where the fire drove him out.
But there was no trace of Allie.
Then the conviction of calamity settled upon him. While the cabin
burned, and the troopers and graders watched, Neale now searched for the
face of the man he had recognized--the ruffian Allie called Fresno. This
search was likewise fruitless.
The following hours were a hideous, slow nightmare for Neale. He had
left one hope--that daylight would disclose Allie somewhere.
Day eventually dawned. It disclosed many facts. The Sioux had departed,
and if they had suffered any loss there was no evidence of it. The
engineers’ quarters, cabin, and tents had burned to the ground.
Utensils, bedding, food, grain, tools, and instruments--everything
of value except the papers Neale had saved--had gone up in smoke. The
troopers who had rescued the work-train must now depend upon that train
for new supplies. Many of the graders had been wounded, some seriously,
but none fatally. Nine of them were missing, as was Allie Lee.
The blow was terrible for Neale. Yet he did not sink under it. He did
not consider the opinion of his sympathetic friends that Allie had
wildly run out of the burning cabin to fall into the hands of the Sioux.
He returned with the graders to their camp; and it was no surprise to
him to find the wagon-train, that had tarried near, gone in the night.
He trailed that wagon-train to the next camp, where on the busy road
he lost the wheel-tracks. Next day he rode horseback all the way in
to Benton. But all his hunting and questioning availed nothing. Gloom,
heartsickness, and despair surged in upon him, but he did not think of
giving up. He remembered all Allie had told him. Those fiends had
gotten her again. He believed now all that she had said; and there was
something of hope in the thought that if Durade had found her again she
would at least not be at the mercy of ruffians like Fresno. But this was
a forlorn hope. Still, it upheld Neale and determined him to seek her
during the time in which his work did not occupy him.
And thus it came about that Neale plodded through his work along the
line during the day, and late in the afternoon rode back with the
laborers to Benton. If Allie Lee lived she must be in Benton.
20
Neale took up lodgings with his friend Larry. He did not at first tell
the cowboy about his recovery of Allie Lee and then her loss for the
second time; and when finally he could not delay the revelation any
longer he regretted that he had been compelled to tell.
Larry took the news hard. He inclined to the idea that she had fallen
again into the hands of the Indians. Nevertheless, he showed himself
terribly bitter against men of the Fresno stamp, and in fact against all
the outlaw, ruffianly, desperado class so numerous in Benton.
Neale begged Larry to be cautious, to go slow, to ferret out things,
and so help him, instead of making it harder to locate Allie through his
impetuosity.
“Pard, I reckon Allie’s done for,” said Larry, gloomily.
“No--no! Larry, I feel she’s alive--well. If she were dead or--or--well,
wouldn’t I know?” protested Neale.
But Larry was not convinced. He had seen the hard side of border life;
he knew the odds against Allie.
“Reckon I’ll look fer that Fresno,” he said.
And deeper than before he plunged into Benton’s wild life.
One evening Neale, on returning from work to his lodgings, found the
cowboy there. In the dim light Larry looked strange. He had his gun-belt
in his hands. Neale turned up the lamp.
“Hello, Red! What’s the matter? You look pale and sick,” said Neale.
“They wanted to throw me out of thet dance ball,” said Larry.
“Which one?”
“Stanton’s.”
“Well, DID they?” inquired Neale.
“Wal, I reckon not. I walked. An’ some night I’ll shore clean out thet
hall.”
Neale did not know what to make of Larry’s appearance. The cowboy seemed
to be relaxing. His lips, that had been tight, began to quiver, and his
hands shook. Then he swung the heavy gun-belt with somber and serious
air, as if he were undecided about leaving it off even when about to go
to bed.
“Red, you’ve thrown a gun!” exclaimed Neale.
Larry glanced at him, and Neale sustained a shock.
“Shore,” drawled Larry.
“By Heaven! I knew you would,” declared Neale, excitedly, and he
clenched his fist. “Did you--you kill some one?”
“Pard, I reckon he’s daid,” mused the cowboy. “I didn’t look to see....
Fust gun I’ve throwed fer long.... It ‘ll come back now, shorer ‘n
hell!”
“What ‘ll come back?” queried Neale.
Larry did not answer this.
“Who’d you shoot?” Neale went on.
“Pard, I reckon it ain’t my way to gab a lot,” replied Larry.
“But you’ll tell ME,” insisted Neale, passionately. He jerked the gun
and belt from Larry, and threw them on the bed. “All right,” drawled
Larry, taking a deep breath. “I went into Stanton’s hall the other
night, an’ a pretty girl made eyes at me. Wal, I shore asked her to
dance. I reckon we’d been good pards if we’d been let alone. But there’s
a heap of fellers runnin’ her an’ some of them didn’t cotton to me. One
they called Cordy--he shore did get offensive. He’s the four-flush, loud
kind. I didn’t want to make any trouble for the girl Ruby--thet’s her
name--so I was mighty good-natured.... I dropped in Stanton’s to-day.
Ruby spotted me fust off, an’ SHE asked me to dance. Shore I’m no dandy
dancer, but I tried to learn. We was gettin’ along powerful nice when
in comes Cordy, hoppin’ mad. He had a feller with him. An’ both had been
triflin’ with red liquor. You oughter seen the crowd get back. Made me
think Cordy an’ his pard had blowed a lot round heah an’ got a rep.
Wal, I knowed they was bluff. Jest mean, ugly four-flushers. Shore
they didn’t an’ couldn’t know nothin’ of me. I reckon I was only
thet long-legged, red-headed galoot from Texas. Anyhow, I was made to
understand it might get hot sudden-like if I didn’t clear out. I left
it to the girl. An’ some of them girls is full of hell. Ruby jest stood
there scornful an’ sassy, with her haid leanin’ to one side, her eyes
half-shut, an’ a little smile on her face. I’d call her more ‘n hell.
A nice girl gone wrong. Them kind shore is the dangerest.... Wal,
she says: ‘Reddy, are you goin’ to let them run you out of heah? They
haven’t any strings on me.’ So I slapped Cordy’s face an’ told him
to shut up. He let out a roar an’ got wild with his hands, like them
four-flush fellers do who wants to look real bad. I says, pretty
sharplike, ‘Don’t make any moves now!’ An’ the darned fool went fer his
gun!... Wal, I caught his hand, twisted the gun away from him, poked him
in the ribs with it, an’ then shoved it back in his belt. He was crazy,
but pretty pale an’ surprised. Shore I acted sudden-like. Then I says,
‘My festive gent, if you THINK of thet move again you’ll be stiff before
you start it.’... Guess he believed me.”
Larry paused in his narrative, wiped his face, and moistened his lips.
Evidently he was considerably shaken.
“Well, go on,” said Neale, impatiently.
“Thet was all right so far as it went,” resumed Larry. “But the pard of
Cordy’s--he was half-drunk an’ a big brag, anyhow. He took up Cordy’s
quarrel. He hollered so he stopped the music an’ drove ‘most everybody
out of the hall. They was peepin’ in at the door. But Ruby stayed.
There’s a game kid, an’ I’m goin’ to see her to-morrow.”
“You are not,” declared Neale. “Hurry up. Finish your story.”
“Wal, the big bloke swaggered all over me, an’ I seen right off thet he
didn’t have sense enough to be turned. Then I got cold. I always used
to.... He says, ‘Are you goin’ to keep away from Ruby?’
“An’ I says, very polite, ‘I reckon not.’
“Then he throws hisself in shape, like he meant to leap over a hoss, an’
hollers, ‘Pull yer gun!’
“I asks, very innocent, ‘What for, mister?’
“An’ he bawls fer the crowd. ‘’Cause I’m a-goin’ to bore you, an’ I
never kill a man till he goes fer his gun.’
“To thet I replies, more considerate: ‘But it ain’t fair. You’d better
get the fust shot.’
“Then the fool hollers, ‘Redhead!’
“Thet settled him. I leaps over QUICK, slugged him one--lefthanded. He
staggered, but he didn’t fall.... Then he straightens an’ goes fer his
gun.”
Larry halted again. He looked as if he had been insulted, and a bitter
irony sat upon his lips.
“I seen, when he dropped, thet he never got his hand to his gun at
all.... Jest as I’d reckoned.... Wal, what made me sick was that my
bullet went through him an’ then some of them thin walls--an’ hit a girl
in another house. She’s bad hurt.... They ought to have walls thet’d
stop a bullet.”
Neale heard the same narrative from the lips of Ancliffe, and it
differed only in the essential details of the cowboy’s consummate
coolness. Ancliffe, who was an eye-witness of the encounter, declared
that drink or passion or bravado had no part in determining Larry’s
conduct. Ancliffe talked at length about the cowboy. Evidently he had
been struck with Larry’s singular manner and look and action. Ancliffe
had all an Englishman’s intelligent observing powers, and the conclusion
he drew was that Larry had reacted to a situation familiar to him.
Neale took more credence in what Slingerland had told him at Medicine
Bow. That night Hough and then many other acquaintances halted Neale to
gossip about Larry Reel King.
The cowboy had been recognized by Texans visiting Benton. They were
cattle barons and they did not speak freely of King until ready to
depart from the town. Larry’s right name was Fisher. He had a brother--a
famous Texas outlaw called King Fisher. Larry had always been Red
Fisher, and when he left Texas he was on the way to become as famous
as his brother. Texas had never been too hot for Red until he killed
a sheriff. He was a born gun-fighter, and was well known on all the
ranches from the Pan Handle to the Rio Grande. He had many friends, he
was a great horseman, a fine cowman. He had never been notorious for
bad habits or ugly temper. Only he had an itch to throw a gun and he was
unlucky in always running into trouble. Trouble gravitated to him. His
red head was a target for abuse, and he was sensitive and dangerous
because of that very thing. Texas, the land of gunfighters, had seen few
who were equal to him in cool nerve and keen eye and swift hand.
Neale did not tell Larry what he had heard. The cowboy changed subtly,
but not in his attitude toward Neale. Benton and its wildness might have
been his proper setting. So many rough and bad men, inspired by the time
and place, essayed to be equal to Benton. But they lasted a day and were
forgotten. The great compliment paid to Larry King was the change in the
attitude of this wild camp. He had been one among many--a stranger.
In time when the dance-halls grew quiet as he entered and the
gambling-hells suspended their games. His fame increased as from lip to
lip his story passed, always gaining something. Jealousy, hatred, and
fear grew with his fame. It was hinted that he was always seeking some
man or men from California. He had been known to question new arrivals:
“Might you-all happen to be from California? Have you ever heard of an
outfit that made off with a girl out heah in the hills?”
Neale, not altogether in the interest of his search for Allie, became a
friend and companion of Place Hough. Ancliffe sought him, also, and he
was often in the haunts of these men. They did not take so readily
to Larry King. The cowboy had become a sort of nervous factor in any
community; his presence was not conducive to a comfortable hour. For
Larry, though he still drawled his talk and sauntered around, looked the
name the Texan visitors had left him. His flashing blue eyes, cold
and intent and hard in his naming red face, his blazing red hair, his
stalking form, and his gun swinging low--these characteristics were so
striking as to make his presence always felt. Beauty Stanton insisted
the cowboy had ruined her business and that she had a terror of him. But
Neale doubted the former statement. All business, good and bad, grew
in Benton. It was strange that as this attractive and notorious woman
conceived a terror of Larry, she formed an infatuation for Neale. He
would have been blind to it but for the dry humor of Place Hough, and
the amiable indifference of Ancliffe, who had anticipated a rival in
Neale. Their talk, like most talk, drifted through Neale’s ears. What
did he care? Both Hough and Ancliffe began to loom large to Neale.
They wasted every day, every hour; and yet, underneath the one’s cold,
passionless pursuit of gold, and the other’s serene and gentle quest
for effacement there was something finer left of other years. Benton was
full of gamblers and broken men who had once been gentlemen. Neale met
them often--gambled with them, watched them. He measured them all. They
had given life up, but within him there was a continual struggle. He
swore to himself, as he had to Larry, that life was hopeless without
Allie Lee--yet there was never a sleeping or a waking hour that he gave
up hope. The excitement and allurement of the dance-halls, though he
admitted their power, were impossible for him; and he frequented them,
as he went everywhere else, only in search of a possible clue.
Gambling, then, seemed the only excuse open to him for his presence in
Benton’s sordid halls. And he had to bear as best he could the baseness
of his associates; of course, women had free run of all the places in
Benton.
At first Neale was flirted with and importuned. Then he was scorned.
Then he was let alone. Finally, as time went on, always courteous, even
considerate of the women who happened in his way, but blind and cold
to the meaning of their looks and words, he was at last respected and
admired.
There was always a game in the big gambling-place, and in fact the
greatest stakes were played for by gamblers like Hough, pitted against
each other. But most of the time was reserved for the fleecing of the
builders of the U. P. R., the wage-earners whose gold was the universal
lure and the magnet. Neale won money in those games in which he played
with Place Hough. His winnings he scattered or lost in games where he
was outpointed or cheated.
One day a number of Eastern capitalists visited Benton. The fame of the
town drew crowds of the curious and greedy. And many of these
transient visitors wanted to have their fling at the gambling-hells and
dancing-halls. There was a contagion in the wildness that affected even
the selfish. It would be something to remember and boast of when Benton
with its wild life should be a thing of the past.
Place Hough met old acquaintances among some St. Louis visitors, who
were out to see the road and Benton, and perhaps to find investments;
and he assured them blandly that their visit would not be memorable
unless he relieved them of their surplus cash. So a game with big stakes
was begun. Neale, with Hough and five of the visitors, made up the
table.
Eastern visitors worked upon Neale’s mood, but he did not betray it. He
was always afraid he would come face to face with some of the directors,
whom he did not care to meet in such surroundings. And so, while
gambling, he seldom looked up from his cards. The crowd came and went,
but he never saw it.
This big game attracted watchers. The visitors were noisy; they drank a
good deal; they lost with an equanimity that excited interest, even
in Benton. The luck for Neale seesawed back and forth. Then he lost
steadily until he had to borrow from Hough.
About this time Beauty Stanton, with Ruby and another woman, entered the
room, and were at once attracted by the game, to the evident pleasure
of the visitors. And then, unexpectedly, Larry Red King stalked in and
lounged forward, cool, easy, careless, his cigarette half smoked, his
blue eyes keen.
“Hey! is that him?” whispered one of the visitors, indicating Larry.
“That’s Red,” replied Hough. “I hope he’s not looking for one of you
gentlemen.”
They laughed, but not spontaneously.
“I’ve seen his like in Dodge City,” said one.
“Ask him to sit in the game,” said another.
“No. Red’s a card-sharp,” replied Hough. “And I’d hate to see him catch
one of you pulling a crooked deal.”
They lapsed back into the intricacies and fascination of poker.
Neale, however, found the game unable to hold his undivided attention.
Larry was there, looking and watching, and he made Neale’s blood run
cold. The girl Ruby stood close at hand, with her half-closed eyes,
mysterious and sweet, upon him, and Beauty Stanton came up behind him.
“Neale, I’ll bring you luck,” she said, and put her hand on his
shoulder.
Neale’s luck did change. Fortune faced about abruptly, with its fickle
inconsistency, and Neale had a run of cards that piled the gold and
bills before him and brought a crowd ten deep around the table. When the
game broke up Neale had won three thousand dollars.
“See! I brought you luck,” whispered Beauty Stanton in his ear. And
across the table Ruby smiled hauntingly and mockingly.
Neale waved the crowd toward the bar. Only the women and Larry refused
the invitation. Ruby gravitated irresistibly toward the cowboy.
“Aren’t you connected with the road?” inquired one of the visitors,
drinking next to Neale.
“Yes,” replied Neale.
“Saw you in Omaha at the office of the company. My name’s Blair. I sell
supplies to Commissioner Lee. He has growing interests along the road.”
Neale’s lips closed and he set down his empty glass. Excusing himself,
he went back to the group he had left. Larry sat on the edge of the
table; Ruby stood close to him and she was talking; Stanton and the
other woman had taken chairs.
“Wal, I reckon you made a rake-off,” drawled Larry, as Neale came up.
“Lend me some money, pard.”
Neale glanced at Larry and from him to the girl. She dropped her eyes.
“Ruby, do you like Larry?” he queried.
“Sure do,” replied the girl.
“Reddy, do you like Ruby?” went on Neale.
Beauty Stanton smiled her interest. The other woman came back from
nowhere to watch Neale. Larry regarded his friend in mild surprise.
“I reckon it was a turrible case of love at fust sight,” he drawled.
“I’ll call your bluff!” flashed Neale. “I’ve just won three thousand
dollars. I’ll give it to you. Will you take it and leave Benton--go
back--no! go west--begin life over again?”
“Together, you mean!” exclaimed Beauty Stanton, as she rose with a glow
on her faded face. No need to wonder why she had been named Beauty.
“Yes, together,” replied Neale, in swift steadiness. “You’ve started
bad. But you’re young. It’s never too late. With this money you can buy
a ranch--begin all over again.”
“Pard, haven’t you seen too much red liquor?” drawled Larry.
The girl shook her head. “Too late!” she said, softly.
“Why?”
“Larry is bad, but he’s honest. I’m both bad and dishonest.”
“Ruby, I wouldn’t call you dishonest,” returned Neale, bluntly.
“Bad--yes. And wild! But if you had a chance?”
“No,” she said.
“You’re both slated for hell. What’s the sense of it?”
“I don’t see that you’re slated for heaven,” retorted Ruby.
“Wal, I shore say echo,” drawled Larry, as he rolled a cigarette. “Pard,
you’re drunk this heah minnit.”
“I’m not drunk. I appeal to you, Miss Stanton,” protested Neale.
“You certainly are not drunk,” she replied. “You’re just--”
“Crazy,” interrupted Ruby.
They laughed.
“Maybe I do have queer impulses,” replied Neale, as he felt his face
grow white. “Every once in a while I see a flash--of--of I don’t know
what. _I_ could do something big--even--now--if my heart wasn’t dead.”
“Mine’s in its grave,” said Ruby, bitterly. “Come, Stanton, let’s get
out of this. Find me men who talk of drink and women.”
Neale deliberately reached out and stopped her as she turned away. He
faced her.
“You’re no four-flush,” he said. “You’re game. You mean to play this out
to a finish.... But you’re no--no maggot like the most. You can think.
You’re afraid to talk to me.”
“I’m afraid of no man. But you--you’re a fool--a sky-pilot. You’re--”
“The thing is--it’s not too late.”
“It is too late!” she cried, with trembling lips.
Neale saw and felt his dominance over her.
“It is NEVER too late!” he responded, with all his force. “I can prove
that.”
She looked at him mutely. The ghost of another girl stood there instead
of the wild Ruby of Benton.
“Pard, you’re drunk shore!” ejaculated Larry, as he towered over them
and gave his belt a hitch. The cowboy sensed events.
“I’ve annoyed you more than once,” said Neale. “This’s the last.... So
tell me the truth.... Could _I_ take you away from this life?”
“Take me?... How--man?”
“I--I don’t know. But somehow.... I’d hold it--as worthy--to save a girl
like you--ANY girl--from hell.”
“But--how?” she faltered. The bitterness, the irony, the wrong done by
her life, was not manifest now.
“You refused my plan with Larry.... Come, let me find a home for
you--with good people.”
“My God--he’s not in earnest!” gasped the girl to her women friends.
“I am in earnest,” said Neale.
Then the tension of the girl relaxed. Her face showed a rebirth of soul.
“I can’t accept,” she replied. If she thanked him it was with a look.
Assuredly her eyes had never before held that gaze for Neale. Then
she left the room, and presently Stanton’s companion followed her. But
Beauty Stanton remained. She appeared amazed, even dismayed.
Larry lighted his cigarette. “Shore I’d call thet a square kid,” he
said. “Neale, if you get any drunker you’ll lose all thet money.”
“I’ll lose it anyhow,” replied Neale, absent-mindedly.
“Wal, stake me right heah an’ now.”
At that Neale generously and still absent-mindedly delivered to Larry a
handful of gold and notes that he did not count.
“Hell! I ain’t no bank,” protested the cowboy.
Hough and Ancliffe joined them and with amusement watched Larry try to
find pockets enough for his small fortune.
“Easy come, easy go in Benton,” said the gambler, with a smile. Then
his glance, alighting upon the quiet Stanton, grew a little puzzled.
“Beauty, what ails you?” he asked.
She was pale and her expressive eyes were fixed upon Neale. Hough’s
words startled her.
“What ails me?... Place, I’ve had a forgetful moment--a happy one--and
I’m deathly sick!”
Ancliffe stared in surprise. He took her literally.
Beauty Stanton looked at Neale again. “Will you come to see me?” she
asked, with sweet directness.
“Thank you--no,” replied Neale. He was annoyed. She had asked him that
before, and he had coldly but courteously repelled what he thought were
her advances. This time he was scarcely courteous.
The woman flushed. She appeared about to make a quick and passionate
reply, in anger and wounded pride, but she controlled the impulse. She
left the room with Ancliffe.
“Neale, do you know Stanton is infatuated with you?” asked Hough,
thoughtfully.
“Nonsense!” replied Neale.
“She is, though. These women can’t fool me. I told you days ago I
suspected that. Now I’ll gamble on it. And you know how I play my
cards.”
“She saw me win a pile of money,” said Neale, with scorn.
“I’ll bet you can’t make her take a dollar of it. Any amount you want
and any odds.”
Neale would not accept the wager. What was he talking about, anyway?
What was this drift of things? His mind did not seem clear. Perhaps he
had drunk too much. The eyes of both Ruby and Beauty Stanton troubled
him. What had he done to these women?
“Neale, you’re more than usually excited to-day,” observed Hough.
“Probably was the run of luck. And then you spouted to the women.” Neale
confessed his offer to Ruby and Larry, and then his own impulse.
“Ruby called me a fool--crazy--a sky-pilot. Maybe I am.”
“Sky-pilot! Well, the little devil!” laughed Hough. “I’ll gamble she
called you that before you declared yourself.”