Chapter XIII: Part 13

The phenomenon appeared remarkable to him. Indeed, it stood alone. He measured the nature of this job by that forgetfulness. And memories thrilled him. With his eye clear on the track that split the gray expanse, with his whole being permeated by the soothing influence of smoke, with his task almost done, Casey experienced an unprecedented thing for him--he lived over past performances and found them vivid, thrilling, somehow sweet. Battles of the Civil War; the day he saved a flag; and, better, the night he saved Pat Shane, who had lived only to stop a damned Sioux bullet; many and many an adventure with McDermott, who, just a few minutes past, had watched him with round, shining eyes; and the fights he had seen and shared--all these things passed swiftly through Casey’s mind and filled him with a lofty and serene pride.

He was pleased with himself; more pleased with what McDermott would think. Casey’s boyhood did not return to him, but his mounting exhilaration and satisfaction were boyish. It was great to ride this way!... There! he saw a long, black dot down in the gray. The train!... General Lodge had once shaken hands with Casey.

Somebody had to do these things, since the U. P. R. must reach across to the Pacific. A day would come when a splendid passenger-train would glide smoothly down this easy grade where Casey jolted along on his gravel-car. The fact loomed large in the simplicity of the Irishman’s mind. He began to hum his favorite song. Facing westward, he saw the black dot grow into a long train. Likewise he saw the beauty of the red-gold sunset behind the hills. Casey gloried in the wildness of the scene--in the meaning of his ride--particularly in his loneliness. He seemed strangely alone there on that vast gray slope--a man and somehow accountable for all these things. He felt more than he understood. His long-tried nerves and courage and strength had never yielded this wonderful buoyancy and sense of loftiness. He was Casey--Casey who had let all the gang run for shelter from the Sioux while he had remained for one last and final drive at a railroad spike. But the cool, devil-may-care indifference, common to all his comrades as well as to himself, was not the strongest factor in the Casey of to-day. Up out of the rugged and dormant soul had burst the spirit of a race embodied in one man. Casey was his own audience, and the light upon him was the glory of the setting sun. A nightingale sang in his heart, and he realized that this was his hour. Here the bloody, hard years found their reward. Not that he had ever wanted one or thought of one, but it had come--out of the toil, the pain, the weariness. So his nerves tingled, his pulses beat, his veins glowed, his heart throbbed; and all the new, sweet, young sensations of a boy wildly reveling in the success of his first great venture, all the vague, strange, deep, complex emotions of a man who has become conscious of what he is giving to the world--these shook Casey by storm, and life had no more to give. He knew that, whatever he was, whatever this incomprehensible driving spirit in him, whatever his unknown relation to man and to duty, there had been given him in the peril just passed, in this wonderful ride, a gift splendid and divine.

Casey rolled on, and the train grew plain in his sight. When perhaps several miles of track lay between him and the approaching engine, he concluded it was time to get ready. Lifting one of the heavy ties, he laid it in front where he could quickly shove it off with his foot.

Then he stood up. It was certain that he looked backward, but at no particular thing--just an instinctive glance. With his foot on the tie he steadied himself so that he could push it off and leap instantly after.

And at that moment he remembered the little book he had found on Beauty Stanton’s breast, and which contained the letter to his friend Neale. Casey deliberated in spite of the necessity for haste. Then he took the book from his pocket.

“B’gorra, yez niver can tell, an’ thim U. P. R. throopers hev been known to bury a mon widout searchin’ his pockets,” he said.

And he put the little book between the teeth that held his pipe. Then he shoved off the tie and leaped.

30

Neale, aghast and full of bitter amaze and shame at himself, fled from the gambling-hall where he had struck Beauty Stanton. How beside himself with rage and torture he had been! That woman to utter Allie Lee’s name! Inconceivable! Could she know his story?

He tramped the dark streets, and the exercise and the cool wind calmed him. Then the whistle of an engine made him decide to leave Benton at once, on the first train out. Hurriedly he got his baggage and joined the throng which even at that late hour was making for the station.

A regret that was pain burned deep in him--somehow inexplicable. He, like other men, had done things that must be forgotten. What fatality in the utterance of a single name--what power to flay!

From a window of an old coach he looked out upon the dim lights and pale tent shapes.

“The last--of Benton!... Thank God!” he murmured, brokenly. Well he realized how Providence had watched over him there. And slowly the train moved out upon the dark, windy desert.

It took Neale nearly forty-eight hours to reach the new camp--Roaring City. A bigger town than Benton had arisen, and more was going up--tents and clapboard houses, sheds and cabins--the same motley jumble set under beetling red Utah bluffs.

Neale found lodgings. Being without food or bed or wash for two days and nights was not helpful to the task he must accomplish--the conquering of his depression. He ate and slept long, and the following day he took time to make himself comfortable and presentable before he sallied forth to find the offices of the engineer corps. Then he walked on as directed, and heard men talking of Indian ambushes and troops.

When at length he reached the headquarters of the engineer corps he was greeted with restraint by his old officers and associates; was surprised and at a loss to understand their attitude.

Even in General Lodge there was a difference. Neale gathered at once that something had happened to put out of his chief’s mind the interest that officer surely must have in Neale’s trip to Washington. And after greeting him, the first thing General Lodge said gave warrant to the rumors of trouble with Indians.

“My train was to have been ambushed at Deep Cut,” he explained. “Big force of Sioux. We were amazed to find them so far west. It would have been a massacre--but for Casey.... We have no particulars yet, for the wire is cut. But we know what Casey did. He ran the gantlet of the Indians through that cut.... He was on a gravel-car running wild down-hill. You know the grade, Neale.... Of course his intention was to hold up my train--block us before we reached the ambushed cut. There must have been a broken brake, for he derailed the car not half a mile ahead of us. My engineer saw the runaway flat-car and feared a collision.... Casey threw a railroad tie--on the track--in front of him.... We found him under the car--crushed--dying--”

General Lodge’s voice thickened and slowed a little. He looked down. His face appeared quite pale.

Neale began to quiver in the full presaging sense of a revelation.

“My engineer, Tom Daley, reached Casey’s side just the instant before he died,” said General Lodge, resuming his story. “In fact, Daley was the only one of us who did see Casey alive.... Casey’s last words were ‘ambush--Sooz--’ Deep Cut,’ and then ‘me fri’nd Neale!’... We were at a loss to understand what he meant--that is, at first. We found Casey with this little note-book and his pipe tight between his teeth.”

The chief gave the note-book to Neale, who received it with a trembling hand.

“You can see the marks of Casey’s teeth in the leather. It was difficult to extract the book. He held on like grim death. Oh! Casey was grim death.... We could not pull his black pipe out at all. We left it between his set jaws, where it always had been--where it belonged.... I ordered him interred that way.... So they buried him out there along the track.” The chief’s low voice ceased, and he stood motionless a moment, his brow knotted, his eyes haunted, yet bright with a glory of tribute to a hero.

Neale heard the ticking of a watch and the murmur of the street outside. He felt the soft little note-book in his hand. And the strangest sensation shuddered over him. He drew his breath sharply.

When General Lodge turned again to face him, Neale saw him differently--aloof, somehow removed, indistinct.

“Casey meant that note-book for you,” said the general, “It belonged to the woman, Beauty Stanton. It contained a letter, evidently written while she was dying.... This developed when Daley began to read aloud. We all heard. The instant I understood it was a letter intended for you I took the book. No more was read. We were all crowded round Daley--curious, you know. There were visitors on my train--and your enemy Lee. I’m sorry--but, no matter. You see it couldn’t be helped.... That’s all....”

Neale was conscious of calamity. It lay in his hand. “Poor old Casey!” he murmured. Then he remembered. Stanton dying! What had happened? He could not trust himself to read that message before Lodge, and, bowing, he left the room. But he had to grope his way through the lobby, so dim had become his sight. By the time he reached the street he had lost his self-control. Something burnt his hand. It was the little leather note-book. He had not the nerve to open it. What had been the implication in General Lodge’s strange words?

He gazed with awe at the tooth-marks on the little book. How had Casey come by anything of Beauty Stanton’s? Could it be true that she was dead?

Then again he was accosted in the street. A heavy hand, a deep voice arrested his progress. His eyes, sweeping up from the path, saw fringed and beaded buckskin, a stalwart form, a bronzed and bearded face, and keen, gray eyes warm with the light of gladness. He was gripped in hands of iron.

“Son! hyar you air--an’ it’s the savin’ of me!” exclaimed a deep, familiar voice.

“Slingerland!” cried Neale, and he grasped his old friend as a drowning man at an anchor-rope. “My God! What will happen next?... Oh, I’m glad to find you!... All these years! Slingerland, I’m in trouble!”

“Son, I reckon I know,” replied the other.

Neale shivered. Why did men look at him so? This old trapper had too much simplicity, too big a heart, to hide his pity.

“Come! Somewhere--out of the crowd!” cried Neale, dragging at Slingerland. “Don’t talk. Don’t tell me anything. Wait!... I’ve a letter here--that’s going to be hell!”

Neale stumbled along out of the crowded street, he did not know where, and with death in his soul he opened Beauty Stanton’s book. And he read:

You called me that horrible name. You struck me. You’ve killed me. I lie here dying. Oh, Neale! I’m dying--and I loved you. I came to you to prove it. If you had not been so blind--so stupid! My prayer is that some one will see this I’m writing--and take it to you.

Ancliffe brought your sweetheart, Allie Lee, to me--to hide her from Durade. He told me to find you and then he died. He had been stabbed in saving her from Durade’s gang. And Hough, too, was killed.

Neale, I looked at Allie Lee, and then I understood your ruin. You fool! She was not dead, but alive. Innocent and sweet like an angel! Ah, the wonder of it in Benton! Neale, she did not know--did not feel the kind of a woman I am. She changed me--crucified me. She put her face on my breast. And I have that touch with me now, blessed, softening.

I locked her in a room and hurried out to find you. For the first time in years I had a happy moment. I understood why you had never cared for me. I respected you. Then I would have gone to hell for you. It was my joy that you must owe your happiness to me--that I would be the one to give you back Allie Lee and hope, and the old, ambitious life. Oh, I gloried in my power. It was sweet. You would owe every kiss of hers, every moment of pride, to the woman you had repulsed. That was to be my revenge.

And I found you, and in the best hour of my bitter life--when I had risen above the woman of shame, above thought of self--then you, with hellish stupidity, imagined I was seeking you--YOU for myself! Your annoyance, your scorn, robbed me of my wits. I could not tell you. I could only speak her name and bid you come.

You branded me before that grinning crowd, you struck me! And the fires of hell--MY hell--burst in my heart. I ran out of there--mad to kill your soul--to cause you everlasting torment. I swore I would give that key of Allie Lee’s room to the first man who entered my house.

The first man was Larry Red King. He was drunk. He looked wild. I welcomed him. I sent him to her room.

But Larry King was your friend. I had forgotten that. He came out with her. He was sober and terrible. Like the mad woman that I was I rushed at him to tear her away. He shot me. I see his eyes now. But oh, thank God, he shot me! It was a deliverance.

I fell on the stairs, but I saw that flaming-faced devil kill four of Durade’s men. He got Allie Lee out. Later I heard he had been killed and that Durade had caught the girl.

Neale, hurry to find her. Kill that Spaniard. No man could tell why he has spared her, but I tell you he will not spare her long.

Don’t ever forget Hough or Ancliffe or that terrible cowboy. Ancliffe’s death was beautiful. I am cold. It’s hard to write. All is darkening. I hear the moan of wind. Forgive me! Neale, the difference between me and Allie Lee--is a good man’s love. Men are blind to woman’s agony. She laid her cheek here--on my breast. I--who always wanted a child. I shall die alone. No--I think God is here. There is some one! After all, I was a woman. Neale forgive--

31

“Wor I there?” echoed McDermott, as he wiped the clammy sweat from his face. “B’gosh, I wor!”

It was half-past five. There appeared to be an unusual number of men on the street, not so hurried and business-like and merry as generally, and given to collecting in groups, low-voiced and excited.

General Lodge drew McDermott inside. “Come. You need a bracer. Man, you look sick,” he said.

At the bar McDermott’s brown and knotty hand shook as he lifted a glass and gulped a drink of whisky.

“Gineral, I ain’t the mon I wuz,” complained McDermott. “Casey’s gone! An’ we had hell wid the Injuns gittin’ here. An’ thin jest afther I stepped off the train--it happened.”

“What happened? I’ve heard conflicting reports. My men are out trying to get news. Tell me, Sandy,” replied the general, eagerly.

“Afther hearin’ of Casey’s finish I was shure needin’ stimulants,” began the Irishman. “An’ prisintly I drhopped into that Durade’s Palace. I had my drink, an’ thin went into the big room where the moosic wuz. It shure wuz a palace. A lot of thim swells with frock-coats wuz there. B’gorra they ain’t above buckin’ the tiger. Some of thim I knew. That Misther Lee, wot wuz once a commissioner of the U. P., he wor there with a party of friends.

“An’ I happened to be close by thim whin a gurl come out. She was shure purty. But thot sad! Her eyes wor turrible hauntin’, an’ roight off I wanted to start a foight. She wor lookin’ fer Durade, as I seen afterwards.

“Wal, the minnit that Lee seen the gurl he acted strange. I wuz standin’ close an’ I went closer. ‘Most exthraordinary rezemblance,’ he kept sayin’. An’ thin he dug into his vest fer a pocket-book, an’ out of that he took a locket. He looked at it--thin at the little gurl who looked so sad. Roight off he turned the color of a sheet. ‘Gintlemen, look!’ he sez. They all looked, an’ shure wuz sthruck with somethin’.

“‘Gintlemen,’ sez Lee, ‘me wife left me years ago--ran off West wid a gambler. If she iver hed a child--thot gurl is thot child. Fer she’s the livin’ image of me wife nineteen years ago!’

“Some of thim laughed at him--some of thim stared. But Lee wuz dead in earnest an’ growin’ more excited ivery min nit. I heerd him mutter low: ‘My Gawd! it can’t be! Her child!... In a gamblin’ hell! But that face!... Ah! where else could I expect the child of such a mother?’

“An’ Lee went closer to where the gurl was waitin’. His party follered an’ I follered too.... Jest whin the moosic sthopped an’ the gurl looked up--thin she seen Lee. Roight out he sthepped away from the crowd. He wuz whiter ‘n a ghost. An’ the gurl she seemed paralyzed. Sthrange it wor to see how she an’ him looked alike thin.

“The crowd seen somethin’ amiss, an’ went quiet, starin’ an’ nudgin’.... Gineral, dom’ me if the gurl’s face didn’t blaze. I niver seen the loike. An’ she sthepped an’ come straight fer Lee. An’ whin she sthopped she wuz close enough to touch him. Her eyes wor great burnin’ holes an’ her face shone somethin’ wonderful.

“Lee put up a shakin’ hand.

“‘Gurl,’ he sez, ‘did yez iver hear of Allison Lee?’

“An’ all her seemed to lift.

“‘He is my father!’ she cried. ‘I am Allie Lee!’

“Ah! thin that crowd wuz split up by a mon wot hurried through. He wuz a greaser--one of thim dandies on dress an’ diamonds--a handsome, wicked-lookin’ gambler. Seein’ the gurl, he snarled, ‘Go back there!’ an’ he pointed. She niver even looked at him.

“Some wan back of me sez thot’s Durade. Wal, it was! An’ sudden he seen who the gurl wuz watchin’--Lee.

“Thot Durade turned green an’ wild-eyed an’ stiff. But thot couldn’t hould a candle to Lee. Shure he turned into a fiend. He bit out a Spanish name, nothin’ loike Durade.

“An’ loike a hissin’ snake Durade sez, ‘Allison Lee!’

“Thin there wuz a dead-lock between thim two men, wid the crowd waitin’ fer hell to pay. Life-long inimies, sez I, to meself, an’ I hed the whole story.

“Durade began to limber up. Any man what knows a greaser would have been lookin’ fer blood. ‘She--wint--back--to yez!’ panted Durade.

“‘No--thief--Spanish dog! I have not seen her for nineteen years,’ sez Lee.

“The gurl spoke up: ‘Mother is dead! Killed by Injuns!’

“Thin Lee cried out, ‘Did she leave HIM?’

“‘Yes, she did,’ sez the gurl. ‘She wuz goin’ back. Home! Takin’ me home. But the caravan wuz attacked by Injuns. An’ all but me wor massacred.”

“Durade cut short the gurl’s spache. If I iver seen a reptoile it wuz thin.

“‘Lee, they both left me,’ he hisses. ‘I tracked them. I lost the mother, but caught the daughter.’

“Thin thot Durade lost his spache fer a minnit, foamin’ at the mouth wid rage. If yez niver seen a greaser mad thin yez niver seen the rale thin’. His face changed yaller an’ ould an’ wrinkled, wid spots of red. His lip curled up loike a wolf’s, an’ his eyes--they wint down to little black points of hell’s fire. He wuz crazy.

“‘Look at her!’ he yelled. ‘Allie Lee! Flesh an’ blood yez can’t deny! Her baby!... An’ she’s been my slave--my dog to beat an’ kick! She’s been through Benton! A toy fer the riff-raff of the camps!... She’s as vile an’ black an’ lost as her treacherous mother!’

“Allison Lee shrunk under thot shame. But the gurl! Lord! she niver looked wot she was painted by thot devil. She stood white an’ still, like an angel above judgment.

“Durade drew one of thim little derringers. An’ sudden he hild it on Lee, hissin’ now in his greaser talk. I niver seen sich hellish joy on a human face. Murder was nothin’ to thot look.

“Jist thin I seen Neale an’ Slingerland, an’, by Gawd! I thought I’d drop. They seemed to loom up. The girl screamed wild-loike an’ she swayed about to fall. Neale leaped in front of Lee.

“‘Durade!’ he spit out, an’ dom’ me if I didn’t expect to see the roof fly off.”

McDermott wiped his moist face and tipped his empty glass to his lips, and swallowed hard. His light-blue eyes held a glint.

“Gineral,” he went on, “yez know Neale. How big he is! Wot nerve he’s got! There niver wor a mon his equal on the U. P. ‘ceptin’ Casey.... But me, nor any wan, nor yez, either, ever seen Neale loike he wuz thin. He niver hesitated an inch, but wint roight fer Durade. Any dom’ fool, even a crazy greaser, would hev seen his finish in Neale. Durade changed quick from hot to cold. An’ he shot Neale.

“Neale laughed. Funny ringin’ sort of laugh, full of thot same joy Durade hed sung out to Lee. Hate an’ love of blood it wor. Yez would hev thought Neale felt wonderful happy to sthop a bullet.

“Thin his hand shot out an’ grabbed Durade.... He jerked him off his feet an’ swung him round. The little derringer flew, an’ Sandy McDermott wuz the mon who picked it up. It’ll be Neale’s whin I see him.... Durade jabbered fer help. But no wan come. Thot big trapper Slingerland stood there with two guns, an’ shure he looked bad. Neale slung Durade around, spillin’ some fellars who didn’t dodge quick, an’ thin he jerked him up backwards.

“An’ Durade come up with a long knife in the one hand he had free.

“Neale yelled, ‘Lee, take the gurl out!’

“I seen thin she hed fainted in Lee’s arms. He lifted her--moved away--an’ thin I seen no more of thim.

“Durade made wild an’ wicked lunges at Neale, only to be jerked off his balance. I heerd the bones crack in the arm Neale held. The greaser screamed. Sudden he wuz turned agin, an’ swung backwards so thot Neale grabbed the other arm--the wan wot held the knife. It wuz a child in the grasp of a giant. Neale shure looked beautiful, I niver wished so much in me loife fer Casey as thin. He would hev enjoyed thot foight, fer he bragged of his friendship fer Neale. An’--”

“Go on, man, end your story!” ordered the general, breathlessly.

“Wal, b’gorra, there wuz more crackin’ of bones, an’ sich screams as I niver heerd from a mon. Tumble, blood-curdlin’!... Neale held both Durade’s hands an’ wuz squeezin’ thot knife-handle so the greaser couldn’t let go.

“Thin Neale drew out thot hand of Durade’s--the wan wot held the knife--an’ made Durade jab himself, low down!... My Gawd! how thot jenteel Spaniard howled! I seen the blade go in an’ come out red. Thin Slingerland tore thim apart, an’ the greaser fell. He warn’t killed. Mebbe he ain’t goin’ to croak. But he’ll shure hev to l’ave Roarin’ City, an he’ll shure be a cripple fer loife.”

McDermott looked at the empty glass.

“That’s all, Gineral. An’ if it’s jist the same to yez I’ll hev another drink.”

32

The mere sight of Warren Neale had transformed life for Allie Lee. The shame of being forced to meet degraded men, the pain from Durade’s blows, the dread that every hour he would do the worst by her or kill her, the sudden and amazing recognition between her and her father--these became dwarfed and blurred in the presence of the glorious truth that Neale was there.

She had recognized him with reeling senses and through darkening eyes. She had seen him leap before her father to confront that glittering-eyed Durade. She had neither fear for him nor pity for the Spaniard.

Sensations of falling, of being carried, of the light and dust and noise of the street, of men around her, of rooms and the murmur of voices, of being worked over and spoken to by a kindly woman, of swallowing what was put to her mouth, of answering questions, of letting other clothes be put upon her; she was as if in a trance, aware of all going on about her, but with consciousness riveted upon one stunning fact--his presence. When she was left alone this state gradually wore away, and there remained a throbbing, quivering suspense of love. Her despair had ended. The spirit that had upheld her through all the long, dark hours had reached its fulfilment.

She lay on a couch in a small room curtained off from another, the latter large and light, and from which came a sound of low voices. She heard the quick tread of men; a door opened.

“Lee, I congratulate you. A narrow escape!” exclaimed a deep voice, with something sharp, authoritative in it.

“General Lodge, it was indeed a narrow shave for me,” replied another voice, low and husky.

Allie slowly sat up, with the dreamy waiting abstraction less strong. Her father, Allison Lee, and General Lodge, Neale’s old chief, were there in the other room.

“Neale almost killed Durade! Broke him! Cut him all up!” said the general, with agitation. “I had it from McDermott, one of my spikers--a reliable man.... Neale was shot--perhaps cut, too.... But he doesn’t seem to know it.”

Allie sprang up, transfixed and thrilling.

“Neale almost killed--him!” echoed Allison Lee, hoarsely. Then followed a sound of a chair falling.

“Indeed, Allison, it’s true,” broke in a strange voice. “The street’s full of men--all talking--all stirred up.”

Other men entered the room.

“Is Neale here?” queried General Lodge, sharply.

“They’re trying to hold him up--in the office. The boys want to pat him on the back.... Durade was not liked,” replied some one.

“Is Neale badly hurt?”

“I don’t know. He looked it. He was all bloody.”

“Colonel Dillon, did you see Neale?” went on the sharp, eager voice.

“Yes. He seemed dazed--wild. Probably badly hurt. Yet he moved steadily. No one could stop him,” answered another strange voice.

“Ah! here comes McDermott!” exclaimed General Lodge. Allie’s ears throbbed to a slow, shuffling, heavy tread. Her consciousness received the fact of Neale’s injury, but her heart refused to accept it as perilous. God could not mock her faith by a last catastrophe.

“Sandy--you’ve seen Neale?”

Allie loved this sharp, keen voice for its note of dread. “Shure. B’gorra, yez couldn’t hilp seein’ him. He’s as big as a hill an’ his shirt’s as red as Casey’s red wan. I wint to give him the little gun wot Durade pulled on him. Dom’ me! he looked roight at me an’ niver seen me,” replied the Irishman.

“Lee, you will see Neale?” queried General Lodge. There was a silence.

“No,” presently came a cold reply. “It is not necessary. He saved me--injury perhaps. I am grateful. I’ll reward him.”

“How?” rang General Lodge’s voice.

“Gold, of course. Neale was a gambler. Probably he had a grudge against this Durade.... I need not meet Neale, it seems, I am somewhat--overwrought. I wish to spare myself further excitement.”

“Lee--listen!” returned General Lodge, violently. “Neale is a splendid young man--the nerviest, best engineer I ever knew. I predicted great things for him. They have come true.”

“That doesn’t interest me.”

“You’ll hear it, anyhow. He saved the life of this girl who has turned out to be your daughter. He took care of her. He loved her--was engaged to marry her.... Then he lost her. And after that he was half mad. It nearly ruined him.”

“I do not credit that. It was gambling, drink--and bad women that ruined him.”

“No!”

“But, pardon me, General. If--as you intimate--there was an attachment between him and my unfortunate child, would he have become an associate of gamblers and vicious women?”

“He would not. The nature of his fury, the retribution he visited upon this damned Spaniard, prove the manner of man he is.”

“Wild indeed. But hardly from a sense of loyalty. These camps breed blood-spillers. I heard you say that.”

“You’ll hear me say something more, presently,” retorted the other, with heat scarcely controlled. “But we’re wasting time. I don’t insist that you see Neale. That’s your affair. It seems to me the least you could do would be to thank him. I certainly advise you not to offer him gold. I do insist, however, that you let him see the girl!”

“No!”

“But, man.... Say, McDermott, go fetch Neale in here.”

Allie Lee heard all this strange talk with consternation. An irresistible magnet drew her toward those curtains, which she grasped with trembling hands, ready, but not able, to part them and enter the room. It seemed that in there was a friend of Neale’s whom she was going to love, and an enemy whom she was going to hate. As for Neale seeing her--at once--only death could rob her of that.

“General Lodge, I have no sympathy for Neale,” came the cold voice of Allison Lee.

There was no reply. Some one coughed. Footsteps sounded in the hallway, and a hum of distant voices.

“You forget,” continued Lee, “what happened not many hours ago when your train was saved by that dare-devil Casey--the little book held tight in his locked teeth--the letter meant for this Neale from one of Benton’s camp-women.... Your engineer read enough. You heard. I heard.... A letter from a dying woman. She accused Neale of striking her--of killing her.... She said she was dying, but she loved him.... Do you remember that, General Lodge?”

“Yes, alas!... Lee, I don’t deny that. But--”

“There are no buts.”

“Lee, you’re hard, hard as steel. Appearances seem against Neale. I don’t seek to extenuate them. But I know men. Neale might have fallen--it seems he must have. These are terrible times. In anger or drink Neale might have struck this woman.... But kill her--No!”

A gleam pierced Allie Lee’s dark bewilderment. They meant Beauty Stanton, that beautiful, fair woman with such a white, soft bosom and such sad eyes--she whom Larry King had shot. What a tangle of fates and lives! She could tell them why Beauty Stanton was dying. Then other words, like springing fire, caught Allie’s thought, and a sickening ripple of anguish convulsed her. They believed Beauty Stanton had loved Neale--had--Allie would have died before admitting that last thought to her consciousness. For a second the room turned black. Her hold on the curtains kept her from falling. With frantic and terrible earnestness--the old dominance Neale had acquired over her--she clung to the one truth that mattered. She loved Neale--belonged to him--and he was there! That they were about to meet again was as strange and wonderful a thing as had ever happened. What had she not endured? What must he have gone through? The fiery, stinging nature of her new and sudden pain she could not realize.

Again the strong speech became distinct to her.

“... You’ll stay here--and you, Dillon.... Don’t any one leave this room.... Lee, you can leave, if you want. But we’ll see Neale, and so will Allie Lee.”

Allie spread the curtains and stood there. No one saw her. All the men faced the door through which sounded slow, heavy tread of boots. An Irishman entered. Then a tall man. Allie’s troubled soul suddenly calmed. She saw Neale.

Slowly he advanced a few steps. Another man entered, and Allie knew him by his buckskin garb. Neale turned, his face in the light. And a poignant cry leaped up from Allie’s heart to be checked on her lips. Was this her young and hopeful and splendid lover? She recognized him, yet now did not know him. He stood bareheaded, and her swift, all-embracing glance saw the gray over his temples, and the eyes that looked out from across the border of a dark hell, and face white as death and twitching with spent passion.

“Mr.--Lee,” he panted, very low, and the bloody patch on his shirt heaved with his breath, “my only--regret--is--I didn’t--think to make--Durade--tell the truth.... He lied.... He wanted to--revenge himself--on Allie’s mother--through Allie.... What he said--about Allie--was a lie--as black as his heart. He meant evil--for her. But--somehow she was saved. He was a tiger--playing--and he waited--too long. You must realize--her innocence--and understand. God has watched over Allie Lee! It was not luck--nor accident. But innocence!... Hough died to save her! Then Ancliffe! Then my old friend--Larry King! These men--broken--gone to hell--out here--felt an innocence that made them--mad--as I have just been.... That is proof--if you need it.... Men of ruined lives--could not rise--and die--as they did--victims of a false impression--of innocence.... They knew!”

Neale’s voice sank to a whisper, his eyes intent to read belief in the cold face of Allison Lee.

“I thank you, Neale, for your service to me and your defense of her,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

“Sir--I--I--”

“Can I reward you in any way?”

The gray burned out of Neale’s face. “I ask--nothing--except that you believe me.”

Lee did not grant this, nor was there any softening of his cold face.

“I would like to ask you a few questions,” he said. “General Lodge here informed me that you saved my--my daughter’s life long ago.... Can you tell me what became of her mother?”

“She was in the caravan--massacred by Sioux,” replied Neale. “I saw her buried. Her grave is not so many miles from here.”

Then a tremor changed Allison Lee’s expression. He turned away an instant: his hand closed tight; he bit his lips. This evidence of feeling in him relaxed the stony scrutiny of the watchers, and they shifted uneasily on their feet.

Allie stood watching--waiting, with her heart at her lips.

“Where did you take my daughter?” queried Lee, presently.

“To the home of a trapper. My friend--Slingerland,” replied Neale, indicating the buckskin-clad figure. “She lived there--slowly recovering. You don’t know that she lost her mind--for a while. But she recovered.... And during an absence of Slingerland’s--she was taken away.”

“Were you and she--sweethearts?”

“Yes.”

“And engaged to marry?”

“Of course,” replied Neale, dreamily.

“That cannot be now.”

“I understand. I didn’t expect--I didn’t think....”

Allie Lee had believed many times that her heart was breaking, but now she knew it had never broken till then. Why did he not turn to see her waiting there--stricken motionless and voiceless, wild to give the lie to those cold, strange words?

“Then, Neale--if you will not accept anything from me, let us terminate this painful interview,” said Allison Lee.

“I’m sorry. I only wanted to tell you--and ask to see--Allie--a moment,” replied Neale.

“No. It might cause a breakdown. I don’t want to risk anything that might prevent my taking the next train with her.”

“Going to take her--back East?” asked Neale, as if talking to himself.

“Certainly.”

“Then--I--won’t see her!” Neale murmured, dazedly.

At this juncture General Lodge stepped out. His face was dark, his mouth stern.

His action caused a breaking of the strange, vise-like clutch--the mute and motionless spell--that had fallen upon Allie. She felt the gathering of tremendous forces in her; in an instant she would show these stupid men the tumult of a woman’s heart.

“Lee, be generous,” spoke up General Lodge, feelingly. “Let Neale see the girl.”

“I said no!” snapped Lee.

“But why not, in Heaven’s name?”

“Why? I told you why,” declared Lee, passionately.

“But, Lee--that implication may not be true. We didn’t read all that letter,” protested General Lodge.

“Ask him.”

Then the general turned to Neale. “Boy--tell me--did this Stanton woman love you--did you strike her? Did you--” The general’s voice failed.

Neale faced about with a tragic darkening of his face. “To my shame--it is true,” he said, clearly.

Then Allie Lee swept forward. “Oh, Neale!”

He seemed to rise and leap at once. And she ran straight into his arms. No man, no trouble, no mystery, no dishonor, no barrier--nothing could have held her back the instant she saw how the sight of her, how the sound of her voice, had transformed Neale. For one tumultuous, glorious, terrible moment she clung to his neck, blind, her heart bursting. Then she fell back with hands seeking her breast.

“I heard!” she cried. “I know nothing of Beauty Stanton’s letter.... But you didn’t shoot her. It was Larry. I saw him do it.”

“Allie!” he whispered.

At last he had realized her actual presence, the safety of her body and soul; and all that had made him strange and old and grim and sad vanished in a beautiful transfiguration.

“You know Larry did it!” implored Allie. “Tell them so.”

“Yes, I know,” he replied. “But I did worse. I--”

She saw him shaken by an agony of remorse; and that agony was communicated to her.

“Neale! she loved you?”

He bowed his head.

“Oh!” Her cry was almost mute, full of an unutterable realization of tragic fatality for her. “And you--you--”

Allison Lee strode between them facing Neale. “See! She knows... and if you would spare her--go!” he exclaimed.

“She knows--what?” gasped Neale, in a frenzy between doubt and certainty.

Allie felt a horrible, nameless, insidious sense of falsity--a nightmare unreality--an intangible Neale, fated, drifting away from her.

“Good-bye--Allie!... Bless you! I’ll be--happy--knowing--you’re--” He choked, and the tears streamed down his face. It was a face convulsed by renunciation, not by guilt. Whatever he had done, it was not base.

“DON’T LET ME--GO!... _I_--FORGIVE YOU!” she burst out. She held out her arms. “THERE’S NO ONE IN THE WORLD BUT YOU!”

But Neale plunged away, upheld by Slingerland, and Allie’s world grew suddenly empty and black.

The train swayed and creaked along through the Night with that strain and effort which told of upgrade. The oil-lamps burned dimly in corners of the coach. There were soldiers at open windows looking out. There were passengers asleep sitting up and lying down and huddled over their baggage.

But Allie Lee was not asleep. She lay propped up with pillows and blankets, covered by a heavy coat. Her window was open, and a cool desert wind softly blew her hair. She stared out into the night, and the wheels seemed to be grinding over her crushed heart.

It was late. An old moon, misshapen and pale, shone low down over a dark, rugged horizon. Clouds hid the stars. The desert void seemed weirdly magnified by the wan light, and all that shadowy waste, silent, lonely, bleak, called out to Allie Lee the desolation of her soul. For what had she been saved? The train creaked on, and every foot added to her woe. Her unquenchable spirit, pure as a white flame that had burned so wonderfully through the months of her peril, flickered now that her peril ceased to be. She had no fount of emotion left to draw upon, else she would have hated this creaking train.

It moved on. And there loomed bold outlines of rock and ridge familiar to her. They had been stamped upon her memory by the strain of her lonely wanderings along that very road. She knew every rod of the way, dark, lonely, wild as it was. In the midst of that stark space lay the spot where Benton had been. A spot lost in the immensity of the desert. If she had been asleep she would have awakened while passing there. There was not a light. Flat patches and pale gleams, a long, wan length of bare street, shadows everywhere--these marked Benton’s grave.

Allie stared with strained eyes. They were there--in the blackness--those noble men who had died for her in vain. No--not in vain! She breathed a prayer for them--a word of love for Larry. Larry, the waster of life, yet the faithful, the symbol of brotherhood. As long as she lived she would see him stalk before her with his red, blazing fire, his magnificent effrontery, his supreme will. He, who had been the soul of chivalry, the meekest of men before a woman, the inheritor of a reverence for womanhood, had ruthlessly shot out of his way that wonderful white-armed Beauty Stanton.

She, too, must lie there in the shadow. Allie shivered with the cool desert wind that blew in her face from the shadowy spaces. She shut her eyes to hide the dim passing traces of terrible Benton and the darkness that hid the lonely graves.

The train moved on and on, leaving what had been Benton far behind; and once more Allie opened her weary eyes to the dim, obscure reaches of the desert. Her heart beat very slowly under its leaden weight, its endless pang. Her blood flowed at low ebb. She felt the long-forgotten recurrence of an old morbid horror, like a poison lichen fastening upon the very spring of life. It passed and came again, and left her once more. Her thoughts wandered back along the night track she had traversed, until again her ears were haunted by that strange sound which had given Roaring City its name. She had been torn away from hope, love, almost life itself. Where was Neale? He had turned from her, obedient to Allison Lee and the fatal complexity and perversenes’s of life. The vindication of her spiritual faith and the answer to her prayers lay in the fact that she had been saved; but rather than to be here in this car, daughter of a rich father, but separated from Neale, she would have preferred to fill one of the nameless graves in Benton.

33

The sun set pale-gold and austere as Neale watched the train bear Allie Lee away. No thought of himself entered into that solemn moment of happiness. Allie Lee--alive--safe--her troubles ended--on her way home with her father! The long train wound round the bold bluff and at last was gone. For Neale the moment held something big, final. A phase--a part of his life ended there.

“Son, it’s over,” said Slingerland, who watched with him. “Allie’s gone home--back to whar she belongs--to come into her own. Thank God! An’ you--why this day turns you back to whar you was once.... Allie owes her life to you an’ her father’s life. Think, son, of these hyar times--how much wuss it might hev been.”

Neale’s sense of thankfulness was unutterable. Passively he went with Slingerland, silent and gentle. The trapper dressed his wounds, tended him, kept men away from him, and watched by him as if he were a sick child.

Neale suffered only the weakness following the action and stress of great passion. His mind seemed full of beautiful solemn bells of blessing, resonant, ringing the wonder of an everlasting unchangeable truth. Night fell--the darkness thickened--the old trapper kept his vigil--and Neale sank to sleep, and the sweet, low-toned bells claimed him in his dreams.

How strange for Neale to greet a dawn without hatred! He and Slingerland had breakfast together.

“Son, will you go into the hills with me?” asked the old trapper.

“Yes, some day, when the railroad’s built,” replied Neale, thoughtfully.

Slingerland’s keen eyes quickened. “But the railroad’s about done--an’ you need a vacation,” he insisted.

“Yes,” Neale answered, dreamily.

“Son, mebbe you ought to wait awhile. You’re packin’ a bullet somewhar in your carcass.”

“It’s here,” said Neale, putting his hand to his breast, high up toward the shoulder. “I feel it--a dull, steady, weighty pain.... But that’s nothing. I hope I always have it.”

“Wal, I don’t.... An’, son, you ain’t never goin’ back to drink an’ cards-an’ all thet hell?... Not now!”

Neale’s smile was a promise, and the light of it was instantly reflected on the rugged face of the trapper.

“Reckon I needn’t asked thet. Wal, I’ll be sayin’ good-bye.... You kin expect me back some day.... To see the meetin’ of the rails from east an’ west--an’ to pack you off to my hills.”

Neale rode out of Roaring City on the work-train, sitting on a flat-car with a crowd of hairy-breasted, red-shirted laborers.

That train carried hundreds of men, tons of steel rails, thousands of ties; and also it was equipped to feed the workers and to fight Indians. It ran to the end of the rails, about forty miles out of Roaring City.

Neale sought out Reilly, the boss. This big Irishman was in the thick of the start of the day--which was like a battle. Neale waited in the crowd, standing there in his shirt-sleeves, with the familiar bustle and color strong as wine to his senses. At last Reilly saw him and shoved out a huge paw.

“Hullo, Neale! I’m glad to see ye.... They tell me ye did a dom’ foine job.”

“Reilly, I need work,” said Neale.

“But, mon--ye was shot!” ejaculated the boss.

“I’m all right.”

“Ye look thot an’ no mistake.... Shure, now, ye ain’t serious about work? You--that’s chafe of all thim engineer jobs?”

“I want to work with my hands. Let me heave ties or carry rails or swing a sledge--for just a few days. I’ve explained to General Lodge. It’s a kind of vacation for me.”

Reilly gazed with keen, twinkling eyes at Neale. “Ye can’t be drunk an’ look sober.”

“Reilly, I’m sober--and in dead earnest,” appealed Neale. “I want to go back--be in the finish--to lay some rails--drive some spikes.”

The boss lost his humorous, quizzing expression. “Shure--shure,” replied Reilly, as if he saw, but failed to comprehend. “Ye’re on.... An’ more power to ye!”

He sent Neale out with the gang detailed to heave railroad ties.

A string of flat-cars, loaded with rails and ties, stood on the track where the work of yesterday had ended. Beyond stretched the road-bed, yellow, level, winding as far as eye could see. The sun beat down hot; the dry, scorching desert breeze swept down from the bare hills, across the waste; dust flew up in puffs; uprooted clumps of sage, like balls, went rolling along; and everywhere the veils of heat rose from the sun-baked earth.

“Drill, ye terriers, drill!” rang out a cheery voice. And Neale remembered Casey.

Neale’s gang was put to carrying ties. Neale got hold of the first tie thrown off the car.

“Phwat the hell’s ye’re hurry!” protested his partner. This fellow was gnarled and knotted, brick-red in color, with face a network of seams, and narrow, sun-burnt slits for eyes. He answered to the name of Pat.

They carried the tie out to the end of the rails and dropped it on the level road-bed. Men there set it straight and tamped the gravel around it. Neale and his partner went back for another, passing a dozen couples carrying ties forward. Behind these staggered the rows of men burdened with the heavy iron rails.

So the day’s toil began.

Pat had glanced askance at Neale, and then had made dumb signs to his fellow-laborers, indicating his hard lot in being yoked to this new wild man on the job. But his ridicule soon changed to respect. Presently he offered his gloves to Neale. They were refused.

“But, fri’nd, ye ain’t tough loike me,” he protested.

“Pat, they’ll put you to bed to-night--if you stay with me,” replied Neale.

“The hell ye say! Come on, thin!”

At first Neale had no sensations of heat, weariness, thirst, or pain. He dragged the little Irishman forward to drop the ties--then strode back ahead of him. Neale was obsessed by a profound emotion. This was a new beginning for him. For him the world and life had seemed to cease when yesternight the sun sank and Allie Lee passed out of sight. His motive in working there, he imagined, was to lay a few rails, drive a few spikes along the last miles of the road that he had surveyed. He meant to work this way only a little while, till the rails from east met those from west.

This profound emotion seemed accompanied by a procession of thoughts, each thought in turn, like a sun with satellites, reflecting its radiance upon them and rousing strange, dreamy, full-hearted fancies... Allie lived--as good, as innocent as ever, incomparably beautiful--sad-eyed, eloquent, haunting. From that mighty thought sprang both Neale’s exaltation and his activity. He had loved her so well that conviction of her death had broken his heart, deadened his ambition, ruined his life. But since, by the mercy of God and the innocence that had made men heroic, she had survived all peril, all evil, then had begun a colossal overthrow in Neale’s soul of the darkness, the despair, the hate, the indifference. He had been flung aloft, into the heights, and he had seen into heaven. He asked for nothing in the world. All-satisfied, eternally humble, grateful with every passionate drop of blood throbbing through his heart, he dedicated all his spiritual life to memory. And likewise there seemed a tremendous need in him of sustained physical action, even violence. He turned to the last stages of the construction of the great railroad.

What fine comrades these hairy-breasted toilers made! Neale had admired them once; now he loved them. Every group seemed to contain a trio like that one he had known so well--Casey, Shane, and McDermott. Then he divined that these men were all alike. They all toiled, swore, fought, drank, gambled. Hundreds of them went to nameless graves. But the work went on--the great, driving, united heart beat on.

Neale was under its impulse, in another sense.

When he lifted a tie and felt the hard, splintering wood, he wondered where it had come from, what kind of a tree it was, who had played in its shade, how surely birds had nested in it and animals had grazed beneath it. Between him and that square log of wood there was an affinity. Somehow his hold upon it linked him strangely to a long past, intangible spirit of himself. He must cling to it, lest he might lose that illusive feeling. Then when he laid it down he felt regret fade into a realization that the yellow-gravel road-bed also inspirited him. He wanted to feel it, work in it, level it, make it somehow his own.

When he strode back for another load his magnifying eyes gloated over the toilers in action--the rows of men carrying and laying rails, and the splendid brawny figures of the spikers, naked to the waist, swinging the heavy sledges. The blows rang out spang--spang--spang! Strong music, full of meaning! When his turn came to be a spiker, he would love that hardest work of all.

The engine puffed smoke and bumped the cars ahead, little by little as the track advanced; men on the train carried ties and rails forward, filling the front cars as fast as they were emptied; long lines of laborers on the ground passed to and fro, burdened going forward, returning empty-handed; the rails and the shovels and the hammers and the picks all caught the hot gleam from the sun; the dust swept up in sheets; the ring, the crash, the thump, the scrape of iron and wood and earth in collision filled the air with a sound rising harshly above the song and laugh and curse of men.

A shifting, colorful, strenuous scene of toil!

Gradually Neale felt that he was fitting into this scene, becoming a part of it, an atom once more in the great whole. He doubted while he thrilled. Clearly as he saw, keenly as he felt, he yet seemed bewildered. Was he not gazing out at this construction work through windows of his soul, once more painted, colored, beautiful, because the most precious gift he might have prayed for had been given him--life and hope for Allie Lee?

He did not know. He could not think.

His comrade, Pat, wiped floods of sweat from his scarlet face. “I’ll be domned if ye ain’t a son-of-a-gun fer worrk!” he complained.

“Pat, we’ve been given the honor of pace-makers. They’ve got to keep up with us. Come on,” replied Neale.

“Be gad! there ain’t a mon in the gang phwat’ll trade fer me honor, thin,” declared Pat. “Fri’nd, I’d loike to live till next pay-day.”

“Come on, then, work up an appetite,” rejoined Neale.

“Shure I’ll die.... An’ I’d loike to ask, beggin’ ye’re pardon, hevn’t ye got some Irish in ye?”

“Yes, a little.”

“I knowed thot.... All roight, I’ll die with ye, thin.”

In half an hour Pat was in despair again. He had to rest.

“Phwat’s--ye’re--name?” he queried.

“Neale.”

“It ought to be Casey. Fer there was niver but wan loike ye--an’ he was Casey.... Mon, ye’re sweatin’ blood roight now!”

Pat pointed at Neale’s red, wet shirt. Neale slapped his breast, and drops of blood and sweat spattered from under his hand.

“An’ shure ye’re hands are bladin’, too!” ejaculated Pat.