Chapter III: Part 3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You grow so excited,” she said.

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

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

“I can’t wade that,” she called.

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

“You nearly fell with me,” she said.

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

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

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

“What’s your name?” she asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Come on,” he called.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No--no,” she sighed.

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

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

“No--no.”

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

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

“I’m going away,” he said, sharply.

“Yes.”

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

She only stared at him.

“You MUST care!” he exclaimed.

“Why?” she asked, dully.

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

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

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

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

“No.”

“Why, yes, you have.”

“What?”

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

“YOU!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Slingerland’s hard and wrinkled face softened.

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

Neale slipped a ring from his little finger.

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

8

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Good luck to you.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“An Indian girl!” ejaculated Neale.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That accounts,” he replied, musingly.

“For what?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Of course,” she replied.

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

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

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

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

“My ring. Oh, Allie!” he whispered.

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

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

He kissed her hand.

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

“Tell me now,” she said, quickly.

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

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

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

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

“Didn’t you ever know?” she asked.

“You said Allie. That was all.”

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

“Allie what?” he repeated.

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

9

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Larry suddenly looked sheepish.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Allie did not long stay embarrassed by their sallies.

“Neale, tell me--”

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

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

“Beyond human conjecture,” replied Neale, laughing.

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

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

“Haw! Haw! But it ain’t thet.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Allie flashed a glance at them.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I guess they did,” replied Neale.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She had remembered his very words.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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