Chapter VII: Part 7

“Ruby’s got over her temper,” she said, with evident relief, to Neale. “She asked me to say that she apologized. It’s just what I told you. She’ll fall madly in love with you for what you did.... She’s of good family, Neale. She has a sister she talks much of, and a home she could go back to if she wasn’t ashamed.”

“That so?” replied Neale, thoughtfully. “Let me talk to her.”

At a slight sign from Stanton, Ruby joined the group.

“Ruby, you’ve already introduced yourself to this gentleman, but not so nicely as you might have done,” said Beauty.

“I’m sorry,” replied Ruby. A certain wistfulness showed in her low tones.

“Maybe I was rude,” said Neale. “I didn’t intend to be. I couldn’t dance with any one here--or anywhere....” Then he spoke to her in a lower tone. “But I’ll tell you what I will do. I won a thousand dollars to-night. I’ll give you half of it if you’ll go home.”

The girl shrank as if she had received a stab. Then she stiffened.

“Why don’t you go home?” she retorted. “We’re all going to hell out here, and the gamest will get there soonest.”

She glared at Neale an instant, white-faced and hard, and then, rejoining her companions, she led them away.

Beauty Stanton seemed to have received something of the check that had changed the girl Ruby.

“Gentlemen, you are my only friends in Benton. But these are business hours.”

Presently she leaned toward Neale and whispered to him: “Boy, you’re courting death. Some one--something has hurt you. But you’re young.... GO HOME!”

Then she bade him good night and left the group.

He looked on in silence after that. And presently, when Ancliffe departed, he was glad to follow Hough into the street. There the same confusion held. A loud throng hurried by, as if bent on cramming into a few hours the life that would not last long.

Neale was interested to inquire more about Ancliffe. And the gambler replied that the Englishman had come from no one knew where; that he did not go to extremes in drinking or betting; that evidently he had become attached to Beauty Stanton; that surely he must be a ruined man of class who had left all behind him, and had become like so many out there--a leaf in the storm.

“Stanton took to you,” went on Hough. “I saw that.... And poor Ruby! I’ll tell you, Neale, I’m sorry for some of these women.”

“Who wouldn’t be?”

“Women of this class are strange to you, Neale. But I’ve mixed with them for years. Of course Benton sets a pace no man ever saw before. Still, even the hardest and vilest of these scullions sometimes shows an amazing streak of good. And women like Ruby and Beauty Stanton, whose early surroundings must have been refined--they are beyond understanding. They will cut your heart out for a slight, and sacrifice their lives for sake of a courteous word. It was your manner that cut Ruby and won Beauty Stanton. They meet with neither coldness nor courtesy out here. It must be bitter as gall for a woman like Stanton to be treated as you treated her--with respect. Yet see how it got her.”

“I didn’t see anything in particular,” replied Neale.

“You were too excited and disgusted with the whole scene,” said Hough as they reached the roaring lights of the gambling-hell. “Will you go in and play again? There are always open games.”

“No, I guess not--unless you think--”

“Boy, I think nothing except that I liked your company and that I owed you a service. Good night.”

Neale walked to his lodgings tired and thoughtful and moody. Behind him the roar lulled and swelled. It was three o’clock in the morning. He wondered when these night-hawks slept. He wondered where Larry was. As for himself, he found slumber not easily gained. Dawn was lighting the east when he at last fell asleep.

16

Neale slept until late the next day and awoke with the pang that a new day always gave him now. He arose slowly, gloomily, with the hateful consciousness that he had nothing to do. He had wanted to be alone, and now loneliness was bad for him.

“If I were half a man I’d get out of here, quick!” he muttered, in scorn. And he thought of the broken Englishman, serene and at ease, settled with himself. And he thought of the girl Ruby who had flung the taunt at him. Not for a long time would he forget that. Certainly this abandoned girl was not a coward. She was lost, but she was magnificent.

“I guess I’ll leave Benton,” he soliloquized. But the place, the wildness, fascinated him. “No! I guess I’ll stay.”

It angered him that he was ashamed of himself. He was a victim of many moods, and underneath every one of them was the steady ache, the dull pain, the pang in his breast, deep in the bone.

As he left his lodgings he heard the whistle of a train. The scene down the street was similar to the one which had greeted him the day before, only the dust was not blowing so thickly. He went into a hotel for his meal and fared better, watching the hurry and scurry of men. After he had finished he strolled toward the station.

Benton had two trains each day now. This one, just in, was long and loaded to its utmost capacity. Neale noticed an Indian arrow sticking fast over a window of one of the coaches. There were flat cars loaded with sections of houses, and box-cars full of furniture. Benton was growing every day. At least a thousand persons got off that train, adding to the dusty, jostling melee.

Suddenly Neale came face to face with Larry King.

“Red!” he yelled, and made at the cowboy.

“I’m shore glad to see you,” drawled Larry. “What ‘n hell busted loose round heah?”

Neale drew Larry out of the crowd. He carried a small pack done up in a canvas covering.

“Red, your face looks like home to a man in a strange land,” declared Neale. “Where are your horses?”

Larry looked less at his ease.

“Wal, I sold them.”

“Sold them! Those great horses? Oh, Red, you didn’t!”

“Hell! It costs money to ride on this heah U.P.R. thet we built, an’ I had no money.”

“But what did you sell them for? I--I cared for those horses.”

“Will you keep quiet aboot my hosses?”

Neale had never before seen the tinge of gray in that red-bronze face.

“But I told you to straighten up!”

“Wal, who hasn’t?” retorted Larry.

“You haven’t! Don’t lie.”

“If you put it thet way, all right. Now what’re you-all goin’ to do aboot it?”

“I’ll lick you good,” declared Neale, hotly. He was angry with Larry, but angrier with himself that he had been the cause of the cowboy’s loss of work and of his splendid horses.

“Lick me!” ejaculated Larry. “You mean beat me up?”

“Yes. You deserve it.”

Larry took him in earnest and seemed very much concerned. Neale could almost have laughed at the cowboy’s serious predicament.

“Wal, I reckon I ain’t much of a fighter with my fists,” said Larry, soberly. “So come an’ get it over.”

“Oh, damn you, Red!... I wouldn’t lay a hand on you. And I am sick, I’m so glad to see you!... I thought you got here ahead of me.”

Neale’s voice grew full and trembling.

Larry became confused, his red face grew redder, and the keen blue flash of his eyes softened.

“Wal, I heerd what a tough place this heah Benton was--so I jest come.”

Larry ended this speech lamely, but the way he hitched at his belt was conclusive.

“Wal, by Gawd! Look who’s heah!” he suddenly exclaimed.

Neale wheeled with a start. He saw a scout, in buckskin, a tall form with the stride of a mountaineer, strangely familiar.

“Slingerland!” he cried.

The trapper bounded at them, his tanned face glowing, his gray eyes glad.

“Boys, it’s come at last! I knowed I’d run into you some day,” he said, and he gripped them with horny hands.

Neale tried to speak, but a terrible cramp in his throat choked him. He appealed with his hands to Slingerland. The trapper lost his smile and the iron set returned to his features.

Larry choked over his utterance. “Al-lie! What aboot--her?”

“Boys, it’s broke me down!” replied Slingerland, hoarsely. “I swear to you I never left Allie alone fer a year--an’ then--the fust time--when she made me go--I come back an’ finds the cabin burnt.... She’s gone! Gone!... No redskin job. That damned riffraff out of Californy. I tracked ‘em. Then a hell of a storm comes up. No tracks left! All’s lost! An’ I goes back to my traps in the mountains.”

“What--became--of--her?” whispered Neale.

Slingerland looked away from him.

“Son! You remember Allie. She’d die, quick!... Wouldn’t she, Larry?”

“Shore. Thet girl--couldn’t--hev lived a day,” replied Larry, thickly.

Neale plunged blindly away from his friends. Then the torture in his breast seemed to burst. The sobs came, heavy, racking. He sank upon a box and bowed his head. There Larry and Slingerland found him.

The cowboy looked down with helpless pain. “Aw, pard--don’t take it--so hard,” he implored.

But he knew and Slingerland knew that sympathy could do no good here. There was no hope, no help. Neale was stricken. They stood there, the elder man looking all the sadness and inevitableness of that wild life, and the younger, the cowboy, slowly changing to iron.

“Slingerland, you-all said some Californy outfit got Allie?” he queried.

“I’m sure an’ sartin,” replied the trapper. “Them days there wasn’t any travelin’ west, so early after winter. You recollect them four bandits as rode in on us one day? They was from Californy.”

“Wal, I’ll be lookin’ fer men with thet Californy brand,” drawled King, and in his slow, easy, cool speech there was a note deadly and terrible.

Neale slowly ceased his sobbing. “My nerve’s gone,” he said, shakily.

“No. It jest broke you all up to see Slingerland. An’ it shore did me, too,” replied Larry.

“It’s hard, but--” Slingerland could not finish his thought.

“Slingerland, I’m glad to see you, even if it did cut me,” said Neale, more rationally. “I’m surprised, too. Are you here with a load of pelts?”

“No. Boys, I hed to give up trappin’. I couldn’t stand the loneliness--after--after... An’ now I’m killin’ buffalo meat for the soldiers an’ the construction gangs. Jest got in on thet train with a car-load of fresh meat.”

“Buffalo meat,” echoed Neale. His mind wandered.

“Son, how’s your work goin’?”

Neale shook his head.

The cowboy, answering for him, said, “We kind of chucked the work, Slingerland.”

“What? Are you hyar in Benton, doin’ nothin’?”

“Shore. Thet’s the size of it.”

The trapper made a vehement gesture of disapproval and he bent a scrutinizing gaze upon Neale.

“Son, you’ve not gone an’--an’--”

“Yes,” replied Neale, throwing out his hands. “I quit. I couldn’t work. I CAN’T work. I CAN’T rest or stand still!”

A spasm of immense regret contracted the trapper’s face. And Larry King, looking away over the sordid, dusty passing throng, cursed under his breath. Neale was the first to recover his composure.

“Let’s say no more. What’s done is done,” he said. “Suppose you take us on one of your buffalo-hunts.”

Slingerland grasped at straws. “Wal, now, thet ain’t a bad idee. I can use you,” he replied, eagerly. “But it’s hard an’ dangerous work. We git chased by redskins often. An’ you’d hev to ride. I reckon, Neale, you’re good enough on a hoss. But our cowboy friend hyar, he can’t ride, as I recollect your old argyments.”

“My job was hosses,” drawled Larry.

“An’ besides, you’ve got to shoot straight, which Reddy hasn’t hed experience of,” went on Slingerland, with a broader smile.

“I seen you was packin’ a Winchester all shiny an’ new,” replied Larry. “Shore I’m in fer anythin’ with ridin’ an’ shootin’.”

Neale and Larry accepted the proposition then and there.

“You’ll need to buy rifles an’ shells, thet’s all,” said Slingerland. “I’ve hosses an’ outfit over at the work-camp, an’ I’ve been huntin’ east of thar. Come on, we’ll go to a store. Thet train’s goin’ back soon.”

“Wal, I come in on thet train an’ now I’m leavin’ on it,” drawled Larry. “Shore is funny. Without even lookin’ over this heah Benton.”

On the ride eastward Slingerland inquired if Neale and Larry had ever gone back to the scene of the massacre of the caravan where Horn had buried his gold.

Neale had absolutely forgotten the buried gold. Probably when he and Larry had scoured the wild hills for trace of Allie they had passed down the valley where the treasure had been hidden. Slingerland gave the same reason for his oversight. They talked about the gold and planned, when the railroad reached the foot-hills, to go after it.

Both Indians and buffalo were sighted from the train before the trio got to the next camp.

“I reckon I don’t like thet,” declared Slingerland. “I was friendly with the Sioux. But now thet I’ve come down hyar to kill off their buffalo fer the whites they’re ag’in’ me. I know thet. An’ I allus regarded them buffalo as Injun property. If it wasn’t thet I seen this railroad means the end of the buffalo, an’ the Indians, too, I’d never hev done it. Thet I’ll swar.”

It was night when they reached their destination. How quiet and dark after Benton! Neale was glad to get there. He wondered if he could conquer his unrest. Would he go on wandering again? He doubted himself and dismissed the thought. Perhaps the companionship of his old friends and the anticipation of action would effect a change in him.

Neale and Larry spent the night in Slingerland’s tent. Next morning the trapper was ready with horses at an early hour, but, owing to the presence of Sioux in the vicinity, it was thought best to wait for the work-train and ride out on the plains under its escort.

By and by the train, with its few cars and half a hundred workmen, was ready, and the trapper and his comrades rode out alongside. Some few miles from camp the train halted at a place where stone-work and filling awaited the laborers. Neale was again interested, in spite of himself. Yet his love for that railroad was quite as hopeless as other things in his life.

These laborers were picked men, all soldiers, and many Irish; they stacked their guns before taking up shovels and bars.

“Dom me if it ain’t me ould fri’nd Neale!” exclaimed a familiar voice.

And there stood Casey, with the same old grin, the same old black pipe.

Neale’s first feeling of pleasure at seeing the old flagman was counteracted by one of dismay at the possibility of coming in contact with old acquaintances. It would hurt him to meet General Lodge or any of the engineers who had predicted a future for him.

Shane and McDermott were also in this gang, and they slouched forward.

“It’s thot gun-throwin’ cowboy as wuz onct goin’ to kill Casey!” exclaimed McDermott, at sight of Larry.

Neale, during the few moments of reunion with his old comrades of the survey, received a melancholy insight into himself and a clearer view of them. The great railroad had gone on, growing, making men change. He had been passed by. He was no longer a factor. Along with many, many other men, he had retrograded. The splendid spirit of the work had not gone from him, but it had ceased to govern his actions. He had ceased to grow. But these uncouth Irishmen, they had changed. In many ways they were the same slow, loquacious, quarreling trio as before, but they showed the effect of toil, of fight, of growth under the great movement and its spirit--the thing which great minds had embodied; and these laborers were no longer ordinary men. Something shone out of them. Neale saw it. He felt an inexplicable littleness in their presence. They had gone on; he had been left. They would toil and fight until they filled nameless graves. He, too, would find a nameless grave, he thought, but he would not lie in it as one of these. The moment was poignant for Neale, exceedingly bitter, and revealing.

Slingerland was not long in sighting buffalo. After making a careful survey of the rolling country for lurking Indians he rode out with Neale, Larry, and two other men--Brush and an Irishman named Pat--who were to skin the buffalo the hunters killed, and help load the meat into wagons which would follow.

“It ain’t no trick to kill buffalo,” Slingerland was saying to his friends. “But I don’t want old bulls an’ old cows killed. An’ when you’re ridin’ fast an’ the herd is bunched it’s hard to tell the difference. You boys stick close to me an’ watch me first. An’ keep one eye peeled fer Injuns!”

Slingerland approached the herd without alarming it, until some little red calves on the outskirts of the herd became frightened. Then the herd lumbered off, raising a cloud of dust. The roar of hoofs was thunderous.

“Ride!” yelled Slingerland.

Not the least interesting sight to Neale was Larry riding away from them. He was whacking the buffalo on the rumps with his bare hand before Slingerland and Neale got near enough to shoot.

At the trapper’s first shot the herd stampeded. Thereafter it took fine riding to keep up, to choose the level ground, and to follow Slingerland’s orders. Neale got up in the thick of the rolling din and dust. The pursuit liberated something fierce within him which gave him a measure of freedom from his constant pain. All before spread the great bobbing herd. The wind whistled, the dust choked him, the gravel stung his face, the strong, even action of his horse was exhilarating. He lost track of Larry, but he stayed close to Slingerland. The trapper kept shooting at intervals. Neale saw the puffs of smoke, but in the thundering din he could not hear a report. It seemed impossible for him to select the kind of buffalo Slingerland wanted shot. Neale could not tell one from the other. He rode right upon their flying heels. Unable, finally, to restrain himself from shooting, he let drive and saw a beast drop and roll over. Neale rode on.

Presently out of a lane in the dust he thought he saw Slingerland pass. He reined toward the side. Larry was riding furiously at him, and Slingerland’s horse was stretched out, heading straight away. The trapper madly waved his arms. Neale spurred toward them. Something was amiss. Larry’s face flashed in the sun. He whirled his horse to take Neale’s course and then he pointed.

Neale thrilled as he looked. A few hundred rods in the rear rode a band of Sioux, coming swiftly. A cloud of dust rose behind them. They had, no doubt, been hiding in the vicinity of the grazing buffalo, lying in wait.

As Neale closed in on Larry he saw the cowboy’s keen glance measuring distance and speed.

“We shore got to ride!” was what Larry apparently yelled, though the sound of words drifted as a faint whisper to Neale. But the roar of buffalo hoofs was rapidly diminishing.

Then Neale realized what it meant to keep close to the cowboy. Every moment Larry turned round both to watch the Indians and to have a glance at his comrade. They began to gain on Slingerland. Brush was riding for dear life off to the right, and the Irishman, Pat, still farther in that direction, was in the most perilous situation of all. Already the white skipping streaks of dust from bullets whipped up in front of him. The next time Neale looked back the Sioux had split up; some were riding hard after Brush and Pat; the majority were pursuing the other three hunters, cutting the while a little to the right, for Slingerland was working round toward the work-train. Neale saw the smoke of the engine and then the train. It seemed far away. And he was sure the Indians were gaining. What incomparable riders! They looked half naked, dark, gleaming, low over their mustangs, feathers and trappings flying in the wind--a wild and panic-provoking sight.

“Don’t ride so close!” yelled Larry. “They’re spreadin’!”

Neale gathered that the Indians were riding farther apart because they soon expected to be in range of bullets; and Larry wanted Neale to ride farther from him for the identical reason.

Neale saw the first white puff of smoke from a rifle of the leader. The bullet hit far behind. More shots kept raising the dust, the last time still a few yards short.

“Gawd! Look!” yelled Larry. “The devils hit Pat’s hoss!”

Neale saw the Irishman go down with his horse, plunge in the dust, and then roll over and lie still.

“They got him!” he yelled at Larry.

“Ride thet hoss!” came back grimly and appealingly from the cowboy.

Neale rode as he had never before ridden. Fortunately his horse was fresh and fast, and that balanced the driving the cowboy was giving his mount. For a long distance they held their own with the Sioux. They had now gained a straight-away course for the work-train, so that with the Sioux behind they had only to hold out for a few miles. Brush appeared as well off as they were. Slingerland led by perhaps a hundred feet, far over to the left, and he was wholly out of range.

It took a very short time at that pace to cover a couple of miles. And then the Indians began to creep up closer and closer. Again they were shooting. Neale heard the reports and each one made him flinch in expectation of feeling the burn of a bullet. Brush was now turning to fire his rifle.

Neale bethought himself of his own Winchester, which he was carrying in his hand. Dropping the rein over the horn of his saddle, he turned half round. How close, how red, how fierce these Sioux were! He felt his hair rise stiff under his hat. And at the same instant a hot wrath rushed over him, madness to fight, to give back blow for blow. Just then several of the Indians fired. He heard the sharp cracks, then the spats of bullets striking the ground; he saw the little streaks of dust in front of him. Then the whistle of lead. That made him shoot in return. His horse lunged forward, almost throwing him, and ran the faster for his fright. Neale heard Larry begin to shoot. It became a running duel now, with the Indians scattering wide, riding low, yelling like demons, and keeping up a continuous volley. They were well armed with white men’s guns. Neale worked the lever of his rifle while he looked ahead for an instant to see where his horse was running; then he wheeled quickly and took a snap shot at the nearest Indian, no more than three hundred yards distant now. He saw where his bullet, going wide, struck up the dust. It was desperately hard to shoot from the back of a scared horse. Neale did not notice that Larry’s shots were any more effective than his own. He grew certain that the Sioux were gaining faster now. But the work-train was not far away. He saw the workmen on top of the cars waving their arms. Rougher ground, though, on this last stretch.

Larry was drawing ahead. He had used all the shells in his rifle and now with hand and spur was goading his horse.

Suddenly Neale heard the soft thud of lead striking flesh. His horse leaped with a piercing snort of terror, and Neale thought he was going down. But he recovered, and went plunging on, still swift and game, though with uneven gait. Larry yelled. His red face flashed back over his shoulder. He saw something was wrong with Neale’s horse and he pulled his own.

“Save your own life!” yelled Neale, fiercely. It enraged him to see the cowboy holding back to let him come up. But he could not prevent it.

“He’s hit!” shouted Larry.

“Yes, but not badly,” shouted Neale, in reply. “Spread out!”

The cowboy never swerved a foot. He watched Neale’s horse with keen, sure eyes.

“He’s breakin’! Mebbe he can’t last!”

Bullets whistled all around Neale now. He heard them strike the stones on the ground and sing away; he saw them streak through the scant grass; he felt the tug at his shoulder where one cut through his coat, stinging the skin. That touch, light as it was, drove the panic out of him. The strange darkness before his eyes, hard to see through, passed away. He wheeled to shoot again, and with deliberation he aimed as best he could. Yet he might as well have tried to hit flying birds. He emptied the Winchester.

Then, hunching low in the saddle, Neale hung on. Slingerland was close to the train; Brush on his side appeared to be about out of danger; the pursuit had narrowed down to Neale and Larry. The anger and the grimness faded from Neale. He did not want to go plunging down in front of those lean wild mustangs, to be ridden over and trampled and mutilated. The thought sickened him. The roar of pursuing hoofs grew distinct, but Neale did not look back.

Another roar broke on his ear--the clamor of the Irish soldier-laborers as they yelled and fired.

“Pull him! Pull him!” came the piercing cry from Larry.

Neale was about to ride his frantic horse straight into the work-train. Desperately he hauled the horse up and leaped off. Larry was down, waiting, and his mount went plunging away. Bullets were pattering against the sides of the cars, from which puffed streaks of flame and smoke.

“Up wid yez, lads!” sang out a cheery voice. Casey’s grin and black pipe appeared over the rim of the car, and his big hands reached down.

One quick and straining effort and Neale was up, over the side, to fall on the floor in a pile of sand and gravel. All whirled dim round him for a second. His heart labored. He was wet and hot and shaking.

“Shure yez ain’t hit now!” exclaimed Casey.

Larry’s nervous hands began to slide and press over Neale’s quivering body.

“No--I’m--all--safe!” panted Neale.

The engine whistled shrilly, as if in defiance of the Indians, and with a jerk and rattle the train started.

Neale recovered to find himself in a novel and thrilling situation. The car was of a gondola type, being merely a flat-car, with sides about four feet high, made of such thick oak planking that bullets did not penetrate it. Besides himself and Larry there were half a dozen soldiers, all kneeling at little port-holes. Neale peeped over the rim. In a long thinned-out line the Sioux were circling round the train, hiding on the off sides of their mustangs, and shooting from these difficult positions. They were going at full speed, working in closer. A bullet, striking the rim of the car and showering splinters in Neale’s face, attested to the fact that the Sioux were still to be feared, even from a moving fort. Neale dropped back and, reloading his rifle, found a hole from which to shoot. He emptied his magazine before he realized it. But what with his trembling hands, the jerking of the train, and the swift motion of the Indians, he did not do any harm to the foe.

Suddenly, with a jolt, the train halted.

“Blocked ag’in, b’gorra,” said Casey, calmly. “Me pipe’s out. Sandy, gimme a motch.”

The engine whistled two shrill blasts.

“What’s that for?” asked Neale, quickly.

“Them’s for the men in the foist car to pile over the engine an’ remove obstruchtions from the track,” replied Casey.

Neale dared to risk a peep over the top of the car. The Sioux were circling closer to the front of the train. All along a half-dozen cars ahead of Neale puffs of smoke and jets of flame shot out. Heavy volleys were being fired. The attack of the savages seemed to be concentrating forward, evidently to derail the engine or kill the engineer.

Casey pulled Neale down. “Risky fer yez,” he said. “Use a port-hole an’ foight.”

“My shells are gone,” replied Neale.

He lay well down in the car then, and listened to the uproar, and watched the Irish trio. When the volleys and the fiendish yells mingled he could not hear anything else. There were intervals, however, when the uproar lulled for a moment.

Casey got his black pipe well lit, puffed a cloud of smoke, and picked up his rifle.

“Drill, ye terriers, drill!” he sang, and shoved his weapon through a port-hole. He squinted, over the breech.

“Mac, it’s the same bunch as attacked us day before yisteddy,” he observed.

“It shure ain’t,” replied McDermott. “There’s a million of thim to-day.”

He aimed his rifle as if following a moving object, and fired.

“Mac, you git excited in a foight. Now I niver do. An’ I’ve seen thot pinto hoss an’ thot dom’ redskin a lot of times. I’ll kill him yit.”

Casey kept squinting and aiming, and then, just as he pressed the trigger, the train started with a sudden lurch.

“Sp’iled me aim! Thot engineer’s savin’ of the Sooz tribe!... Drill, ye terriers, drill! Drill, ye terriers, drill!... Shane, I don’t hear yez shootin’.”

“How’n hell can I shoot whin me eye is full of blood?” demanded Shane.

Neale then saw blood on Shane’s face. He crawled quietly to the Irishman.

“Man, are you shot? Let me see.”

“Jist a bullet hit me, loike,” replied Shane.

Neale found that a bullet, perhaps glancing from the wood, had cut a gash over Shane’s eye, from which the blood poured. Shane’s hands and face and shirt were crimson. Neale bound a scarf tightly over the wound.

“Let me take the rifle now,” he said.

“Thanks, lad. I ain’t hurted. An’ hev Casey make me loife miserable foriver? Not much. He’s a harrd mon, thot Casey.”

Shane crouched back to his port-hole, with his bloody bandaged face and his bloody hands. And just then the train stopped with a rattling crash.

“Whin we git beyond thim ties as was scattered along here mebbe we’ll go on in,” remarked McDermott.

“Mac, yez looks on the gloomy side,” replied Casey. Then quickly he aimed the shot. “I loike it better whin we ain’t movin’,” he soliloquized, with satisfaction. “Thot red-skin won’t niver scalp a soldier of the U. P. R.... Drill, ye terriers! Drill, ye terriers, drill!”

The engine whistle shrieked out and once more the din of conflict headed to the front. Neale lay there, seeing the reality of what he had so often dreamed. These old soldiers, these toilers with rail and sledge and shovel, these Irishmen with the rifles, they were the builders of the great U. P. R. Glory might never be theirs, but they were the battle-scarred heroes. They were as used to fighting as to working. They dropped their sledges or shovels to run for their guns.

Again the train started up and had scarcely gotten under way when with jerk and bump it stopped once more. The conflict grew fiercer as the Indians became more desperate. But evidently they were kept from closing in, for during the thick of the heaviest volleying the engine again began to puff and the wheels to grind. Slowly the train moved on. Like hail the bullets pattered against the car. Smoke drifted away on the wind.

Neale lay there, watching these cool men who fought off the savages. No doubt Casey and Shane and McDermott were merely three of many thousands engaged in building and defending the U. P. R. This trio liked the fighting, perhaps better than the toiling. Casey puffed his old black pipe, grinned and aimed, shot and reloaded, sang his quaint song, and joked with his comrades, all in the same cool, quiet way. If he knew that the shadow of death hung over the train, he did not show it. He was not a thinker. Casey was a man of action. Only once he yelled, and that was when he killed the Indian on the pinto mustang.

Shane grew less loquacious and he dropped and fumbled over his rifle, but he kept on shooting. Neale saw him feel the hot muzzle of his gun and shake his bandaged head. The blood trickled down his cheek.

McDermott plied his weapon, and ever and anon he would utter some pessimistic word, or presage dire disaster, or remind Casey that his scalp was destined to dry in a Sioux’s lodge, or call on Shane to hit something to save his life, or declare the engine was off the track. He rambled on. But it was all talk. The man had gray hairs and he was a born fighter.

This time the train gained more headway, and evidently had passed the point where the Indians could find obstructions to place on the track. Neale saw through a port-hole that the Sioux were dropping back from the front of the train and were no longer circling. Their firing had become desultory. Medicine Bow was in sight. The engine gathered headway.

“We’ll git the rest of the day off,” remarked Casey, complacently. “Shane, yez are dom’ quiet betoimes. An’ Mac, I shure showed yez up to-day.”

“Ye DID not,” retorted McDermott. “I kilt jist twinty-nine Sooz!”

“Jist thorty wus moine. An’, Mac, as they wus only about fifthy of thim, yez must be a liar.”

The train drew on toward Medicine Bow. Firing ceased. Neale stood up to see the Sioux riding away. Their ranks did not seem noticeably depleted.

“Drill, ye terriers, drill!” sang Casey, as he wiped his sweaty and begrimed rifle. “Mac, how many Sooz did Shane kill?”

“B’gorra, he ain’t said yit,” replied McDermott. “Say, Shane.... CASEY!”

Neale whirled at the sharp change of tone.

Shane lay face down on the floor of the car, his bloody hands gripping his rifle. His position was inert, singularly expressive.

Neale strode toward him. But Casey reached him first. He laid a hesitating hand on Shane’s shoulder.

“Shane, old mon!” he said, but the cheer was not in his voice.

Casey dropped his pipe! Then he turned his comrade over. Shane had done his best and his last for the U. P. R.

17

Neale and Larry and Slingerland planned to go into the hills late in the fall, visit Slingerland’s old camp, and then try to locate the gold buried by Horn. For the present Larry meant to return to Benton, and Neale, though vacillating as to his own movements, decided to keep an eye on the cowboy.

The trapper’s last words to Neale were interesting. “Son,” he said, “there’s a feller hyar in Medicine Bow who says as how he thought your pard Larry was a bad cowpuncher from the Pan Handle of Texas.”

“Bad?” queried Neale.

“Wal, he meant a gun-throwin’ bad man, I take it.”

“Don’t let Reddy overhear you say it,” replied Neale, “and advise your informant to be careful. I’ve always had a hunch that Reddy was really somebody.”

“Benton ‘ll work on the cowboy,” continued Slingerland, earnestly. “An’, son, I ain’t so all-fired sure of you.”

“I’ll take what comes,” returned Neale, shortly. “Good-bye, old friend. And if you can use us for buffalo-hunting without the ‘dom’ Sooz,’ as Casey says; why, we’ll come.”

After Slingerland departed Neale carried with him a memory of the trapper’s reluctant and wistful good-bye. It made Neale think--where were he and Larry going? Friendships in this wild West were stronger ties than he had known elsewhere.

The train arrived at Benton after dark. And the darkness seemed a windy gulf out of which roared yellow lights and excited men. The tents, with the dim lights through the canvas, gleamed pale and obscure, like so much of the life they hid. The throngs hurried, the dust blew, the band played, the barkers clamored for their trade.

Neale found the more pretentious hotels overcrowded, and he was compelled to go to his former lodgings, where he and Larry were accommodated.

“Now, we’re here, what ‘ll we do?” queried Neale, more to himself. He felt as if driven. And the mood he hated and feared was impinging upon his mind.

“Shore we’ll eat,” replied Larry.

“Then what?”

“Wal, I reckon we’ll see what’s goin’ on in this heah Benton.”

As a matter of fact, Neale reflected, there was nothing to do that he wanted to do.

“You-all air gettin’ the blues,” said Larry, with solicitude.

“Red, I’m never free of them.”

Larry put his hands on Neale’s shoulder. Demonstration of this kind was rare in the cowboy.

“Pard, are we goin’ to see this heah Benton, an’ then brace, an’ go back to work?”

“No. I can’t hold a job,” replied Neale, bitterly.

“You’re showin’ a yellow streak? You’re done, as you told Slingerland? Nothin’ ain’t no good?... Life’s over, fer all thet’s sweet an’ right? Is thet your stand?”

“Yes, it must be, Reddy,” said Neale, with scorn of himself. “But you--it needn’t apply to you.”

“I reckon I’m sorry,” rejoined Larry, ignoring Neale’s last words. “I always hoped you’d get over Allie’s loss.... You had so much to live fer.”

“Reddy, I wish the bullet that hit Shane to-day had hit me instead.... You needn’t look like that. I mean it. To-day when the Sioux chased us my hair went stiff and my heart was in my mouth. I ran for my life as if I loved it. But that was my miserable cowardice.... I’m sick of the game.”

“Are you in daid earnest?” asked Larry, huskily.

Neale nodded gloomily. He did not even regret the effect of his speech upon the cowboy. He divined that somehow the moment was as critical and fateful for Larry, but he did not care. The black spell was enfolding him. All seemed hard, cold, monstrous within his breast. He could not love anything. He was lost. He realized the magnificent loyalty of this simple Texan, who was his true friend.

“Reddy, for God’s sake don’t make me ashamed to look you in the eyes,” appealed Neale. “I want to go on. You know!”

“Wal, I reckon there ain’t anythin’ to hold me now,” drawled Larry. He had changed as he spoke. He had aged. The dry humor of the cowboy, the amiable ease, were wanting.

“Oh, forgive my utter selfishness!” burst out Neale. “I’m not the man I was. But don’t think I don’t love you.”

They went out together, and the hum of riotous Benton called them; the lights beckoned and the melancholy night engulfed them.

Next morning late, on the way to breakfast, Neale encountered a young man whose rough, bronzed face somehow seemed familiar.

At sight of Neale this young fellow brightened and he lunged forward.

“Neale! Lookin’ for you was like huntin’ for a needle in a haystack.”

Neale could not place him, and he did not try hard for recognition, for that surely would recall his former relations to the railroad.

“I don’t remember you,” replied Neale.

“I’ll bet Larry does,” said the stranger, with a grin at the cowboy.

“Shore. Your name’s Campbell an’ you was a lineman for Baxter,” returned Larry.

“Right you are,” said Campbell, offering his hand to Neale, and then to Larry. He appeared both glad and excited.

“I guess I recall you now,” said Neale, thoughtfully. “You said--you were hunting me?”

“Well, I should smile!” returned Campbell, and handed Neale a letter.

Neale tore it open and hastily perused its contents. It was a brief, urgent request from Baxter that Neale should return to work. The words, almost like an order, made Neale’s heart swell for a moment. He stood there staring at the paper. Larry read the letter over his shoulder.

“Pard, shore I was expectin’ jest thet there, an’ I say go!” exclaimed Larry.

Neale slowly shook his head.

Campbell made a quick, nervous movement. “Neale, I was to say--tell--There’s more ‘n your old job waitin’ for you.”

“What do you mean?” queried Neale.

“That’s all, except the corps have struck a snag out here west of Benton. It’s a bad place. You an’ Henney were west in the hills when this survey was made. It’s a deep wash--bad grade an’ curves. The gang’s stuck. An’ Baxter swore, ‘We’ve got to have Neale back on the job!’”

“Where’s Henney?” asked Neale, rather thickly. Campbell’s words affected him powerfully.

“Henney had to go to Omaha. Boone is sick at Fort Fetterman. Baxter has only a new green hand out there, an’ they’ve sure struck a snag.”

“That’s too bad,” replied Neale, still thoughtfully. “Is--the chief--is General Lodge there?”

“Yes. There’s a trooper camp. Colonel Dillon an’ some of the officers have their wives out on a little visit to see the work. They couldn’t stand Benton.”

“Well--you thank Baxter and tell him I’m sorry I must refuse,” said Neale.

“You won’t come!” ejaculated Campbell.

Neale shook his head. Larry reached out with big, eager hands.

“See heah, pard, I reckon you will go.”

Campbell acted strangely, as if he wanted to say more, but did not have authority to do so. He looked dismayed. Then he said: “All right, Neale. I’ll take your message. But you can expect me back.”

And he went on his way.

“Neale, shore there’s somethin’ in the wind,” said Larry. “Wal, it jest tickles me. They can’t build the railroad without you.”

“Would you go back to work?” queried Neale.

“Shore I would if they’d have me. But I reckon thet little run-in of mine with Smith has made bad feelin’. An’ come to think of thet, if I did go back I’d only have to fight some of Smith’s friends. An’ I reckon I’d better not go. It’d only make trouble for you.”

“Me!... You heard me refuse.”

“Shore I heerd you,” drawled Larry, softly, “but you’re goin’ back if I have to hawg-tie you an’ pack you out there on a hoss.”

Neale said no more. If he had said another word he would have betrayed himself to his friend. He yearned for his old work. To think that the engineer corps needed him filled him with joy. But at the same time he knew what an effort it would take to apply himself to any task. He hated to attempt it. He doubted himself. He was morbid. All that day he wandered around at Larry’s heels, half oblivious of what was going on. After dark he slipped away from his friend to be alone. And being alone in the dark quietness brought home to him the truth of a strange, strong growth, out of the depths of him, that was going to overcome his morbid craving to be idle, to drift, to waste his life on a haunting memory.

He could not sleep that night, and so was awake when Larry lounged in, slow and heavy. The cowboy was half-drunk. Neale took him to task, and they quarreled. Finally Larry grew silent and fell asleep. After that Neale likewise dropped into slumber.

In the morning Larry was again his old, cool, easy, reckless self, and had apparently forgotten Neale’s sharp words. Neale, however, felt a change in himself. This was the first morning for a long time that he had not hated the coming of daylight.

When he and Larry went out the sun was high. For Neale there seemed something more than sunshine in the air. At sight of Campbell, waiting in the same place in which they had encountered him yesterday, Neale’s pulses quickened.

Campbell greeted them with a bright smile. “I’m back,” he said.

“So I see,” replied Neale, constrainedly.

“I’ve a message for you from the chief,” announced Campbell.

“The chief!” exclaimed Neale.

Larry edged closer to them, with the characteristic hitch at his belt, and his eyes flashed.

“He asks as a personal favor that you come out to see him,” replied Campbell.

Neale flushed. “General Lodge asks that!” he echoed. There was a slow heat stirring all through him.

“Yes. Will you go?”

“I--I guess I’ll have to,” replied Neale. He did not feel that he was deciding. He had to go. But this did not prove that he must take up his old work.

Larry swung his hand on Neale’s shoulder, almost staggering him. The cowboy beamed.

“Go in to breakfast,” he said. “Order for me, too. I’ll be back.”

“You want to hurry,” rejoined Campbell. “We’ve only a half-hour to eat an’ catch the work-train.”

Larry strode back toward the lodging-house. And it was Campbell who led Neale into the restaurant and ordered the meal. Neale’s mind was not in a whirl, nor dazed, but he did not get much further in thought than the remarkable circumstance of General Lodge sending for him personally. Meanwhile Campbell rapidly talked about masonry, road-beds, washouts, and other things that Neale heard but did not clearly understand. Then Larry returned. He carried Neale’s bag, which he deposited carefully on the bench.

“I reckon you might as well take it along,” he drawled.

Neale felt himself being forced along an unknown path.

They indulged in little further conversation while hurriedly eating breakfast. That finished, they sallied forth toward the station. Campbell clambered aboard the work-train.

“Come on, Larry,” he said.

And Neale joined in the request. “Yes, come,” he said.

“Wal, seein’ as how I want you-all to get on an’ the rail-road built, I reckon I’d better not go,” drawled Larry. His blue eyes shone warm upon his friend.

“Larry, I’ll be back in a day or so,” said Neale.

“Aw, now, pard, you stay. Go back on the job an’ stick,” appealed the cowboy.

“No. I quit and I’ll stay quit. I might help out--for a day--just as a favor. But--” Neale shook his head.

“I reckon, if you care anythin’ aboot me, you’ll shore stick.”

“Larry, you’ll go to the bad if I leave you here alone,” protested Neale.

“Wel, if you stay we’ll both go,” replied Larry, sharply. He had changed subtly. “It’s in me to go to hell--I reckon I’ve gone--but that ain’t so for you.”

“Two’s company,” said Neale, with an attempt at lightness. But it was a pretense. Larry worried him.

“Listen. If you go back on the job--then it ‘ll be all right for you to run in heah to see me once in a while. But if you throw up this chance I’ll--”

Larry paused. His ruddy tan had faded slightly.

Neale eyed him, aware of a hard and tense contraction of the cowboy’s throat.

“Well, what ‘ll you do?” queried Neale, shortly.

Larry threw back his head, and the subtle, fierce tensity seemed to leave him.

“Wal, the day you come back I’ll clean out Stanton’s place--jest to start entertainin’ you,” he replied, with his slow drawl as marked as ever it was.

A stir of anger in Neale’s breast subsided with the big, warm realization of this wild cowboy’s love for him and the melancholy certainty that Larry would do exactly as he threatened.

“Suppose I come back and beat you all up?” suggested Neale.

“Wal, thet won’t make a dam’ bit of difference,” replied Larry, seriously.

Whereupon Neale soberly bade his friend good-bye and boarded the train.

The ride appeared slow and long, dragged out by innumerable stops. All along the line laborers awaited the train to unload supplies. At the end of the line there was a congestion Neale had not observed before in all the work. Freight-cars, loaded with stone and iron beams and girders for bridge-work, piles of ties and piles of rails, and gangs of idle men attested to the delay caused by an obstacle to progress. The sight aggressively stimulated Neale. He felt very curious to learn the cause of the setback, and his old scorn of difficulties flashed up.

The camp Neale’s guide led him to was back some distance from the construction work. It stood in a little valley through which ran a stream. There was one large building, low and flat, made of boards and canvas, adjoining a substantial old log cabin; and clustered around, though not close together, were a considerable number of tents. Troopers were in evidence, some on duty and many idle. In the background, the slopes of the valley were dark green with pine and cedar.

At the open door of the building Neale met Baxter face to face, and that worthy’s greeting left Neale breathless and aghast, yet thrilling with sheer gladness.

“What’re you up against?” asked Neale.

“The boss ‘ll talk to you. Get in there!” Baxter replied, and pushed Neale inside. It was a big room, full of smoke, noise, men, tables, papers. There were guns stacked under port-holes. Some one spoke to Neale, but he did not see who it was. All the faces he saw so swiftly appeared vague, yet curious and interested. Then Baxter halted him at a table. Once again Neale faced his chief. Baxter announced something. Neale did not hear the words plainly.

General Lodge looked older, sterner, more worn. He stood up.

“Hello, Neale!” he said, offering his hand, and the flash of a smile went over his grim face.

“Come in here,” continued the chief, and he led Neale into another room, of different aspect. It was small; the walls were of logs; new boards had been recently put in the floor; new windows had been cut; and it contained Indian blankets, chairs, a couch.

Here General Lodge bent a stern and piercing gaze upon his former lieutenant.

“Neale, you failed me when you quit your job,” he said. “You were my right-hand man. You quit me in my hour of need.”

“General, I--I was furious at that rotten commissioner deal,” replied Neale, choking. What he had done now seemed an offense to his chief. “My work was ordered done over!”

“Neale, that was nothing to what I’ve endured. You should have grit your teeth--and gone on. That five miles of reconstruction was nothing--nothing.”

In his chief’s inflexible voice, in the worn, shadowed face, Neale saw the great burden, and somehow he was reminded of Lincoln, and a passion of remorse seized him. Why had he not been faithful to this steadfast man who had needed him!

“It seemed--so much to me,” faltered Neale.

“Why did you not look at that as you have looked at so many physical difficulties--the running of a survey, for instance?”

“I--I guess I have a yellow streak.”

“Why didn’t you come to me?” went on the chief. Evidently he had been disappointed in Neale.

“I might have come--only Larry, my friend--he got into it, and I was afraid he’d kill somebody,” replied Neale.

“That cowboy--he was a great fellow, but gone wrong. He shot one of the bosses--Smith.”

“Yes, I know. Did--did Smith die?”

“No, but he’ll never be any more good for the U. P. R., that’s certain.... Where is your friend now?”

“I left him in Benton.”

“Benton!” exclaimed the chief, bitterly. “I am responsible for Benton. This great work of my life is a hell on wheels, moving on and on.... Your cowboy friend has no doubt found his place--and his match--in Benton.”

“Larry has broken loose from me--from any last restraint.”

“Neale, what have you been doing?”

And at that Neale dropped his head.

“Idling in the camps--drifting from one place to the next--drinking, gambling, eh?”

“I’m ashamed to say, sir, that of late I have been doing just those things,” replied Neale, and he raised his gaze to his chief’s.

“But you haven’t been associating with those camp women!” exclaimed General Lodge, with his piercing eyes dark on Neale.

“No!” cried Neale. The speech had hurt him.

“I’m glad to hear that--gladder than you can guess. I was afraid--But no matter.... What you did do is bad enough. You ought to be ashamed. A young man with your intelligence, your nerve, your gifts! I have not had a single man whose chances compared with yours. If you had stuck you’d be at the head of my engineer corps right now. Baxter is played out. Boone is ill. Henney had to take charge of the shops in Omaha.... And you, with fortune and fame awaiting you, throw up your job to become a bum... to drink and gamble away your life in these rotten camps!”

General Lodge’s scorn flayed Neale.

“Sir, you may not know I--I lost some one--very dear to me. After that I didn’t seem to care.” Neale turned to the window. He was ashamed of what blurred his eyes. “If it hadn’t been for that--I’d never have failed you.”

The chief strode to Neale and put a hand on his shoulder. “Son, I believe you. Maybe I’ve been a little hard. Let’s forget it.” His tone softened and there was a close pressure of his hand. “The thing is now--will you come back on the job?”

“Baxter’s note--Campbell said they’d struck a snag here. You mean help them get by that?”

“Snag! I guess it is a snag. It bids fair to make all our labor and millions of dollars--wasted.... But I’m not asking you to come back just to help us over this snag. I mean will you come back for good--and stick?”