by Zane Grey
“How do I look?” he queried, seeing the joyousness of her surprise.
Then she laughed and that was new to him—a sound low, unutterably rich and full, sweet-toned like a bell, and all of youth. “Oh, you look like Durade when he was gambling away his soul . . . you should see him.”
“Well, how’s that?”
“So white . . . so terrible . . . so piercing.”
Neale drew her closer, slipped her arms farther up around his neck. “I’m gambling my soul away now,” he said. “If I kiss you, I lose it . . . and I must.”
“Must what?” she whispered, with all a woman’s charm.
“I must kiss you.”
“Then hurry.”
So their lips met.
In the sweetness of that embrace, in the simplicity and answering passion of her kiss, in the overwhelming sense of her gift of herself, heart and soul, he found a strength, a restraint, a nobler fire that gave him peace.
* * * * *
Allie was to amaze Neale again before the sun set on that memorable day.
“I forgot to tell you about the gold!” she exclaimed, her voice fading.
“Gold!” Neale ejaculated.
“Yes. He buried it . . . there . . . under the biggest of the three trees together. Near a rock . . . Oh, I can see him now.”
“Him? Who? Allie, what’s this wild talk?”
She pressed his hand to enjoin silence. “Listen. Horn had gold. How much I don’t know. But it must have been a great deal. He owned the caravan with which we left California. Horn grew to like me. But he hated all the rest . . . That night we ended the awful ride! The wagons stalled! The grayness of dawn . . . in the stillness . . . Oh, I feel them now! That terrible Indian yell rang out. All my life I’ll hear it! Then Horn dug a hole. He buried his gold . . . And he said whoever escaped could have it. He had no hope.”
“Allie, you’re a mine of surprises. Buried gold! What next?”
“Neale, I wonder . . . did the Sioux find that gold?” she asked.
“It’s not likely. There certainly isn’t any hole left open around that place. I saw every inch of ground under those trees . . . Allie, I’ll go there tomorrow . . . hunt for it.”
“Let me go,” she implored. “Ah! I forgot! No . . . no! There must be my mother’s grave.”
“Yes, it’s there. I saw. I will mark it . . . Allie, how glad I am that you can speak of her . . . of her past . . . her grave there without weakening. You are brave. But forget . . . Allie, if I find that gold, it’ll be yours.”
“No. Yours.”
“But I was not one of that caravan. He did not give it to any outsider. You escaped. Therefore it will belong to you.”
“Dearest, I am yours.”
* * * * *
Next day, without acquainting Slingerland or King with his purpose, Neale rode down the valley trail. He expected the trail to cross the old St. Vrain and Laramie Trail, but if it did cross, he could not find the place. It was easy to lose bearings in these hills. Neale had to abandon the hunt for that day, and, turning back with some annoyance at his failure, he decided it would be best to take King and Slingerland into his confidence.
Allie was waiting for him at the brook ford. “Oh, it was gone!” she cried.
“Allie, I couldn’t find the place. Come, ride back and let me walk beside you . . . We’ll have fun telling Red and Slingerland.”
“Neale, let me tell them,” she begged.
“Go ahead. Make it a strong story. Red always had leanings toward gold strikes.”
And that night, after supper, when the log fire had begun to blaze and all were comfortable before it, Allie glanced demurely at King and said: “Reddy, if you had known that I was heiress to great wealth, would you have proposed to me?”
Slingerland roared. King seemed utterly stricken.
“Wealth,” he echoed feebly.
“Yes. Gold! Lots of gold!”
Slingerland’s merry face suddenly grew curious and earnest.
King struggled with his discomfiture. “I reckon I’d . . . done that anyhow . . . without knowin’ you was rich . . . if it hadn’t been fer this heah U.P. surveyor fellar!”
And then the joke was on Allie as her blushes proved. Neale came to her rescue and told the story of Horn’s buried gold, and of his own search that day for the place.
“Shore I’ll find it,” declared King. “We’ll go tomorrow . . .”
Slingerland stroked his beard thoughtfully. “If there’s gold been buried thar, it’s sure an’ certain thar yet,” he said. “But I’m afraid we won’t get thar tomorrow.”
“Why not? Surely you or Red can find the place?”
“Listen.”
Neale listened while he was watching Allie’s parted lips and speaking eyes. A low whining wind swept through the trees and over the roof of the cabin.
“Thet wind says snow,” declared the trapper.
Neale went outside. The wind struck him, cold and keen, with a sharper edge to it. The stars showed, pale and dim, through hazy atmosphere. Assuredly there was a storm brewing. Neale returned to the fire, shivering and holding his palms to the heat.
“Cold, you bet, with the wind rising,” he said. “But, Slingerland, suppose it does snow. Can’t we go anyhow?”
“It ain’t likely. You see it snows up hyar. Mebbe we’ll be snowed in fer a spell. An’ thet valley is open down thar. In deep snow what could we find? We’ll wait an’ see.”
On the morrow a storm raged and all was dim through a ghostly whirling pall. The season of drifting snow had come and Neale’s winter work had begun.
* * * * *
Five miles by short cut over the ridges curved the long survey over which Neale must keep watch, and the going and coming were Neale’s hardest toil. It was laborious to trudge up and down in soft snow.
That first snow of winter, however, did not last long, except in the sheltered places. Fortunately for Neale almost all of his section of the survey ran over open ground. But this fact augured seriously for his task when the dry and powdery snow of midwinter began to fall and sweep before the wind and drift over the lee side of the ridge.
During the first week of tramping he thoroughly learned the lay of the land, the topography of his particular stretch of Sherman Pass. And one day, taking an early start from camp, he set forth to make his first call upon his nearest associate in this work, the engineer, Service. Once high up on the pass he found the snow had not all melted, and still higher it lay white and unbroken as far as he could see. The air was keener up there. Neale gathered that Service would have a colder job than his own, if it was not so long and hard.
He found Service at home in his dug-out, warm and comfortable, and in excellent spirits. They compared notes and, even in this early work, decided it would be a wise plan for the engineering staff to study the problem of drifting snow.
Neale enjoyed a meal with Service, and then early in the afternoon he started back on his long tramp homeward. He gathered from his visit that Service did not mind the loneliness but he did suffer from the cold more than he had expected. Service was not an active full-blooded man, and Neale had some misgivings. Judging from the trapper’s remarks, winter high up in the Black Hills was something to dread.
November brought the real storms—the gray banks of rolling clouds—the rain and sleet and snow and ice—and the wind. Neale concluded he had never before faced a real wind, and, when one day on a ridge top he was blown off his feet, he was sure of it. Some days he could not go out at all. Other days it was not imperative, for it was only during and after snowstorms that he could make observations. He learned to travel on snowshoes, and ten miles of such traveling up and down the steep slopes was the most killing hard toil he had ever attempted. After such trips he would reach the cabin utterly fagged out, too tired to eat, too weary to talk, almost too dead to hear the solicitations of his friends, or to appreciate Allie’s tender anxious care. If he had not been strong and robust and in good training
to begin with, he would have failed under the burden. Gradually he became used to the strenuous toil and grew hardened, tough, and enduring.
Although Neale hated the cold and the wind, there were moments when an exceedingly keen exhilaration uplifted him. These experiences visited him while on the heights looking far over the snowy ridges to the white monotonous plain or up toward the shining peaks. All seemed barren and cold. The old wildness did not strike him up there. He never saw a living creature or a track upon those slopes. When the sun shone, all was so dazzlingly, glaringly white that his eyes were struck by blindness.
Upon one of the milder days, which were getting rarer in mid-December, Neale again visited his comrade on the summit. He found Service in bad shape. In falling down a slippery ledge he had injured or broken his lame leg. Neale with great concern tried to ascertain the nature and extent of the harm done, but he was unable to do so. Service was practically helpless, but not suffering any great pain. The two of them decided at length that he had not broken any bones, but that it was necessary to move him to where he could be waited upon and treated, or else have someone with him there for that purpose.
Neale deliberated a moment.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said finally. “You can be moved down to Slingerland’s cabin without pain to you. I’ll get Slingerland and his sled. You’ll be more comfortable there. It’ll be better all around.”
So that was decided upon. And Neale, after doing all he could for Service, and assuring him that he would return in less than twenty-four hours, turned his steps for the valley.
The sunset that night struck him as singularly dull, pale, menacing. He understood its meaning later when Slingerland said they were in for another storm. Before dark the wind began to moan through the trees like lost spirits. The trapper shook his shaggy head ominously. “Reckon that sounds bad to me,” he said. And from moan it rose to wail and from wail to roar.
That alarmed Neale. He went outside and Slingerland followed. Snow was sweeping down—light, dry, powdery. The wind was piercingly cold. Slingerland yelled something, but Neale could not distinguish what. When they got back inside, the trapper said: “Blizzard.”
Neale grew distressed.
“Wal, no use to worry about Service,” argued the trapper. “If it is a blizzard, we can’t git up thar, thet’s all. Mebbe this’ll not be so bad. But I ain’t bettin’ on thet.”
Even Allie could not cheer Neale that night. Long after she and the others had retired, he kept up the fire and listened to the roar of wind. When the fire died down a little, the cabin grew uncomfortably cold, and this fact attested to a continually dropping temperature. But he hoped against hope, and finally sought his blankets.
Morning came, but the cabin was almost as dark as by night. A blinding, swirling snowstorm obscured the sun.
A blizzard raged for forty-eight hours. When the snow finally ceased falling, the cold increased until Neale guessed the temperature was forty degrees below zero. The trapper claimed sixty. It was necessary to stay indoors till the weather moderated.
On the fifth morning Slingerland was persuaded to attempt the trip up to aid Service. King wanted to accompany them, but Slingerland said he had better stay with Allie. So, muffled up, the two men set out on snowshoes, dragging a sled. A crust had frozen on the snow, otherwise traveling would have been impossible. Once up on the slope the northwest wind hit them squarely in the face. Heavily clad as he was, Neale thought the very marrow in his bones would freeze. That wind blew through him. There were places where it took both men to hold the sled to keep it from blowing away. They were blown back one step for every two steps they made. On the exposed heights they could not walk upright. At last, after hours of desperate effort they got over the ridge to a sheltered side along which they labored up to Service’s dug-out.
Up there the snow had blown away in places leaving bare spots, bleak, icy, barren, stark. No smoke appeared to rise above the dug-out. The rude habitation looked as if no man had been there that winter. Neale glanced in swift dismay at Slingerland.
“Son, look fer the wust,” he said. “An’ we haven’t got time to waste.”
They pushed open the canvas framework of a door and, stooping low, passed inside. Neale’s glance saw first the fireplace, where no fire had burned for days. Snow had sifted in the dug-out and lay in little drifts everywhere. The blankets on the bunk covered Service, hiding his face. Both men knew before they uncovered him what his fate had been.
“Frozen to death!” gasped Neale.
Service lay white, rigid, like stone, with no sign of suffering upon his face.
“He jest went to sleep . . . an’ never woke up,” declared Slingerland.
“Thank God for that!” exclaimed Neale. “Oh, why did I not stay with him!”
“Too late, son. An’ many a good man will go to his death before thet damn’ railroad is done.”
Neale searched for Service’s notes and letters and valuables that could be turned over to the engineering staff.
Slingerland found a pick and shovel, which Neale remembered to have used in building the dug-out, and with these the two men toiled at the frozen sand and gravel to open up a grave. It was like digging in stone. At length they succeeded. Then, rolling Service in the blankets and tarpaulin, they lowered him into the cold ground, and hurriedly filled up his grave.
It was a grim gruesome task. Another nameless grave! Neale had already seen nine graves. This one was up the slope not a hundred feet from the line of the survey.
“Slingerland!” exclaimed Neale. “The railroad will run along there. Trains will pass this spot. In years to come travelers will look out of the train windows along here. Boys riding away to seek their fortunes. Bride and groom on their honeymoon. Thousands of people going . . . coming . . . busy, happy at their own affairs, full of their own lives, will go by poor Service’s grave and never know it’s there.”
“Wal, son, if people must hev railroads, they must kill men to build them,” replied the trapper.
Neale conceived the idea that Slingerland did not welcome the coming of the steel rails. The thought shocked him. But then, he reflected, a trapper would not profit by the advance of civilization.
With the wind at their backs Neale and Slingerland were practically blown home. They made it up between them to keep knowledge of the tragedy from Allie. So ended the coldest and hardest and grimmest day Neale had ever known.
* * * * *
The winter passed, the snows melted, the winds quieted, and spring came.
Long since, Neale had decided to leave Allie with Slingerland that summer. She would be happy there and wished to stay until Neale could take her with him. That seemed out of the question for the present. A construction camp full of troopers and laborers was no place for Allie. Neale dreaded the idea of taking her to Omaha. Always in his mind were haunting fears of this Spaniard Durade who had ruined Allie’s mother, and of the father whom Allie had never seen. Neale intuitively felt that these men were to crop up somewhere in his life, and, before they did appear, he wanted to marry Allie. She was little more than sixteen years old.
Neale’s plans for the summer could not be wholly known until he had reported to the general staff, which might be at Fort Fetterman or North Platte, or all the way back in Omaha. But it was probable that he would be set to work with the advancing troops and trains and laborers. Engineers had to accompany both the grading gangs and the rail gangs.
Neale, in his talks with King and Slingerland, had dwelt long and conjecturingly upon what life was going to be in the construction camps. To King what might happen was of little moment. He lived in the present. But Neale was different. He had to be anticipating events; he lived in the future, his mind centered on future work, achievement, and what he might go through in attaining his end. Slingerland was his appreciative listener.
“Wal,” he would say, shaking his grizzled head, “I reckon I don’t believe all your General Lodge says is goin’ to happen.”
Slingerland showed his amazement. This feature was a new one in his conception of the construction work.
“Wal, I reckon thet’s all guff, too,” he said. “A lot of bad women out in these wilds ain’t to be feared. Supposin’ thar was a lot of them . . . which ain’t likely . . . how’d they ever git out to the camps?”
“Slingerland, the trains . . . the trains will follow the laying of the rails.”
“Oho! An’ you mean thar’ll be towns grow up overnight . . . all full of bad people who ain’t workin’ on the railroad . . . jest followin’ the gold?”
“Exactly. Now, listen. Remember all these mixed gangs . . . the gold . . . and the bad women . . . out here in the wild country . . . no law . . . no restraint . . . no fear, except of death . . . drinking hells . . . gambling hells . . . dancing hells! What’s going to happen?”
The trapper meditated a while, stroking his beard, and then he said: “Wal, thar ain’t enough gold to build thet railroad . . . an’, if thar was, it couldn’t never be done.”
“Ah!” cried Neale, raising his head sharply. “It’s a matter of gold first. Streams of gold . . . and then . . . can it be done?”
* * * * *
One day, as the time for Neale’s departure grew closer, Slingerland’s quiet and peaceful valley was violated by a visit from four rough-looking men.
They rode in without packs. It was significant to Neale that King swore at sight of them, and then in his cool easy way sauntered between them and the cabin door, where Allie stood with astonishment fixed in her beautiful face. The Texan always packed his heavy gun and certainly no Western men would mistake his quality. These visitors were civil enough, asked for a little tobacco, and showed no sign of evil intention.