by Zane Grey
“Wintered well, but cost me all I had. I’m shore busted,” replied King.
“I’ve plenty of money,” said Neale, “and what’s mine is yours. Come on, Red. We’ll get light packs and hit the trail for the Black Hills.”
“Wal, I reckoned so . . . Neale, it’s shore goin’ to be risky. The Injuns are on the rampage already. You see how this heah camp has growed. Men ridin’ in all since the winter broke. An’ them from west tell some hard stories.”
“I’ve got to go,” replied Neale, with emotion. “It’s nearly a year since I saw Allie. Not a word between us in all that time . . . Red, I can’t stand it longer.”
“Shore, I know,” replied King hastily. “You ain’t reckonin’ I wanted to crawfish? I’ll go. We’ll pack light, hit the trail at night, an’ hide up in the daytime.”
Neale had arrived in North Platte before noon and before sunset he and King were far out on the slow-rising bulge of plain land toward the west.
* * * * *
Traveling by night, camping by day, they soon left behind the monotonous plains of Nebraska. The Sioux had been active for two summers along the southern trails of Wyoming. The Texan’s long training on the ranges stood them in good stead here. His keen eye for tracks and smoke and distant objects, his care in hiding trails and selecting camps, and his skill and judgment in all pertaining to the horses—these made the journey possible. For they saw Indian signs more than once before the Black Hills loomed up in the distance. More than one flickering campfire they avoided by a wide detour.
Slingerland’s valley showed all the signs of early summer. The familiar trail, however, bore no tracks of horse or man or beast. A heavy rain had fallen recently, and it would have obliterated tracks.
Neale’s suspense sustained the added burden of dread. In the oppressive silence of the valley he read some nameless reason for fear. The trail seemed the same, the brook flowed and murmured as of old, the trees shone soft and green, but there was a difference Neale sensed. He dared not look at King for confirmation of his fears. The valley had not of late been lived in!
Neale rode hard up the trail under the pines. A blackened heap lay where once the cabin had stood! Neale’s heart gave a terrible leap, and then seemed to cease beating. He could not breathe or speak or move. His eyes were wide on the black remains of Slingerland’s cabin.
“God almighty!” gasped King, and he put out a shaking hand to clutch Neale. “The Injuns! I always feared this . . . spite of Slingerland’s talk.”
The feel of King’s fierce fingers, like hot stinging arrows in his flesh, pierced Neale’s mind and made him realize his stunned faculties. It seemed to loosen the vise-like hold upon his muscles—to liberate his tongue.
He fell off his horse. “Red! Look . . . look around!”
Allie was gone! The disappointment at not seeing her was crushing and the fear of utter loss was terrible. Neale lay on the ground, blind, sick, full of agony, with his fingers tearing the grass. The evil presentiments that had haunted him for months had not been groundless fancies. Perhaps Allie had called to him again in another hour of calamity, and this time he had not responded. She was gone! That idea struck him cold. It meant the most dreadful of all happenings possible for him. For a while he lay there, prostrate under the shock. He was aware when King came and sat down beside him.
“No sign of anyone,” he said huskily. “Not even a track! Thet fire must hev been aboot two weeks ago. Mebbe more, but not much. There’s been a big rain an’ the ground’s all washed clean an’ smooth . . . Not a track.”
It was the cowboy’s habit to calculate the past movements of people and horses by the nature of the tracks they left.
Then Neale awoke to violence. He sprang up and rushed to the ruins of the cabin, frantically tore and dug around the burnt embers, and did not leave off until he had overhauled the whole pile. There was nothing but ashes and embers. Whereupon he ran to the empty corrals, to the sheds, to the woodpile, to the spring, and all around the space once so habitable. There was nothing to check his fierce energy—nothing to scrutinize. Already the grass was springing up in the trails and the spots that had once been bare.
Neale halted, sweating, hot, wild, before his friend. King avoided his gaze.
“She’s gone . . . she’s gone!” Neale panted.
“Wal, mebbe Slingerland moved camp and burned this place,” suggested King. “He was sore after them four road agents rustled in heah.”
“No . . . no. He’d have left the cabin. In case he moved . . . Allie was to write me a note . . . telling me how to find them. I remember . . . we picked out the place to hide the note . . . Oh, she’s gone! She’s gone!”
“Wal then, mebbe Slingerland got away . . . an’ the cabin was burned after.”
“I can’t hope that . . . I tell you . . . it means hell’s opened up before me.”
“Wal, it’s tough, I know, Neale, but mebbe . . .”
Neale wheeled fiercely upon him. “You’re only saying those things! You don’t believe them! Tell me what you do believe.”
“Lord, pard, it couldn’t be no wuss,” replied King, his lean face working. “I figger only one way. This heah Slingerland has left Allie alone . . . Then . . . she was made away with an’ the cabin burned.”
“Indians?”
“Mebbe. But I lean more to the idee of an outfit like thet one what was heah.”
Neale groaned in his torture. “Not that, Red . . . not that! The Indians would kill her . . . scalp her . . . or take her captive into their tribe . . . But a gang of cut-throat ruffians like those . . . My God, if I knew that had happened, it’d kill me.”
King swore at his friend. “It can’t do us any good to go to pieces. Let’s do somethin’.”
“What . . . in heaven’s name!” cried Neale in despair.
“Wal, we can rustle up every trail in these heah Black Hills. Mebbe we can find Slingerland.”
* * * * *
Then began a search—frantic, desperate, and forlorn on the part of Neale—faithful and dogged and keen on the part of King. Neale was like a wild man. He heeded no advice or caution. Only the cowboy’s iron arm saved Neale and his horse. It was imperative to find water and grass, and to eat—which things Neale seemed to have forgotten. He seldom slept or rested or ate. They risked meeting the Sioux in every valley and on every ridge. Neale would have welcomed the sight of Indians; he would have rushed into peril in the madness of his grief. Still, there was hope! He lived all the hours utterly hopelessly, but his heart did not give up. Nor did his spirit receive visitation from Allie’s.
They coursed far and near, always keeping to the streambeds, for if Slingerland had made another camp, it would be near water. More than one trail led nowhere; more than one horse track roused hopes that were futile. The Black Hills country was surely a lonely and wild one, singularly baffling to the searchers, for in two weeks of wide travel it did not yield up a sign or track of man. Neale and King used up all their scant supply of food, threw away all their outfit except a bag of salt, and went on, living on the meat they shot.
Then one day, unexpectedly, they came upon two trappers by a beaver dam. Neale was overcome by his emotion; he sensed that from these men he would learn something. The first look from them told him that his errand was known.
“Howdy,” greeted King. “It shore is good to see you men . . . the first we’ve seen in an awful hunt through these heah hills.”
“Thar ain’t any doubt thet you look it, friend,” replied one of the trappers.
“We’re huntin’ fer Slingerland. Do you happen to know him?”
“Knowed Al fer years. He went through hyar a week ago, jest after the big rain, wasn’t it, Bill?”
“Wal, to be exact, it was eight days ago,” replied the comrade Bill.
“Was . . . he . . . alone?” asked King thickly.
“Sure, an’ lookin’ sick. He lost his girl not long since, he said, an’ it broke him bad.”
“Lost her! How
?”
“Wal, he was sure it wasn’t redskins,” rejoined the trapper reflectively. “Slingerland stood in with the Sioux . . . traded with ’em. He . . .”
“Tell me quick!” hoarsely interrupted Neale. “What happened to Allie Lee?”
“Fellars, my pard heah is hurt deep,” said King. “The girl you spoke of was his sweetheart.”
“Young man, we only know what Al told us,” replied the trapper. “He said the only time he ever left the lass alone . . . was the time she was taken. Al come home to find the cabin red-hot ashes. Everythin’ gone. No sign of the lass. No sign of murder. She was jest carried off. There was tracks . . . hoss tracks an’ boot tracks, to the number of three or four men an’ horses. Al trailed ’em. But thet very night he had to hole up to keep from bein’ drowned, as we had to hyar . . . Wal, next day he couldn’t find any tracks. But he kept on huntin’ fer a few days, an’ then gave up. He said she’d be dead by then . . . said she wasn’t the kind that could have lived more’n a day, with men like them . . . Some hard customers are driftin’ by from the gold fields. An’ Bill an’ I, hyar, ain’t in love with this railroad idee. It’ll ruin the country fer trappin’ an’ livin’!”
* * * * *
Some weeks later a gaunt and ragged cowboy limped into North Platte, walking beside a broken horse, upon the back of which swayed and reeled a rider tied in the saddle. It was not a sight to interest any except the lazy or the curious, for in that day such things were common in North Platte. The horse had bullet creases on his neck; the rider wore a bloody shirt; the gaunt pedestrian had a bandaged arm.
Neale lay ill of a deeper wound while the bullet hole healed in his side. Day and night King tended him or sat near him in a shack on the outskirts of the camp. Shock, grief, starvation, exhaustion, loss of blood and sleep—all these laid Warren Neale close to death. He did not care to live. It was the patient loyal friend who fought fever and heart-break and the ebbing tide of life.
Baxter and Henney visited North Platte and called to see him, and later the chief came and ordered King to take Neale to the tents of the corps. Everyone was kind, solicitous, earnest. He had been missed. He could not be spared. The members of his corps knew of the rescue of Allie Lee—they guessed the romance—and grieved over the tragedy. They did all they could do; the troop doctor added his attention, but it was the nursing, the presence, and the spirit of King that saved Neale.
He got well and he went back to work with the cowboy for his helper.
In that camp of toil and disorder no one but the few with whom Neale was brought in close touch noted anything singular about him. The engineer, however, observed that he did not work so well, nor so energetically, nor so accurately. His enthusiasm was lacking. The cowboy, always with him, was the one who saw the sudden spells of somber abstraction, and the poignant, hopeless, sleepless pain, the eternal regret. And as Neale slackened in his duty, King grew more faithful.
Neale began to drink and gamble. For long the cowboy fought, argued, appealed against this order of things, and then, failing to change or persuade Neale, he went to gambling and drinking with him. But then it was noted that Neale never got under the influence of liquor or lost materially at cards. The cowboy spilled the contents of Neale’s glass and played the game into his hands.
Both of them shrunk from the women of the camp with a strange and unalterable mien. The sight of anything feminine hurt.
* * * * *
North Platte stirred with the quickening stimulus of the approach of the rails and the trains, and the army of soldiers whose duty was to protect the horde of toilers, and the army of tradesmen and parasites who lived off them.
The construction camp of the graders moved on westward, keeping ahead of the camps of the layers.
The first train that reached North Platte brought directors of the U.P.R., among them Warburton and Rudd and Roger—and commissioners Lee and Dunn—and a host of followers on a tour of inspection.
The five miles of Neale’s section of road that the commissioners had judged at fault had been torn up and resurveyed and relaid.
Neale rode back over the line with Baxter, surveyed the renewed part, and, returning to North Platte, precipitated consternation among directors and commissioners and engineers, as they sat in council, by throwing on the table figures of the new survey identical with his old figures.
“Gentlemen, the five miles of track torn up and rebuilt has precisely the same grade, to an inch,” he declared, with ringing scorn.
Baxter corroborated his statement. The commission men roared and the director demanded explanations.
“I’ll explain it!” shouted Neale. “Forty-six thousand dollars a mile! Five miles . . . two hundred and thirty thousand dollars! Spent twice! Taken twice by the same construction company!”
Warburton, a tall white-haired man in a frock coat, got up and pounded the table with his fist.
“Who is this young engineer?” he thundered. “He has the nerve to back his work instead of sneaking to get a bribe. And he tells the truth. We’re building twice . . . spending twice when once is enough.”
An uproar ensued. Neale had cast a bomb into the council. Every man there and all the thousands in camp knew that railroad ties cost several dollars each, that wages were abnormally high, often demanded in advance and paid twice, that parallel with the great spirit of the work ran a greedy and cunning graft. It was inevitable considering the nature and proportions of the enterprise. An absurd law sent out the commissioners—the politicians appointed them—and both had fat pickings. The directors likewise played both ends against the middle—they received the money from stock sales and loans, then paid it out to construction companies, and, as they employed and owned these companies, the money returned to them. But more than one director was fired by the spirit of the project—the good to be done—the splendid achievement—the trade to come from across the Pacific. The building of the road meant more to some of them than a fortune.
Warburton was the lion of this group and he roared down the dissension. Then with a whirl he grasped Neale around the shoulders and shoved him face to face with the others.
“Here’s the kind of men we want on this job!” he shouted, with red face and bulging jaw. “His name’s Neale. I’ve heard of some of his surveys. You’ve all seen him face this council . . . That only, gentlemen, is the spirit which can build the U.P.R. . . . Let’s push him up. Let’s send him to Washington with these figures. Let’s break this damned idiotic law for appointing commissioners to undo the work of efficient men!”
Opportunity was again knocking at Warren Neale’s door.
Allison Lee arose in the flurry, and his calm cold presence, the steel of his hard gray eyes, and the motion of his hand, entitled him to a voice.
“Mister Warburton . . . and gentlemen,” he said, “I remember this young engineer Neale. When I got here today, I inquired about him, remembering that he had taken severe exception to the judgment of the commissioners about that five miles of roadbed. I learned he is a strange, excitable young fellow, who leaves his work for long wild trips, and who is a drunkard and a gambler. It seems to me somewhat absurd to consider the false report with which he has excited this council.”
“It’s not false,” retorted Neale, with flashing eyes. Then he appealed to Warburton and he was white and eloquent. “You directors know better. This man Lee is no engineer. He doesn’t know a foot grade from a forty-five degree slope. Not a man in that outfit had the right or the knowledge to pass judgment on our work. It’s political. It’s a damned outrage. It’s graft.”
Another commissioner bounced up with furious gesture. “We’ll have you fired!” he shouted.
Neale looked at him and back at Allison Lee and then at Warburton. “I quit,” he declared with scorn. “To hell with your rotten railroad!”
Another hubbub threatened in the big tent. Someone yelled for quiet.
And suddenly there was quiet, but it did not come from that individual’s call. A
cowboy had detached himself from the group of curious onlookers and had confronted the council with two big guns held low.
“Red! Hold on!” cried Neale.
It was King. One look at him blanched Neale’s face.
“Everybody sit still an’ let me talk,” drawled King, with the cool reckless manner that now seemed so deadly over those two heavy guns.
No one moved and the silence grew unnatural. The cowboy advanced a few strides. His eyes with a singular piercing intention were bent upon Allison Lee, yet seemed to hold all the others in sight. He held one gun in direct alignment with Lee, low down, and with the other he rapped on the table. The gasp that went up from around that table proved that someone saw the guns were both cocked.
“Did I understand you to say Neale lied about them surveyin’ figgers?” he queried gently.
Allison Lee turned white as a corpse. The cowboy radiated with some dominating force, but the chill in his voice was terrible. It meant that life was nothing to him—or death. What was the U.P.R. to him or its directors or its commissioner or the law? There was no law in that wild camp but the law in his hands. And he knew it.
“Did you say my pard lied?” he repeated.
Allison Lee struggled and choked over a halting: “No.”
The cowboy backed away slowly, carefully, with soft step, and he faced the others as he moved. “I reckon thet’s aboot all,” he said, and, slipping into the crowd, he was gone.
Chapter Eleven
After Neale and King left, Slingerland saw four seasons swing around, in which no visitors violated the loneliness of his valley. All this while he did not leave Allie Lee alone or, at least, out of hearing. When he went to tend his traps or to hunt, to chop wood or to watch the trail, Allie always accompanied him. She grew strong and supple; she could walk far and carry a rifle or pack; she was keen of eye and ear, and she loved the wilds; she not only was of help to him, but she made the time pass swiftly.