by Grey, Zane
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."
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 wi
ld 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
