the U P Trail (1940)

by Grey, Zane

  Up there the snow had blown away in places, leaving bare spots, bleak, icy, barren, stark. No smoke appeared to rise above the dugout. The rude habitation looked as though no man had been there that winter. Neale glanced in swift dismay at Slingerland.

  "Son, look fer the wust," he said. "An' we hain'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 into the dugout 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 which could be turned over to the engineering staff.

  Slingerland found a pick and shovel, which Neale remembered to have used in building the dugout; 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 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 pass 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 in 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 she 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 instinctively felt that these men were to crop up somewhere in his life, and before they did appear he wanted to marry Allie. She was now 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 Larry and Slingerland, had dwelt long and conjecturingly upon what life was going to be in the construction camps.

  To Larry 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 was 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."

  "But, man, can't you imagine what it will be?" protested Neale. "Take thousands of soldiers; the riffraff of the war; and thousands of laborers of all classes, niggers, greasers, pigtail chinks, and Irish. Take thousands of men who want to earn an honest dollar, but not honestly. All the gamblers, outlaws, robbers, murderers, criminals, adventurers in the States, and perhaps many from abroad, will be on the trail. Think, man, of the money; the gold! Millions spilled out in these wilds! ... And last and worst; the bad women!"

  Slingerland showed his amazement at the pictures drawn by Neale, especially at the final one.

  "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 overnightall full of bad people who ain't workin' on the railroad, but 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 Larry 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 on 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 intent.

  "Way off the beaten track up hyar," said one.

  "Yes. I'm a trapper," replied Slingerland. "Whar do you hail from?"

  "Ogden. We're packin' east."

  "Much travel on the trail?"

  "Right smart fer wild country. An' all goin' east. We hain't met an outfit headin' west. Hev you heerd any talk of a railroad buildin' out of Omaha?"

  Here Larry put a word in.

  "Shore. We've had soldiers campin' around aboot all heah."

  "Soldiers!" ejaculated one of the gang.

  "Shore, the road's bein' built by soldiers."

  The men made no further comment and turned away without any good- bys.

  Slingerland called out to them to have an eye open for Indians on the war-path.

  "Wal, I don't like the looks of them fellars," he declared.

  Neale likewise took an unfavorable view of the visit, but Larry scouted the idea of there being any danger in a gang like that.

  "Shore they'd be afraid of a man," he declared.

  "Red, can you look at men and tell whether or not there's danger in them?" inquired Neale.

  "I shore can. One man could bluff thet outfit.... But I reckon I'd hate to have them find Allie aboot heah alone."

  "I can take care of myself," spoke up Allie, spiritedly.

  Neale and Slingerland, for all their respect for the cowboy's judgment, regarded the advent of these visitors as a forerunner of an evil time for lonely trappers.

  "I'll hev to move back deeper in the mountains, away from the railroad," said

  Slingerland.

  This incident also put a different light upon the intention Neale had of hunting for the buried gold. Just now he certainly did not want to risk being seen digging gold or packi
ng it away; and Slingerland was just as loath to have it concealed in or near his cabin.

  "Wal, seein' we're not sure it's really there, let's wait till you come back in summer or fall," he suggested. "If it's thar it'll stay thar."

  All too soon the dawn came for Neale's departure with Larry. Allie was braver than he. At the last he was white and shaken. She kissed Larry.

  "Reddy, you'll take care of yourself; and him," she said.

  "Allie, I shore will. Good-by." Larry rode down the trail in the dim gray dawn.

  "Watch sharp for Indians," she breathed, and her face whitened momentarily. Then the color returned. Her eyes welled full of sweet, soft light.

  "Allie, I can't go," said Neale, hoarsely. The clasp of her arms unnerved him.

  "You must. It's your work. Remember the big job! ... Dearest! Dearest!

  Hurry; and; go!"

  Neale could no longer see her face clearly. He did not know what he was saying.

  "You'll always; love me?" he implored.

  "Do you need to ask? All my life! ... I promise."

  "Kiss me, then," he whispered, hoarsely, blindly leaning down. "It's hell; to leave you! ... Wonderful girl; treasure; precious; Allie! ... Kiss me; enough! ...

  She held him with strong and passionate clasp and kissed him again and again.

  "Good-by!" Her last word was low, choked, poignant, and had in it a mournful reminder of her old tragic woe.

  Then he was alone. Mounting clumsily, with blurred eyes, he rode into the winding trail.

  Chapter 10

  Neale and King traveled light, without pack-animals, and at sunrise they reached the main trail.

  It bore evidence of considerable use and was no longer a trail, but a highroad.

  Fresh tracks of horses and oxen, wagon-wheel ruts, dead camp-fires, and scattered brush that had been used for wind-breaks; all these things attested to the growing impetus of that movement; soon it was to become extraordinary.

  All this was Indian country. Neale and his companion had no idea whether or not the Sioux had left their winter quarters for the war- path. But it was a vast region, and the Indians could not be everywhere. Neale and King took chances, as had all these travelers, though perhaps the risk was not so great, because they rode fleet horses. They discovered no signs of Indians, and it appeared as if they were alone in a wilderness.

  They covered sixty miles from early dawn to dark, with a short rest at noon, and reached Fort Fetterman safely without incident or accident. Troops were there, but none of the U. P. engineering staff. Neale did not meet any soldiers with whom he was acquainted. Orders were there for him, however, to report to North

  Platte as soon as it was possible to reach there. Troops were to be moving soon, so Neale learned, and the long journey could be made in comparative safety.

  Here Neale received the tidings that forty miles of railroad had been built during the last summer, and trains had been run that distance west from Omaha.

  His heart swelled. Not for many a week had he heard anything favorable to the great U. P. project, and here was news of rails laid, trains run. Already this spring the graders were breaking ground far ahead of the rail-layers. Report and rumor at the fort had it that lively times had attended the construction. But the one absorbing topic was the Sioux Indians, who were expected to swarm out of the hills that summer and give the troops hot work.

  In due time Neale and Larry arrived at North Platte, which was little more than a camp. The construction gangs were not expected to reach there until late in the fall. Baxter was at North Platte, with a lame surveyor, and no other helpers; consequently he hailed Neale and Larry with open arms. A summer's work on the hot monotonous plains stared Neale in the face, but he must resign himself to the inevitable. He worked, as always, with that ability and energy which had made him invaluable to his superiors. Here, however, the labor was a dull, hot grind, without any thrills. Neale filled the long days with duty and seldom let his mind-wander. In leisure hours, however, he dreamed of Allie and the future. He found no trouble in passing time that way. Also he watched eagerly for arrivals from the west, whom he questioned about Indians in the

  Wyoming hills; and from troops or travelers coming from the east he heard all the news of the advancing railroad construction. It was absorbingly interesting, yet Neale could credit so few of the tales.

  The summer and early fall passed.

  Neale was ordered to Omaha. The news stunned him. He had built all his hopes on another winter out in the Wyoming hills, and this disappointment was crushing.

  It made him ill for a day. He almost threw up his work. It did not seem possible to live that interminable stretch without seeing Allie Lee. The nature of his commission, however, brought once again to mind the opportunity that knocked at his door. Neale had run all the different surveys for bridges in the Wyoming hills and now he was needed in the office of the staff, where plans and drawings were being made. Again he bowed to the inevitable. But he determined to demand in the spring that he be sent ahead to the forefront of the construction work.

  Another disappointment seemed in order. Larry King refused to go any farther back east. Neale was exceedingly surprised.

  "Do you throw up your job?" he asked.

  "Shore not. I can work heah," replied Larry.

  "There won't be any outside work on these bleak plains in winter."

  "Wal, I reckon I'll loaf, then," he drawled.

  Neale could not change him. Larry vowed he would take his old place with Neale next spring, if it should be open to him.

  "But why? Red, I can't figure you," protested Neale.

  "Pard, I reckon I'm fur enough back east right heah," said Larry, significantly.

  A light dawned upon Neale. "Red! You've done something bad!" exclaimed Neale, in genuine dismay.

  "Wal, I don't know jest how bad it was, but it shore was hell," replied Larry, with a grin.

  "Red, you aren't afraid," asserted Neale, positively.

  The cowboy flushed and looked insulted. "If any one but you said thet to me he'd hev to eat it."

  "I beg your pardon, old man. But I'm surprised. It doesn't seem like you.... And then; Lord! I'll miss you."

  "No more 'n I'll miss you, pard," replied Larry.

  Suddenly Neale had a happy thought. "Red, you go back to Slingerland's and help take care of Allie. I'd feel she was safer."

  "Wal, she might be safer, but I wouldn't be," declared the cowboy, bluntly.

  "You red-head! What do you mean?" demanded Neale.

  "I mean this heah. If I stayed around another winter near Allie Lee- -with her alone, fer thet trapper never set up before thet fire; I'd; why, Neale, I'd ambush you like an Injun when you come back!"

  "You wouldn't," rejoined Neale. He wanted to laugh but had no mirth.

  Larry did not mean that, but neither did he mean to be funny. "I'll be hangin' round heah, waitin' fer you. It's only a few months. Go on to your work, pard.

  You'll be a big man on the road some day."

  Neale left North Platte with a wagon-train.

  After a long, slow journey the point was reached where the graders had left off work for that year. Here had been a huge construction camp; and the bare and squalid place looked as if it once had been a town of crudest make, suddenly wrecked by a cyclone and burned by prairie fire. Fifty miles farther on, representing two more long, tedious, and unendurable days, and Neale heard the whistle of a locomotive. It came from far off. But it was a whistle. He yelled, and the men journeying with him joined in.

  Smoke showed on the horizon, together with a wide, low, uneven line of shacks and tents.

  Neale was all eyes when he rode into that construction camp. The place was a bedlam. A motley horde of men appeared to be doing everything under the sun but work, and most of them seemed particularly eager to board a long train of box-cars and little old passenger-coaches. Neale made a dive for the train, and his sojourn in that camp was a short and exciting one of ten minutes.
<
br />   He felt unutterably proud. He had helped survey the line along which the train was now rattling and creaking and swaying. All that swiftly passed under his keen eyes was recorded in his memory; the uncouth crowd of laborers, the hardest lot he had ever seen; the talk, noise, smoke; the rickety old clattering coaches; the wayside dumps and heaps and wreckage. But they all seemed parts of a beautiful romance to him. Neale saw through the eyes of golden ambition and illimitable dreams.

  And not for a moment of that endless ride, with interminable stops, did he weary of the two hundred and sixty miles of rails laid that year, and of the forty miles of the preceding year. Then came Omaha, a beehive; the making of a Western metropolis!

  Neale plunged into the bewildering turmoil of plans, tasks, schemes, land-grants, politics, charters, inducements, liens and loans, Government and army and State and national interests, grafts and deals and bosses-all that mass of selfish and unselfish motives, all that wealth of cunning and noble aims, all that congested assemblage of humanity which went to make up the building of the

  Union Pacific.

  Neale was a dreamer, like the few men whose minds had first given birth to the wonderful idea of a railroad from East to West. Neale found himself confronted by a singularly disturbing fact. However grand this project, its political and mercenary features could not be beautiful to him. Why could not all men be right-minded about a noble cause and work unselfishly for the development of the

  West and the future generations? It was a melancholy thing to learn that men of sincere and generous purpose had spent their all trying to raise the money to build the Union Pacific; on the other hand, it was a satisfaction to hear that many capitalists with greedy claws had ruined themselves in like efforts.

  The President of the United States and Congress had their own troubles at the close of the war, and the Government could do but little money-raising with land-grants and loans. But they offered a great bonus to the men who would build the railroad.