The U. P. Trail Part 15

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 p.r.o.ne to sharp language and action when irritated or angered. Shurd, pa.s.sing 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 c.o.c.ked gun. The man turned ghastly. He seemed just now to have realized the nature of this gaunt flaming-eyed cowboy.

"Sh.o.r.e 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 h.e.l.l 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. Sh.o.r.e I can see death a-comin'. Wal, every day the outfit grows wilder. A little whisky 'll burn h.e.l.l 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. Sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e 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 sh.o.r.e 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 a.n.a.lyze; 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 Pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 hards.h.i.+ps 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 d.a.m.ned the stream, forming a small lake, and here cranes and other aquatic birds had congregated.