The U. P. Trail Part 79

"Wal, wal!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the trapper, stroking his beard in thoughtful sorrow. "But I reckon thet's natural, too. You're strange hyar, an' thet story will hang over you.... La.s.s, with all due respect to your father, I reckon you'd better come back to me an' Neale."

"Did he tell you--to say that?" she whispered, tremulously.

"Lord, no!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Slingerland.

"Does he--care--for me still?"

"La.s.s, he's dyin' fer you--an' I never spoke a truer word."

Allie shuddered close to him, blinded, stormed by an exquisite bitter-sweet fury of love. She seemed rising, uplifted, filled with rich, strong joy.

"I forgave him," she murmured, dreamily low to herself.

"War, mebbe you'll be right glad you did--presently," said Slingerland, with animation. "'Specially when thar wasn't nothin' much to forgive."

Allie became mute. She could not lift her eyes.

"La.s.s, listen!" began Slingerland. "After you left Roarin' City Neale went at hard work. Began by heavin' ties an' rails, an' now he's slingin' a sledge.... This was amazin' to me. I seen him only onct since, an' thet was the other day. But I heerd about him. I rode over to Roarin' City several times. An' I made it my bizness to find out about Neale.... He never came into the town at all. They said he worked like a slave the first day, bleedin' hard. But he couldn't be stopped. An' the work didn't kill him, though thar was some as swore it would. They said he changed, an' when he toughened up thar was never but one man as could equal him, an' thet was an Irish feller named Casey. I heerd it was somethin' worth while to see him sling a sledge.... Wal, I never seen him do it, but mebbe I will yet.

"A few days back I met him gettin' off a train at Roarin' City. Lord! I hardly knowed him! He stood like an Injun, with the big muscles bulgin', an' his face was clean an' dark, his eye like fire.... He nearly shook the daylights out of me. 'Slingerland, I want you!' he kept yellin' at me. An' I said, 'So it 'pears, but what fer?' Then he told me he was goin' after the gold thet Horn had buried along the old Laramie Trail.

Wal, I took my outfit, an' we rode back into the hills. You remember them. Wal, we found the gold, easy enough, an' we packed it back to Roarin' City. Thar Neale sent me off on a train to fetch the gold to you. An' hyar I I am an' thar's the gold."

Allie stared at the pack, bewildered by Slingerland's story. Suddenly she sat up and she felt the blood rush to her cheeks.

"Gold! Horn's gold! But it's not mine! Did Neale send it to me?"

"Every ounce," replied the trapper, soberly. "I reckon it's yours.

Thar was no one else left--an' you recollect what Horn said. La.s.s, it's yours--an' I'm goin' to make you keep it."

"How much is there?" queried Allie, with thrills of curiosity. How well she remembered Horn! He had told her he had no relatives. Indeed, the gold was hers.

"Wal, Neale an' me couldn't calkilate how much, hevin' nothin' to weigh the gold. But it's a fortune."

Allie turned from the pack to the earnest face of the trapper. There had been many critical moments in her life, but never one with the suspense, the fullness, the inevitableness of this.

"Did Neale send anything else?" she flashed.

"Wal, yes, an' I was comin' to thet," replied Slingerland, as he unlaced the front of his hunting-frock. Presently he drew forth a little leather note-book, which he handed to Allie. She took it while looking up at him. Never had she seen his face radiate such strange emotion. She divined it to be the supreme happiness inherent in the power to give happiness.

Allie trembled. She opened the little book. Surely it would contain a message that would be as sweet as life to dying eyes. She read a name, written in ink, in a clear script: "Beauty Stanton."

Her pulses ceased to beat, her blood to flow, her heart to throb. All seemed to freeze within her except her mind. And that leaped fearfully over the first lines of a letter--then feverishly on to the close--only to fly back and read again. Then she dropped the book. She hid her face on Slingerland's breast. She clutched him with frantic hands. She clung there, her body all held rigid, as if some extraordinary strength or inspiration or joy had suddenly inhibited weakness.

"Wal, la.s.s, hyar you're takin' it powerful hard--an' I made sure--"

"Hus.h.!.+" whispered Allie, raising her face. She kissed him. Then she sprang up like a bent sapling released. She met Slingerland's keen gaze--saw him start--then rise as if the better to meet a shock.

"I am going back West with you," she said, coolly.

"Wal, I knowed you'd go."

"Divide that gold. I'll leave half for my father." Slingerland's great hands began to pull at the pack.

"Thar's a train soon. I calkilated to stay over a day. But the sooner the better.... La.s.s, will you run off or tell him?"

"I'll tell him. He can't stop me, even if he would.... The gold will save him from ruin....He will let me go."

She stooped to pick up the little leather note-book and placed it in her bosom. Her heart seemed to surge against it. The great river rolled on--rolled on--magnified in her sight. A thick, rich, beautiful light shone under the trees. What was this dance of her blood while she seemed so calm, so cool, so sure?

"Does he have any idea--that I might return to him?" she asked.

"None, la.s.s, none! Thet I'll swear," declared Slingerland. "When I left him at Roarin' City the other day he was--wal, like he used to be. The boy come out in him again, not jest the same, but brave. Sendin' thet gold an' thet little book made him happy.... I reckon Neale found his soul then. An' he never expects to see you again in this hyar world."

35

Building a railroad grew to be an exact and wonderful science with the men of the Union Pacific, from engineers down to the laborers who ballasted and smoothed the road-bed.

Wherever the work-trains stopped there began a hum like a bee-hive.

Gangs loaded rails on a flat-car, and the horses or mules were driven at a gallop to the front. There two men grasped the end of a rail and began to slide it off. In couples, other laborers of that particular gang laid hold, and when they had it off the car they ran away with it to drop it in place. While they were doing this other gangs followed with more rails. Four rails laid to the minute! When one of the cars was empty it was tipped off the track to make room for the next one. And as that next one pa.s.sed the first was levered back again on the rails to return for another load.

Four rails down to the minute! It was Herculean toil. The men who fitted the rails were cursed the most frequently, because they took time, a few seconds, when there was no time.

Then the spikers! These brawny, half-naked, sweaty giants--what a grand spanging music of labor rang from under their hammers! Three strokes to a spike for most spikers! Only two strokes for such as Casey or Neale!

Ten spikes to a rail--four hundred rails to a mile! ... How many million times had brawny arms swung and sledges clanged!

Forward every day the work-trains crept westward, closer and closer to that great hour when they would meet the work-trains coming east.

The momentum now of the road-laying was tremendous. The spirit that nothing could stop had become embodied in a scientific army of toilers, a ma.s.s, a machine, ponderous, irresistible, moving on to the meeting of the rails.

Every day the criss-cross of ties lengthened out along the winding road-bed, and the lines of glistening rails kept pace with them. The sun beat down hot--the dust flew in sheets and puffs--the smoky veils floated up from the desert. Red-s.h.i.+rted toilers, blue-s.h.i.+rted toilers, half-naked toilers, sweat and bled, and laughed grimly, and sucked at their pipes, and bent their broad backs. The pace had quickened to the limit of human endurance. Fury of sound filled the air. Its rhythmical pace was the mighty gathering impetus of a last heave, a last swing.

Promontory Point was the place destined to be famous as the meeting of the rails.

On that summer day in 1869, which was to complete the work, special trains arrived from west and east. The Governor of California, who was also president of the western end of the line, met the Vice-President of the United States and the directors of the Union Pacific. Mormons from Utah were there in force. The Government was represented by officers and soldiers in uniform; and these, with their military band, lent the familiar martial air to the last scene of the great enterprise. Here mingled the Irish and Negro laborers from the east with the Chinese and Mexican from the west. Then the eastern paddies laid the last rails on one end, while the western coolies laid those on the other. The rails joined. Spikes were driven, until the last one remained.

The Territory of Arizona had presented a spike of gold, silver, and iron; Nevada had given one of silver, and a railroad tie of laurel wood; and the last spike of all--of solid gold--was presented by California.

The driving of the last spike was to be heard all over the United States. Omaha was the telegraphic center. The operator here had informed all inquirers, "When the last spike is driven at Promontory Point we will say, 'Done!'"

The magic of the wire was to carry that single message abroad over the face of the land.

The President of the United States was to be congratulated, as were the officers of the army, and the engineers of the work. San Francisco had arranged a monster celebration marked by the booming of cannon and enthusiastic parades. Free railroad tickets into Sacramento were to fill that city with jubilant crowds. At Omaha cannons were to be fired, business abandoned, and the whole city given over to festivity. Chicago was to see a great parade and decoration. In New York a hundred guns were to boom out the tidings. Trinity Church was to have special services, and the famous chimes were to play "Old Hundred." In Philadelphia a ringing of the Liberty Bell in Independence Hall would initiate a celebration. And so it would be in all prominent cities of the Union.

Neale was at Promontory Point that summer day. He stood aloof from the crowd, on a little bank, watching with s.h.i.+ning eyes.