"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 hoa.r.s.ely.

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 pa.s.s.... 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 ma.s.s 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, d.a.m.n me!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Larry King. Then he shot out the hand that was so quick with rope and gun. "Put her thar! Sh.o.r.e 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."

8

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 t.i.tanic labor involved in the building.

For Neale the months were hard, swift, full. It came to him that love of the open and the wild 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.