Summer, autumn, winter pa.s.sed, short days full of solitude, beauty, thought, and antic.i.p.ation, and always achievement, for she could not stay idle. When the first green brightened the cottonwoods and willows along the brook she knew that before their leaves had attained their full growth Neale would be on his way to her. A strange and inexplicable sense of the heart told her that he was coming.

More than once that spring had she bent over the mossy rock to peer down at her face mirrored in the crystal spring. Neale had made her aware of her beauty, and she was proud of it, since it seemed to be such a strange treasure to him.

On the May morning that Slingerland left her alone she was startled by the clip-clop of horses trotting up the trail a few hours after his departure.

Her first thought was that Neale and Larry had returned. All her being suddenly radiated with rapture. She flew to the door.

Four hors.e.m.e.n rode into the clearing, but Neale was not among them.

Allie's joy was short-lived, and the reaction to disappointment was a violent, agonizing wrench. She lost all control of her muscles for a moment, and had to lean against the cabin to keep from falling.

By this time the foremost rider had pulled in his horse near the door.

He was a young giant with hulking shoulders, ruddy-faced, bold-eyed, ugly-mouthed. He reminded Allie of some one she had seen in California.

He stared hard at her.

"Hullo! Ain't you Durade's girl?" he asked, in gruff astonishment.

Then Allie knew she had seen him out in the gold-fields.

"No, I'm not," she replied.

"A-huh! You look uncommon like her.... Anybody home round here?"

"Slingerland went over the hill," said Allie. "He'll be back presently."

The fellow brushed her aside and went into the cabin. Then the other three riders arrived.

"Mornin', miss," said one, a grizzled veteran, who might have been miner, trapper, or bandit. The other two reined in behind him. One wore a wide-brimmed black sombrero from under which a dark, sinister face gleamed. The last man had sandy hair and light roving eyes.

"Whar's Fresno?" he asked.

"I'm inside," replied the man called Fresno, and he appeared at the door. He stretched out a long arm and grasped Allie before she could avoid him. When she began to struggle the huge hand closed on her wrist until she could have screamed with pain.

"Hold on, girl! It won't do you no good to jerk, an' if you holler I'll choke you," he said. "Fellers, get inside the cabin an' rustle around lively."

With one pull he hauled Allie toward his horse, and, taking a la.s.so off his saddle, he roped her arms to her sides and tied her to the nearest tree.

"Keep mum now or it 'll be the wuss fer you," he ordered; then he went into the cabin.

They were a bad lot, and Slingerland's reason for worry had at last been justified. Allie did not fully realize her predicament until she found herself bound to the tree. Then she was furious, and strained with all her might to slip free of the rope. But the efforts were useless; she only succeeded in bruising her arms for nothing. When she desisted she was ready to succ.u.mb to despair, until a flashing thought of Neale, of the agony that must be his if he lost her or if harm befell her, drew her up sharply, thrillingly. A girl's natural and instinctive fear was vanquished by her love.

She heard the robbers knocking things about in the cabin. They threw bales of beaver pelts out of the door. Presently Fresno reappeared carrying a buckskin sack in which Slingerland kept his money and few valuables, and the others followed, quarreling over a cane-covered demijohn in which there had once been liquor.

"Nary a drop!" growled the one who got possession of it. And with rage he threw the thing back into the cabin, where it crashed into the fire.

"Sandy, you've scattered the fire," protested the grizzled robber, as he glanced into the cabin. "Them furs is catchin'."

"Let 'em burn!" called Fresno. "We got all we want. Come on."

"But what's the sense burnin' the feller's cabin down?"

"Nuthin' 'll burn," said the dark-faced man, "an' if it does it 'll look like Indians' work. Savvy, Old Miles?"

They shuffled out together. Evidently Fresno was the leader, or at least the strongest force. He looked at the sack in his hand and then at Allie.

"You fellers fight over thet," he said, and, throwing the sack on the ground, he strode toward Allie.

The three men all made a rush for the sack and Sandy got it. The other two pressed round him, not threateningly, but aggressively, sure of their rights.

"I'll divide," said Sandy, as he mounted his horse. "Wait till we make camp. You fellers pack the beavers."

Fresno untied Allie from the tree, but he left the la.s.so round her; holding to it and her arm, he rudely dragged her to his horse.

"Git up, an' hurry," he ordered.

Allie mounted. The stirrups were too long.

"You fellers clear out," called Fresno, "an ketch me one of them hosses we seen along the brook."

While he readjusted the stirrups, Allie looked down upon him. He was an uncouth ruffian, and his touch gave her an insupportable disgust.

He wore no weapons, but his saddle holster contained a revolver and the sheath a Winchester. Allie could have shot him and made a run for it, and she had the nerve to attempt it. The others, however, did not get out of sight before Fresno had the stirrups adjusted. He strode after them, leading the horse. Allie glanced back to see a thin stream of smoke coming out of the cabin door. Then she faced about, desperately resolved to take any chance to get away. She decided that she would not be safe among these men for very long. Whatever she was to do she must do that day, and she only awaited her opportunity.

At the ford Sandy caught one of Slingerland's horses--a mustang and a favorite of Allie's, and one she could ride. He was as swift as the wind. Once upon him, she could run away from any horse which these robbers rode. Fresno put the end of the la.s.so round the mustang's neck.

"Can you ride bareback?" he asked Allie.

Allie lied. Her first thought was to lead them astray as to her skill with a horse; and then it occurred to her that if she rode Fresno's saddle there might be an opportunity to use the gun.

Fresno leaped astride the mustang, and was promptly bucked off. The other men guffawed. Fresno swore and, picking himself up, tried again.

This time the mustang behaved better, but it was plain he did not like the weight. Then Fresno started off, leading his own horse, and at a trot that showed he wanted to cover ground.

Allie heard the others quarreling over something, probably the gold Slingerland had been so many years in acc.u.mulating.

They rode on to where the valley opened into another, along which wound the old St. Vrain and Laramie Trail. They kept to this, traveling east for a few miles, and then entered an intersecting valley, where some distance up they had a camp. They had not taken the precaution to hide either packs or mules, and so far as Allie could tell they had no fear of Indians. Probably they had crossed from California, and, being dishonest and avoiding caravans and camps, they had not become fully acquainted with the perils of that region.

It was about noon when they arrived at this place. The sun was becoming blurred and a storm appeared brewing. Fresno dismounted, dropping the halter of the mustang. Then he let go his own bridle. The eyes he bent on Allie made her turn hers away as from something that could scorch and stain. He pulled her off the saddle, rudely, with coa.r.s.e and meaning violence.

Allie pushed him back and faced him. In a way she had been sheltered all her life, yet she had lived among such men as this man, and she knew that resistance or pleadings were useless; they would only inflame him.

She was not ready yet to court death.

"Wait," she said.

"A-huh!" he grunted, breathing heavily. He was an animal, slow-witted and brutal.

"Fresno, I am Durade's girl!" she went on.

"I thought I knowed you. But you're grown to be a woman an' a dam'

pretty one."