Chapter 20

They gathered around a table to play faro. Then Durade called for drinks. This startled Allie and she hastened to comply with his demand. When she lifted her eyes and met the glances of these men--she had a strange feeling that somehow recalled the California days. Her legs were weak under her; a hot anger labored under her breast; she had to drag her reluctant feet across the room. Her spirit sank, and then leaped. It whispered that looks and words and touches could only hurt and shame her for this hour of her evil plight. They must rouse her resistance and cunning wit. It was a fact that she was helpless for the present. But she still lived, and her love was infinite.

Fresno was there, throwing dice with two soldiers. To his ugliness had been added something that had robbed his face of the bronze tinge of outdoor life and had given it red and swollen lines and shades of beastly greed. Benton had made a bad man worse.

Mull was there, heavier than when he had ruled the grading-camp, sodden with drink, thick-lipped and red-cheeked, burly, brutal, and still showing in every action and loud word the bully. He was whirling a wheel and rolling a ball and calling out in his heavy voice. With him was a little, sallow-faced man, like a wolf, with sneaky, downcast eyes and restless hands. He answered to the name of Andy. These two were engaged in fleecing several blue-shirted, half-drunken spikers.

Durade was playing faro with four other men, or at least there were that number seated with him. One, whose back was turned toward Allie, wore black, and looked and seemed different from the others. He did not talk nor drink. Evidently his winning aggravated Durade. Presently Durade addressed the man as Jones.

Then there were several others standing around, dividing their attention between Allie and the gamblers. The door opened occasionally, and each time a different man entered, held a moment’s whispered conversation with Durade, and then went out. These men were of the same villainous aspect that characterized Fresno. Durade had surrounded himself with lieutenants and comrades who might be counted upon to do anything.

Allie was not long in gathering this fact, nor that there were subtle signs of suspicion among the gamesters. Most of them had gotten under the influence of drink that Durade kept ordering. Evidently he furnished this liquor free and with a purpose.

The afternoon’s play ended shortly. So far as Allie could see, Jones, the man in black, a pale, thin-lipped, cold-eyed gambler, was the only guest to win. Durade’s manner was not pleasant while he paid over his debts. Durade always had been a poor loser.

“Jones, you’ll sit in to-morrow,” said Durade.

“Maybe,” replied the other.

“Why not? You’re winner,” retorted Durade, hot-headed in an instant.

“Winners are choosers,” returned Jones, with an enigmatic smile. His hard, cold eyes shifted to Allie and seemed to pierce her, then went back to Durade and Mull and Fresno. Plain it was to Allie, with her woman’s intuition, that if Jones returned it would not be because he trusted that trio. Durade apparently made an effort to swallow his resentment, but the gambling pallor of his face had never been more marked. He went out with Jones, and the others slowly followed.

Fresno approached Allie.

“Hullo, gurly! You sure look purtier than in thet buckskin outfit,” he leered.

Allie got up, ready for fight or defense. Durade had forgotten her.

Fresno saw her glance at the door.

“He’s goin’ to the bad,” he went on, with his big hand indicating the door. “Benton’s too hot fer his kind. He’ll not git up some fine mornin’.... An’ you’d better cotton to me. You ain’t his kin--an’ he hates you an’ you hate him. I seen thet. I’m no fool. I’m sorta gone on you. I wish I hadn’t fetched you back to him.”

“Fresno, I’ll tell Durade,” replied Allie, forcing her lips to be firm. If she expected to intimidate him she was disappointed.

Fresno leered wisely. “You’d better not. Fer I’ll kill him, an’ then you’ll be a sweet little chunk of meat among a lot of wolves!”

He laughed and his large frame lurched closer. He wore a heavy gun and a knife in his belt. Also there protruded the butt of a pistol from the inside of his open vest. Allie felt the heat from his huge body, and she smelled the whisky upon him, and sensed the base, faithless, malignant animalism of the desperado. Assuredly, if he had any fear, it was not of Durade.

“I’m sorta gone on you myself,” repeated Fresno. “An’ Durade’s a greaser. He’s runnin’ a crooked game. All these games are crooked. But Benton won’t stand for a polite greaser who talks sweet an’ gambles crooked. Mebbe’ no one’s told you what this place Benton is.”

“I haven’t heard. Tell me,” replied Allie. She might learn from any one.

Fresno appeared at fault for speech. “Benton’s a beehive,” he replied, presently. “An’ when the bees come home with their honey, why, the red ants an’ scorpions an’ centipedes an’ rattlesnakes git busy. I’ve seen some places in my time, but--Benton beats ‘em all.... Say, I’ll sneak you out at nights to see what’s goin’ on, an’ I’ll treat you handsome. I’m sorta--”

The entrance of Durade cut short Fresno’s further speech. “What are you saying to her?” demanded Durade, in anger.

“I was jest tellin’ her about what a place Benton is,” replied Fresno.

“Allie, is that true?” queried Durade, sharply.

“Yes,” she replied.

“Fresno, I did not like your looks.”

“Boss, if you don’t like ‘em you know what you can do,” rejoined Fresno, impudently, and he lounged out of the room.

“Allie, these men are all bad,” said Durade. “You must avoid them when my back’s turned. I cannot run my place without them, so I am compelled to endure much.”

Allie’s attendant came in with her supper and she went to her room.

Thus began Allie Lee’s life as an unwilling and innocent accomplice of Durade in his retrogression from the status of a gambler to that of a criminal. In California he had played the game, diamond cut diamond. But he had broken. His hope, spirit, luck, nerve were gone. The bottle and Benton had almost destroyed his skill at professional gambling.

The days passed swiftly. Every afternoon Durade introduced a new company to his private den. Few ever came twice. In this there was a grain of hope, for if all the men in Benton, or out on the road, could only pass through Durade’s hall, the time would come when she would meet Neale or Larry. She lived for that. She was constantly on the lookout for a man she could trust with her story. Honest-faced laborers were not wanting in the stream of visitors Durade ushered into her presence, but either they were drunk or obsessed by gambling, or she found no opportunity to make her appeal.

These afternoons grew to be hideous for Allie. She had been subjected to every possible attention, annoyance, indignity, and insult, outside of direct violence. She could only shut her eyes and ears and lips. Fresno found many opportunities to approach her, sometimes in Durade’s presence, the gambler being blind to all but the cards and gold. At such times Allie wished she was sightless and deaf and feelingless. But after she was safely in her room again she told herself nothing had happened. She was still the same as she had always been. And sleep obliterated quickly what she had suffered. Every day was one nearer to that fateful and approaching moment. And when that moment did come what would all this horror amount to? It would fade--be as nothing. She would not let words and eyes harm her. They were not tangible--they had no substance for her. They made her sick with rage and revolt at the moment, but they had no power, no taint, no endurance. They were evil passing winds.

As she saw Durade’s retrogression, so she saw the changes in all about him. His winnings were large and his strange passion for play increased with them. The free gold that enriched Fresno and Mull and Andy only augmented their native ferocity. There were also Durade’s other helpers--Black, his swarthy doorkeeper, a pallid fellow called Dayss, who always glanced behind him, and Grist, a short, lame, bullet-headed, silent man--all of them under the spell of the green cloth.

With Durade’s success had come the craze for bigger stakes, and these could only be played for with other gamblers. So the black-frocked, cold-faced sharps became frequent visitors at Durade’s. Jones, the professional, won on that second visit--a fatal winning for him. Allie saw the giant Fresno suddenly fling himself upon Jones and bear him to the floor. Then Allie fled to her room. But she heard curses--a shot--a groan--Durade’s loud voice proclaiming that the gambler had cheated--and then the scraping of a heavy body being dragged out.

This murder horrified Allie, yet sharpened her senses. Providence had protected her. Durade had grown rich--wild--vain--mad to pit himself against the coolest and most skilful gamblers in Benton--and therefore his end was imminent. Allie lay in the dark, listening to Benton’s strange wailing roar, sad, yet hideous, and out of what she had seen and heard, and from the mournful message on the night wind, she realized how closely associated were gold and evil and men, and how inevitably they must lead to lawlessness and to bloodshed and to death.

23

Neale conceived an idea that he was in line for the long-looked-for promotion. Neither the chief nor Baxter gave any suggestion of a hint of such possibility, but more and more, as the work rapidly progressed, Neale had been intrusted with important inspections.

Long since he had discovered his talent for difficult engineering problems, and with experience had come confidence in his powers. He had been sent from place to place, in each case with favorable results. General Lodge consulted him, Baxter relied upon him, the young engineers learned from him. And when Baxter and his assistants were sent on ahead into the hills Neale had an enormous amount of work on his hands. Still he usually managed to get back to Benton at night.

Whereupon he became a seeker, a searcher; he believed there was not a tent or a hut or a store or a hall in the town that he had not visited. But he found no clue of Allie; he never encountered the well-remembered face of the bandit Fresno. He saw more than one Spaniard and many Mexicans, not one of whom could have been the gambler Durade.

But Benton was too full, too changeful, too secret to be thoroughly searched in little time. Neale bore his burden, although it grew heavier each day. And his growing work on the railroad was his salvation.

One morning he went to the telegraph station, expecting orders from General Lodge. He found the chief’s special train at the station, headed east.

“Neale, I’m off for Omaha,” said Lodge. “Big pow-wow. The directors roaring again!”

“What about?” queried Neale, always alive to interest of that nature.

“Cost of the construction. What else? Neale, there are two kinds of men building the U. P. R.--men who see the meaning of the great work, and the men who see only the gold in it.”

“And they conflict!... That’s what you mean?”

“Exactly. We’ve been years on the job now, and the nearer the meeting of rails from west to east the harder become our problems. Henney is played out, Boone is ill, Baxter won’t last much longer. If I were not an old soldier, I would be done up now.”

“Chief, I can see only success,” replied Neale, with spirit.

“Assuredly. We see with the same eyes,” said General Lodge, smiling. “Neale, I’ve a job for you that will make you gray-headed.”

“Hardly that,” returned Neale, laughing.

“Do you remember the survey we made out here in the hills for Number Ten Bridge? Made over two years ago.”

“I’m not likely to forget it.”

“Well, the rails are within twenty miles of Number Ten. They’ll be there presently--and no piers to cross on.”

“How’s that?”

“I don’t know. The report came in only last night. It’s a queer document. Here it is. Study it at your leisure.... It seems a big force of men have been working there for months. Piers have been put in--only to sink.”

“Sink!” ejaculated Neale. “WHEW! That’s a stumper!... Chief, the survey is mine. I’ll never forget how I worked on it.”

“Could you have made a mistake?”

“Of course,” replied Neale, readily. “But I’d never believe that unless I saw it. A tough job it was--but just the kind of work I eat up.”

“Well, you can go out and eat it up some more.”

“That means I’ll have to camp out there. I can’t get back to Benton.”

“No, you can’t. And isn’t that just as well?” queried the chief, with his keen, dark glance on Neale. “Son, I’ve heard your name coupled with gamblers--and that Stanton woman.”

“No doubt. I know them. I’ve been--seeking some trace of--Allie.”

“You still hope to find her? You still imagine some of this riffraff Benton gang made off with her?”

“Yes.”

“Son, it’s scarcely possible,” said Lodge, earnestly. “Anderson claims the Sioux got her. We all incline to that.... Oh, it’s hard, Neale.... Love and life are only atoms under the iron heel of the U. P. R.... It’s too late now. You can’t forget--no--but you must not risk your life--your opportunities--your reputation.”

Neale turned away his face for a moment and was silent. An engine whistled; a bell began to ring; some train official called to General Lodge. The chief held up his hand for a little more delay.

“I’m off,” he said rapidly. “Neale, you’ll go out to Number Ten and take charge.”

That surprised and thrilled Neale into eagerness.

“Who are the engineers?”

“Blake and Coffee. I don’t know them. Henney sent them out from Omaha. They’re well recommended. But that’s no matter. Something is wrong. You’re to have full charge of engineers, bosses, masons. In fact, I’ve sent word out to that effect.”

“Who’s the contractor?” asked Neale.

“I don’t know. But whoever he is he has made a pile of money out of this job. And the job’s not done. That’s what galls me.”

“Well, chief, it will be done,” said Neale, sharp with determination.

“Good! Neale, I’ll start east with another load off my shoulders.... And, son, if you throw up a bridge so there’ll be no delay, something temporary for the rails and the work-train, and then plan piers right for Number Ten--well--you’ll hear from it, that’s all.” They shook hands.

“I may be gone a week or a month--I can’t tell,” went on the chief. “But when I do come I’ll probably have a trainload of directors, commissioners, stockholders.”

“Bring them on,” said Neale. “Maybe if they saw more of what we’re up against they wouldn’t holler so.”

“Right.... Remember, you’ve full charge and that I trust you implicitly. Good-by and good luck!”

The chief boarded his train as it began to move. Neale watched it leave the station, and with a swelling heart he realized that he had been placed high, that his premonition of advancement had not been without warrant.

The work-train was backing into the station and would depart westward in short order. Neale hurried to his lodgings to pack his few belongings. Larry was lying on his cot, fully dressed and asleep. Neale shook him.

“Wake up, you lazy son-of-a-gun!” shouted Neale.

Larry opened his eyes. “Wal, what’s wrong? Is it last night or to-morrow?”

“Larry, I’m off. Got charge of a big job.”

“Is thet all?” drawled Larry, sleepily. “Why, shore I always knowed you’d be chief engineer some day.”

“Pard--sit up,” said Neale, unsteadily. “Will you stay sober--and watch--and listen for some news of Allie?... Till I come back to Benton?”

“Neale, air you still dreamin’?” asked Larry, incredulously.

“Will you do that much for me?”

“Shore.”

“Thank you, old friend. Good-by now. I’ve got to rustle.” He left Larry sitting on his cot, staring at nothing. On the way to the station Neale encountered the gambler, Place Hough, who, despite his nocturnal habits, was an early riser. In the excitement of the hour Neale gave way to an impulse. Briefly he told Hough about Allie--her disappearance and probable hidden presence in Benton, and he asked the gambler to keep his eyes and ears open. Hough seemed both surprised and pleased with the confidence, and he said he would go out of his way to help Neale.

Neale had to run to catch the train. A brawny Irishman extended a red-sleeved arm to help him up.

“Up wid yez. Thor!”

Neale found himself with bag and rifle and blanket sprawling on the gravel-covered floor of a flat car. Casey, the old lineman, grinned at him over the familiar short, black pipe.

“B’gorra, it’s me ould fri’nd Neale.”

“It sure is. How’re you Casey?”

“Pritty good fur an ould soldier.... An’ it’s news I hear of yez, me boy.”

“What news?”

“Shure yez hed a boost. Gineral Lodge hisself wor tellin’ Grady, the boss, that yez had been given charge of Number Ten.”

“Yes, that’s correct.”

“I’m dom’ glad to hear ut,” declared the Irishman. “But yez hev a hell of a job in thot Number Ten.”

“So I’ve been told. What do you know about it, Casey?”

“Shure ut ain’t much. A fri’nd of mine was muxin’ mortor over there. An’ he sez whin the crick was dry ut hed a bottom, but whin wet ut shure hed none.”

“Then I have got a job on my hands,” replied Neale, grimly.

Those days it took the work-train several hours to reach the end of the rails. Neale rode by some places with a profound satisfaction in the certainty that but for him the track would not yet have been spiked there. Construction was climbing fast into the hills. He wondered when and where would be the long-looked-for meeting of the rails connecting East with West. Word had drifted over the mountains that the Pacific division of the construction was already in Utah.

At the camp Colonel Dillon offered Neale an escort of troopers out to Number Ten, but Neale decided he could make better time alone. There had been no late sign of the Indians in that locality and he knew both the road and the trail.

Early next morning, mounted on a fast horse, he set out. It was a melancholy ride. Several times he had been over that ground, once traveling west with Larry, full of ardor and joy at the prospect of soon seeing Allie Lee, and again on the return, in despair at the loss of her.

He rode the twenty miles in three hours. The camp of dirty tents was clustered in a hot valley surrounded by hills sparsely fringed with trees. Neale noted the timber as a lucky augury to his enterprise. It was an idle camp full of lolling laborers.

As Neale dismounted a Mexican came forward.

“Look after the horse,” said Neale, and, taking his luggage, he made for a big tent with a fly extended in front. Several men sat on camp-chairs round a table. One of them got up and stepped out.

“Where’s Blake and Coffee?” inquired Neale.

“I’m Blake,” was the reply, “and there’s Coffee. Are you Mr. Neale?”

“Yes.”

“Coffee, here’s our new boss,” called Blake as he took part of Neale’s baggage.

Coffee appeared to be a sunburnt, middle-aged man, rather bluff and hearty in his greeting. The younger engineer, Blake, was a tanned, thin-faced individual, with a shifty gaze and constrained manner. The third fellow they introduced as a lineman named Somers. Neale had not anticipated a cordial reception and felt disposed to be generous.

“Have you got quarters for me here?” he inquired.

“Sure. There’s lots of room and a cot,” replied Coffee.

They carried Neale’s effects inside the tent. It was large and spare, containing table and lamp, boxes for seats, several cots, and bags.

“It’s hot. Got any drinking-water?” asked Neale, taking off his coat. Next he opened his bag to take things out, then drank thirstily of the water offered him. He did not care much for this part of his new task. These engineers might be sincere and competent, but he had been sent on to judge their work, and the situation was not pleasant. Neale had observed many engineers come and go during his experience on the road; and that fact, together with the authority given him and his loyalty to, the chief, gave him cause for worry. He hoped, and he was ready to believe, that these engineers had done their best on an extremely knotty problem.

“We got Lodge’s telegram last night,” said Coffee. “Kinda sudden. It jarred us.”

“No doubt. I’m sorry. What was the message?”

“Lodge never wastes words,” replied the engineer, shortly. But he did not vouchsafe the information for which Neale had asked.

Neale threw his note-book upon the dusty table and, sitting down on the box, he looked up at the men. Both engineers were studying him intently, almost eagerly, Neale imagined.

“Number Ten’s a tough nut to crack, eh?” he inquired.

“We’ve been here three months,” replied Blake.

“Wait till you see that quicksand hole,” added Coffee.

“Quicksand! It was a dry, solid stream-bed when I ran the line through here and drew the plans for Number Ten,” declared Neale.

Coffee and Blake stared blandly at him. So did the lineman Somers.

“You? Did YOU draw the plans we--we’ve been working on?” asked Coffee.

“Yes, I did,” answered Neale, slowly. It struck him that Blake had paled slightly. Neale sustained a slight shock of surprise and antagonism. He bent over his note-book, opening it to a clean page. Fighting his first impressions, he decided they had arisen from the manifest dismay of the engineers and their consciousness of a blunder.

“Let’s get down to notes,” Neale went on, taking up his pencil. “You’ve been here three months?”

“Yes.”

“With what force?”

“Two hundred men on and off.”

“Who’s the gang boss?”

“Colohan. He’s had some of the biggest contracts along the line.”

Neale was about to inquire the name of the contractor, but he refrained, governed by one of his peculiar impulses.

“Anybody working when you got here?” he went on.

“Yes. Masons had been cutting stone for six weeks.”

“What’s been done?”

Coffee laughed harshly. “We got the three piers in--good and solid on dry bottom. Then along comes the rain--and our work melts into the quicksand. Since then we’ve been trying to do it over.”

“But why did this happen in the first place?”

Coffee spread wide his arms. “Ask me something easy. Why was the bottom dry and solid? Why did it rain? Why did solid earth turn into quicksand?”

Neale slapped the note-book shut and rose to his feet. “Gentlemen, that is not the talk of engineers,” he said, deliberately.

“The hell you say! What is it, then?” burst out Coffee, his face flushing redder.

“I’ll inform you later,” replied Neale, turning to the lineman. “Somers, tell this gang boss, Colohan, I want him.”

Neale left the tent. He had started to walk away when he heard Blake speak up in a fierce undertone.

“Didn’t I tell you? We’re up against it!”

And Coffee growled a reply Neale could not understand. But the tone of it was conclusive. These men had made a serious blunder and were blaming each other, hating each other for it. Neale was conscious of anger. This section of line came under his survey, and he had been proud to be given such important and difficult work. Incompetent or careless engineers had bungled Number Ten. Neale strode on among the idle and sleeping laborers, between the tents, and then past the blacksmith’s shop and the feed corrals down to the river.