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"Listen." Neale listened while he was watching Allie's parted lips and speaking eyes. A low, whining wind swept through the trees and over the roof of the cabin. "Thet wind says snow," declared the trapper. Neale went outside. The wind struck him cold and keen, with a sharp edge to it. The stars showed pale and dim through hazy atmosphere. Assuredly there was a storm brewing.
That day Durade caused to be erected tents, canopies, tables, benches, and last a larger tent, into which the tables and benches were carried. Fresno worked hard, as did all the men except Stitt, who had nothing to do but watch Allie's wagon. Wearily the time passed for her. How many days must she spend thus, watching idly, because there was nothing else to do?
'Twas almost dark when I got back in sight of my shanty, and instead of going to it I jumped that board fence that me and Prince had negotiated for, hustled along the path past the notice boards, and went down the bluff on t'other side of Davidson's p'int. And there in the deep hole by the end of the little pier, out of sight of the house on shore, was Allie's launch.
Well, I'm strong as a horse, and I've got a brain, and I'm quick at pickin' I mean I pick up things quick " "You pick them up quickly. Quickly is an adverb; quick is an " Allie's dark eyes grew darker. Imperiously she cried: "All right! But let me say this my own way. It won't be right or elegant, but you'll understand. And that's what we got to have first off a good understanding.
He did not seem to note Allie's condition or appearance. "That deaf and dumb fool who waited on you is gone," said Durade. "Yesterday was pay-day in Benton ... Many are gone ... Allie, I won fifty thousand dollars in gold!" "Isn't that enough?" she asked. He did not hear her, but went on talking of his winnings, of gold, of games, and of big stakes coming.
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.
Always in his mind were haunting fears of this Spaniard, Durade, who had ruined Allie's mother, and of the father whom Allie had never seen. Neale instinctively felt that these men were to crop up somewhere in his life, and before they did appear he wanted to marry Allie. She was now little more than sixteen years old.
It was because of Allie. The cowboy was a Texan and he had inherited the Southerner's fine and chivalric regard for women. Neale never knew whether Larry had ever had a sister or a sweetheart or a girl friend. But at sight Larry had become Allie's own; not a brother or a friend or a lover, but something bigger and higher.
Under cover, Gray noted Allie's effect upon her attentive audience, and he smiled. If only he could spend a few days here he would make her a woman to be sought after by some of the best people. She refused to meet them, eh? Well, that would be as it was to be. "We've been having supper in our rooms lately," she told him, when they returned at dark. "You're going to eat with us, ain aren't you?"
"Allie's gone out to the old farm to get some stuff for Ma," the father explained in due time. "Some pitchers of her an' Buddy when they was little, an' a rockin'-chair, an' Ma's favorite bedspread, an' some other things she likes." Gray remembered the portraits, executed by a St. Louis "enlargement" concern. They had wide gilt frames, and were protected from ravaging flies by mosquito netting.