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Updated: June 18, 2025
"Wal, then, mebbe Slingerland got away an' the cabin was burned after." "I can't hope that ... I tell you it means hell's opened up before me." "Wal, it's tough, I know, Neale, but mebbe " Neale wheeled fiercely upon him. "You're only saying those things! You don't believe them! Tell me what you do really think." "Lord, pard, it couldn't be no wuss," replied Larry, his lean face working.
He had packed a dozen burros the largest and completest pack-train he had ever driven. The abundance of carefully selected supplies, tools, and traps should last him many years surely all the years that he would live. Slingerland did not intend to return to civilization, and he never even looked back at that blotch on the face of the bluff that hideous Roaring City.
The end of the buffalo had come the end of the Indian was in sight and that of the fur- bearing animal and his hunter must follow soon with the hurrying years. Slingerland hated the railroad, and he could not see as Neale did, or any of the engineers or builders.
Just now he certainly did not want to risk being seen digging gold or packing it away; and Slingerland was just as loath to have it concealed in or near his cabin. "Wal, seein' we're not sure it's really there, let's wait till you come back in summer or fall," he suggested. "If it's thar it'll stay thar." All too soon the dawn came for Neale's departure with Larry. Allie was braver than he.
"I figger only one way. This heah. Slingerland had left Allie alone ... Then she was made away with an' the cabin burned." "Indians?" "Mebbe. But I lean more to the idee of an outfit like thet one what was heah." Neale groaned in his torture.
"Al-lie! What aboot her?" "Boys, it's broke me down!" replied Slingerland, hoarsely. "I swear to you I never left Allie alone fer a year an' then the fust time when she made me go I come back an' finds the cabin burnt.... She's gone! Gone! ... No redskin job. That damned riffraff out of Californy. I tracked 'em. Then a hell of a storm comes up. No tracks left! All's lost!
In the dust he found four sizes of boot-tracks and he took the trail down the valley. Then he became aware that a storm was imminent and that the air had become cold and raw. Rain began to fall, and darkness came quickly. Slingerland sought the shelter of a near-by ledge, and there, hungry, cold, wet, and unhappy, he waited for sleep that would not come.
His mind wandered. "Son, how's your work goin'?" Neale shook his head. The cowboy, answering for him, said, "We kind of chucked the work, Slingerland." "What? Are you hyar in Benton, doin' nothin'?" "Shore. Thet's the size of it." The trapper made a vehement gesture of disapproval and he bent a scrutinizing gaze upon Neale. "Son, you've not gone an' an' "
No thought of himself entered into that solemn moment of happiness. Allie Lee alive safe her troubles ended on her way home with her father! The long train wound round the bold bluff and at last was gone. For Neale the moment held something big, final. A phase a part of his life ended there. "Son, it's over," said Slingerland, who watched with him.
Night fell the darkness thickened the old trapper kept his vigil and Neale sank to sleep, and the sweet, low- toned bells claimed him in his dreams. How strange for Neale to greet a dawn without hatred! He and Slingerland had breakfast together. "Son, will you go into the hills with me?" asked the old trapper. "Yes, some day, when the railroad's built," replied Neale, thoughtfully.
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