"Reddy, if you had known that I was heiress to great wealth, would you have proposed to me?"
Slingerland roared. Larry seemed utterly stricken.
"Wealth!" he echoed, feebly.
"Yes. Gold! Lots of gold!"
Slingerland"s merry face suddenly grew curious and earnest.
Larry struggled with his discomfiture.
"I reckon I"d done thet anyhow--without knowin" you was rich--if it hadn"t been fer this heah U. P. surveyor fellar."
And then the joke was on Allie, as her blushes proved. Neale came to her rescue and told the story of Horn"s buried gold, and of his own search that day for the place.
"Sh.o.r.e I"ll find it," declared Larry. "We"ll go to-morrow...."
Slingerland stroked his beard thoughtfully.
"If thar"s gold been buried thar it"s sure an" certain thar yet," he said. "But I"m afraid we won"t git thar tomorrow."
"Why not? Surely you or Larry can find the place?"
"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. a.s.suredly there was a storm brewing. Neale returned to the fire, shivering and holding his palms to the heat.
"Cold, you bet, with the wind rising," he said. "But, Slingerland, suppose it does snow. Can"t we go, anyhow?"
"It ain"t likely. You see, it snows up hyar. Mebbe we"ll be snowed in fer a spell. An" thet valley is open down thar. In deep snow what could we find? We"ll wait an" see."
On the morrow a storm raged and all was dim through a ghostly, whirling pall. The season of drifting snow had come, and Neale"s winter work had begun.
Five miles by short cut over the ridges curved the long survey over which Neale must keep watch; and the going and coming were Neale"s hardest toil. It was laborsome to trudge up and down in soft snow.
That first snow of winter, however, did not last long, except in the sheltered places. Fortunately for Neale, almost all of his section of the survey ran over open ground. But this fact augured seriously for his task when the dry and powdery snow of midwinter began to fall and sweep before the wind and drift over the lee side of the ridge.
During the first week of tramping he thoroughly learned the lay of the land, the topography of his particular stretch of Sherman Pa.s.s. And one day, taking an early start from camp, he set forth to make his first call upon his nearest a.s.sociate in this work, the engineer Service.
Once high up on the pa.s.s he found the snow had not all melted, and still higher it lay white and unbroken as far as he could see. The air was keener up there. Neale gathered that Service would have a colder job than his own, if it was not so long and hard.
He found Service at home in his dugout, warm and comfortable and in excellent spirits. They compared notes, and even in this early work they decided it would be a wise plan for the engineering staff to study the problem of drifting snow.
Neale enjoyed a meal with Service, and then, early in the afternoon, he started back on his long tramp homeward. He gathered from his visit that Service did not mind the lonesomeness, but that he did suffer from the cold more than he had expected. Service was not an active, full-blooded man, and Neale had some misgivings. Judging from the trapper"s remarks, winter high up in the Wyoming hills was something to dread.
November brought the real storms--the gray banks of rolling cloud, the rain and sleet and snow and ice, and the wind. Neale concluded he had never before faced a real wind, and when, one day on a ridge-top, he was blown off his feet he was sure of it. Some days he could not go out at all. Other days it was not imperative, for it was only during and after snow-storms that he could make observations. He learned to travel on snow-shoes, and ten miles of such traveling up and down the steep slopes was the most killing hard toil he had ever attempted. After such trips he would reach the cabin utterly f.a.gged out, too tired to eat, too weary, to talk, almost too dead to hear the solicitations of his friends or to appreciate Allie"s tender, anxious care. If he had not been strong and robust and in good training to begin with, he would have failed under the burden. Gradually he grew used to the strenuous toil, and became hardened, tough, and enduring.
Though Neale hated the cold and the wind, there were moments when an exceedingly keen exhilaration uplifted him. These experiences visited him while on the heights, looking far over the snowy ridges to, the white, monotonous plain or up toward the shining peaks. All seemed barren and cold. He never saw a living creature or a track upon those slopes. When the sun shone all was so dazzlingly, glaringly white that his eyes were struck by temporary blindness.
Upon one of the milder days, which were getting rarer in mid-December, Neale again visited his comrade on the summit. He found Service in bad shape. In falling down a slippery ledge he had injured or broken his lame leg. Neale, with great concern, tried to ascertain the nature and extent of the harm done, but he was unable to do so. Service was practically helpless, although not suffering any great pain. The two of them decided, at length, that he had not broken any bones, but that it was necessary to move him to where he could be waited upon and treated, or else some one must be brought in to take care of him. Neale deliberated a moment.
"I"ll tell you what," he said, finally. "You can be moved down to Slingerland"s cabin without pain to you. I"ll get Slingerland and his sled. You"ll be more comfortable there. It"ll be better all around."
So that was decided upon. And Neale, after doing all he could for Service, and a.s.suring him that he would return in less than twenty-four hours, turned his steps for the valley.
The sunset that night struck him as singularly dull, pale, menacing.
He understood its meaning later, when Slingerland said they were in for another storm. Before dark the wind began to moan through the trees like lost spirits. The trapper shook his s.h.a.ggy head ominously.
"Reckon thet sounds bad to me," he said. And from moan it rose to wail, and from wail to roar.
That alarmed Neale. He went outside and Slingerland followed. Snow was sweeping down-light, dry, powdery. The wind was piercingly cold.
Slingerland yelled something, but Neale could not distinguish what. When they got back inside the trapper said:
"Blizzard!"
Neale grew distressed.
"Wal, no use to worry about Service," argued the trapper. "If it is a blizzard we can"t git up thar, thet"s all. Mebbe this"ll not be so bad.
But I ain"t bettin" on thet."
Even Allie couldn"t cheer Neale that night. Long after she and the others had retired he kept up the fire and listened to the roar of the wind. When the fire died down a little the cabin grew uncomfortably cold, and this fact attested to a continually dropping temperature. But he hoped against hope and finally sought his blankets.
Morning came, but the cabin was almost as dark as by night. A blinding, swirling snow-storm obscured the sun.
A blizzard raged for forty-eight hours. When the snow finally ceased falling the cold increased until Neale guessed the temperature might be forty degrees below zero. The trapper claimed sixty. It was necessary to stay indoors till the weather moderated.
On the fifth morning Slingerland was persuaded to attempt the trip to aid Service. Larry wanted to accompany them, but Slingerland said he had better stay with Allie. So, m.u.f.fled up, the two men set out on snow-shoes, dragging a sled. A crust had frozen on the snow, otherwise traveling would have been impossible. Once up on the slope the north wind hit them square in the face. Heavily clad as he was, Neale thought the very marrow in his bones would freeze. That wind blew straight through him. There were places where it took both men to hold the sled to keep it from getting away. They were blown back one step for every two steps they made. On the exposed heights they could not walk upright.
At last, after hours of desperate effort, they got over the ridge to a sheltered side along which they labored up to Service"s dugout.
Up there the snow had blown away in places, leaving bare spots, bleak, icy, barren, stark. No smoke appeared to rise above the dugout. The rude habitation looked as though no man had been there that winter. Neale glanced in swift dismay at Slingerland.
"Son, look fer the wust," he said. "An" we hain"t got time to waste."
They pushed open the canvas framework of a door and, stooping low, pa.s.sed inside. Neale"s glance saw first the fireplace, where no fire had burned for days. Snow had sifted into the dugout and lay in little drifts everywhere. The blankets on the bunk covered Service, hiding his face. Both men knew before they uncovered him what his fate had been.
"Frozen to death!" gasped Neale.
Service lay white, rigid, like stone, with no sign of suffering upon his face.
"He jest went to sleep--an" never woke up," declared Slingerland.
"Thank G.o.d for that!" exclaimed Neale. "Oh, why did I not stay with him?"
"Too late, son. An" many a good man will go to his death before thet d.a.m.n railroad is done."
Neale searched for Service"s notes and letters and valuables which could be turned over to the engineering staff.