The U.P. Trail | Page 6

to us."
"Allie, listen. Durade was a gambler--a man crazy to stake all on the
fall of a card. He did not love gold. But he loved games of chance. It
was a terrible passion with him. Once he meant to gamble my honor
away. But that other gambler was too much of a man. There are
gamblers who are men! ... I think I began to hate Durade from that
time.... He was a dishonest gambler. He made me share in his guilt. My
face lured miners to his dens.... My face--for I was beautiful once! ...
Oh, I sunk so low! But he forced me.... Thank God I left him--before it
was too late--too late for you."
"Mother, he will follow us!" cried Allie.
"But he shall never have you. I'll kill him before I let him get you,"
replied the mother.
"He'd never harm me, mother, whatever he is," murmured Allie.
"Child, he would use you exactly as he used me. He wanted me to let
him have you--already. He wanted to train you--he said you'd be
beautiful some day."
"Mother!" gasped Allie, "is THAT what he meant?"
"Forget him, child. And forget your mother's guilt! ... I've suffered. I've
repented.... All I ask of God is to take you safely home to Allison
Lee--the father whom you have never known."
The night hour before dawn grew colder and blacker. A great silence
seemed wedged down between the ebony hills. The stars were wan. No
cry of wolf or moan of wind disturbed the stillness. And the stars grew
warmer. The black east changed and paled. Dawn was at hand. An
opaque and obscure grayness filled the world; all had changed, except
that strange, oppressive, and vast silence of the wild.
That silence was broken by the screeching, blood-curdling yell of the
Sioux.

At times these bloody savages attacked without warning and in the
silence of the grave; again they sent out their war-cries, chilling the
hearts of the bravest. Perhaps that warning yell was given only when
doom was certain.
Horn realized the dread omen and accepted it. He called the fugitives to
him and, choosing the best-protected spot among the rocks and wagons,
put the women in the center.
"Now, men--if it's the last for us--let it be fight! Mebbe we can hold out
till the troops come."
Then in the gray gloom of dawn he took a shovel; prying up a piece of
sod, he laid it aside and began to dig. And while he dug he listened for
another war-screech and gazed often and intently into the gloom. But
there was no sound and nothing to see. When he had dug a hole several
feet deep he carried an armful of heavy leather bags and deposited them
in it. Then he went back to the wagon for another armful. The men,
gray-faced as the gloom, watched him fill up the hole, carefully replace
the sod, and stamp it down.
He stood for an instant gazing down, as if he had buried the best of his
life. Then he laughed grim and hard.
"There's my gold! If any man wins through this he can have it!"
Bill Horn divined that he would never live to touch his treasure again.
He who had slaved for gold and had risked all for it cared no more what
might become of it. Gripping his rifle, he turned to await the inevitable.
Moments of awful suspense passed. Nothing but the fitful beating of
hearts came to the ears of the fugitives--ears that strained to the stealthy
approach of the red foe--ears that throbbed prayerfully for the tramp of
the troopers' horses. But only silence ensued, a horrible silence, more
nerve-racking than the clash of swift, sure death.
Then out of the gray gloom burst jets of red flame; rifles cracked, and
the air suddenly filled with hideous clamor. The men began to shoot at

gliding shadows, grayer than the gloom. And every shot brought a
volley in return. Smoke mingled with the gloom. In the slight intervals
between rifleshots there were swift, rustling sounds and sharp thuds
from arrows. Then the shrill strife of sound became continuous; it came
from all around and closed in upon the doomed caravan. It swelled and
rolled away and again there was silence.

4
In 1865, just after the war, a party of engineers was at work in the
Wyoming hills on a survey as hazardous as it was problematical. They
had charge of the laying out of the Union Pacific Railroad.
This party, escorted by a company of United States troops under
Colonel Dillon, had encountered difficulties almost insurmountable.
And now, having penetrated the wild hills to the eastern slope of the
Rockies they were halted by a seemingly impassable barrier--a gorge