the U P Trail (1940) Read online

  But he turned away without speaking and hurried along the edge of the gorge, evidently searching for a place to go down.

  General Lodge ordered the troopers to follow King and if possible recover

  Neale's body.

  "That lad had a future," said old Henney, sadly. "We'll miss him."

  Boone's face expressed sickness and horror.

  Baxter choked. "Too bad!" he murmured, "but what's to be done?"

  The chief engineer looked away down the shadowy gorge where the sun was burning the ramparts red. To have command of men was hard, bitter. Death stalked with his orders. He foresaw that the building of this railroad was to resemble the war in which he had sent so many lads and men to bloody graves.

  The engineers descended the long slope and returned to camp, a mile down the narrow valley. Fires were blazing; columns of smoke were curling aloft; the merry song and reckless laugh of soldiers were ringing out, so clear in the still air; horses were neighing and stamping.

  Colonel Dillon reported to General Lodge that one of the scouts had sighted a large band of Sioux Indians encamped in a valley not far distant. This tribe had gone on the war-path and had begun to harass the engineers. Neale's tragic fate was forgotten in the apprehension of what might happen when the Sioux discovered the significance of that surveying expedition.

  "The Sioux could make the building of the U. P. impossible," said Henney, always nervous and pessimistic.

  "No Indians; nothing can stop us!" declared his chief.

  The troopers sent to follow Larry King came back to camp, saying that they had lost him and that they could not find any place where it was possible to get down into that gorge.

  In the morning Larry King had not returned.

  Detachments of troopers were sent in different directions to try again. And the engineers went out once more to attack their problem. Success did not attend the efforts of either party, and at sunset, when all had wearily returned to camp,

  Larry King was still absent. Then he was given up for lost.

  But before dark the tall cowboy limped into camp, dusty and torn, carrying

  Neale's long tripod and surveying instrument. It looked the worse for a fall, but apparently was not badly damaged. King did not give the troopers any satisfaction. Limping on to the tents of the engineers, he set down the instrument and called. Boone was the first to come out, and his summons brought

  Henney, Baxter, and the younger members of the corps. General Lodge, sitting at his campfire some rods away, and bending over his drawings, did not see King's arrival.

  No one detected any difference hi the cowboy, except that he limped. Slow, cool, careless he was, yet somehow vital and impelling. "Wal, we run the line around; four miles up the gorge whar the crossin' is easy. Only ninety-foot grade to the mile."

  The engineers looked at him as if he were crazy.

  "But Neale! He fell; he's dead!" exclaimed Henney.

  "Daid? Wal, no, Neale ain't daid," drawled Larry.

  "Where is he, then?"

  "I reckon he's comin' along back heah."

  "Is he hurt?"

  "Shore. An' hungry, too, which is what I am," replied Larry, as he limped away.

  Some of the engineers hurried out in the gathering dusk to meet Neale, while others went to General Lodge with the amazing story.

  The chief received the good news quietly but with intent eyes. "Bring Neale and

  King here; as soon as their needs have been seen to," he ordered. Then he called after Baxter, "Ninety feet to the mile, you said?"

  "Ninety-foot grade, so King reported."

  "By all that's lucky!" breathed the chief, as if his load had been immeasurably lightened. "Send those boys to me."

  Some of the soldiers had found Neale down along the trail and were helping him into camp. He was crippled and almost exhausted. He made light of his condition, yet he groaned when he dropped into a seat before the fire.

  Some one approached Larry King to inform him that the general wanted to see him.

  "Wal, I'm hungry; an' he ain't my boss," replied Larry, and went on with his meal. It was well known that the Southerner would not talk.

  But Neale talked; he blazed up in eloquent eulogy of his lineman; before an hour had passed away every one in camp knew that Larry had saved Neale's life. Then the loquacious Casey, intruding upon the cowboy's reserve, got roundly cursed for his pains.

  "G'wan out among thim Sooz Injuns an' be a dead hero, thin," retorted Casey, as the cowboy stalked off to be alone in the gloom. Evidently Casey was disappointed not to get another cursing, for he turned to his comrade,

  McDermott, an axman. "Say, Mac, phwot do you make of cowboys?"

  "I tell ye, Pat, I make of thim thet you'll be full of bulletholes before this railroad's built."

  "Thin, b'gosh, I'll hould drink fer a long time yit," replied Casey.

  Later General Lodge visited Neale and received the drawings and figures that made plain solution of what had been a formidable problem.

  "It was easy, once I landed under that bulge of cliff," said Neale. "There's a slope of about forty-five degrees; not all rock. And four miles up the gorge peters out. We can cross. I got to where I could see the divide; and oh! there is where our troubles begin. The worst is all to come."

  "You've said it," replied the chief, soberly. "We can't follow the trail and get the grade necessary. We've got to hunt up a pass."

  "We'll find one," said Neale, hopefully.

  "Neale, you're ambitious and you've the kind of spirit that never gives up. I've watched your work from the start. You'll make a big position for yourself with this railroad, if you only live through the building of it."

  "Oh, I'll live through it, all right," replied Neale, laughing. "I'm like a cat; always on my feet; and have nine lives besides."

  "You surely must! How far did you fall this time?"

  "Not far. I landed in a tree, where my instrument stuck. But I crashed down, and got a hard knock on the head. When Larry found me I was unconscious and sliding for another precipice."

  "That Texan seems attached to you."

  "Well, if he wasn't before he will be now," said Neale, feelingly. "I'll tell you, General, Larry's red-headed, a droll, lazy Southerner, and he's made fun of by the men. But they don't understand him. They certainly can't see how dangerous he is. Only I don't mean that. I do mean that he's true like steel."

  "Yes, he showed that. When the rope snapped I was sure he'd pull a gun on us....

  Neale, I would like to have had you and Larry Red King with me through the war."

  "Thank you, General Lodge.... But I like the prospects now."

  "Neale, you're hungry for wild life?"

  "Yes," replied Neale, simply.

  "I said as much. I felt very much the same way when I was your age. And you like our prospects? ... Well, you've thought things out. Neale, the building of the

  U. P. will be hell!"

  "General, I can see that. It sort of draws me; two ways; the wildness of it and then to accomplish something."

  "My lad, I hope you will accomplish something big without living out all the wildness."

  "You think I might lose my head?" queried Neale.

  "You are excitable and quick-tempered. Do you drink?"

  "Yes; a little," answered the young man. "But I don't care for liquor."

  "Don't drink, Neale," said the chief, earnestly. "Of course it doesn't matter now, for we're only a few men out here in the wilds. But when our work is done over the divide, we must go back along the line. You know ground has been broken and rails laid west of Omaha. The work's begun. I hear that Omaha is a beehive.

  Thousands of idle men are flocking West. The work will be military. We must have the army to protect us, and we will hire all the soldiers who apply. But there will be hordes of others; the dregs of the war and all the bad characters of the frontier. They will flock to the construction camp. Millions of dollars will go along with the building. Gold! ... Wh
ere it's all coming from I have no idea.

  The Government backs us with the army; that's all. But the gold will be forthcoming. I have that faith.... And think, lad, what it will mean in a year or two. Ten thousand soldiers in one camp out here in these wild hills. And thousands of others; honest merchants and dishonest merchants, whisky men, gamblers, desperadoes, bandits, and bad women. Niggers, Greasers, Indians, all together moving from camp to camp, where there can be no law."

  "It will be great!" exclaimed Neale, with shining eyes.

  "It will be terrible," muttered the elder man, gravely. Then, as he got up and bade his young assistant good night, the somberness had returned to his eyes and the weight to his shoulders. He did not underestimate his responsibility nor the nature of his task, and he felt the coming of nameless and unknown events beyond all divining.

  Henney was Neale's next visitor. The old engineer appeared elated, but for the moment he apparently forgot everything else in his solicitude for the young man's welfare.

  Presently, after he had been reassured, the smile came back to his face.

  "The chief has promoted you," he said.

  "What!" exclaimed Neale, starting up.

  "It's a fact He just talked it over with Baxter and me. This last job of yours pleased him mightily... and so you go up."

  "Go up! ... To what?" queried Neale, eagerly.

  "Well, that's why he consulted us, I guess," laughed Henney. "You see, we sort of had to make something to promote you to, for the present."

  "Oh, I see! I was wondering what job there could be," replied Neale, and he laughed, too. "What did the chief say?"

  "He said a lot. Figured you'd land at the top if the U. P. is ever built....

  Chief engineer! ... Superintendent of maintenance of way!"

  "Good Lord!" breathed Neale. "You're not in earnest?"

  "Wal, I shore am, as your cowboy pard says," returned Henney. And then he spoke with real earnestness. "Listen, Neale. Here's the matter in a nutshell. You will be called upon to run these particular and difficult surveys, just as yesterday.

  But no more of the routine for you. Added to that, you will be sent forward and back, inspecting, figuring. You can make your headquarters with us or in the construction camps, as suits your convenience. All this, of course, presently, when we get farther on. So you will be in a way free; your own boss a good deal of the time. And fitting yourself for that 'maintenance of way' job. In fact, the chief said that; he called you Maintenance-of-Way Neale. Well, I congratulate you. And my advice is keep on as you've begun; go straight; look out for your wildness and temper.... That's all. Good night."

  Then he went out, leaving Neale speechless.

  Neale had many callers that night, and the last was Larry Red King. The cowboy stooped to enter the tent.

  "Wal, how aboot you-all?" he drawled.

  "Not so good, Red," replied Neale. "My head's hot and I've got a lot of pain. I think I'm going to be a little flighty. Would you mind getting your blankets and staying with me tonight?"

  "I reckon I'd be glad," answered King. He put a hand on Neale's face. "You shore have fever." He left the tent, to return presently with a roll of blankets and a canteen. Then he awkwardly began to bathe Neale's face with cold water. There was a flickering camp-fire outside that threw shadows on the wall of the tent.

  By its light Neale saw that King's left hand was bandaged and that he used it clumsily.

  "What's wrong with your hand?" he queried.

  "I reckon nawthin'."

  "Why is it bound up, then?"

  "Wal, some one sent thet fool army doctor to me an' he said I had two busted bones in it."

  "He did! I had no idea you were hurt. You never said a word. And you carried me and my instrument all day; with a broken hand!"

  "Wal, I ain't so shore it's broke."

  Neale swore at his friend and then he fell asleep. King watched beside him, ever and anon rewetting the hot brow.

  The camp-fire died out, and at length the quietness of late night set in. The wind mourned and lulled by intervals; a horse thudded his hoofs now and then; there were the soft, steady footsteps of the sentry on guard, and the wild cry of a night bird.

  Chapter 5

  Neale had not been wrong when he told the engineers that once they had a line surveyed across the gorge and faced the steep slopes of the other side their troubles would be magnified.

  They found themselves deeper in the Wyoming hills, a range of mountains that had given General Lodge great difficulty upon former exploring trips, and over which a pass had not yet been discovered.

  The old St. Vrain and Laramie Trail wound along the base of these slopes and through the valleys. But that trail was not possible for a railroad. A pass must be found; a pass that would give a grade of ninety feet to the mile. These mountains had short slopes, and they were high.

  It turned out that the line as already surveyed through ravines and across the gorge had to be abandoned. The line would have to go over the hills. To that end the camp was moved east again to the first slopes of the Wyoming hills; from there the engineers began to climb. They reached the base of the mountains, where they appeared to be halted for good and all.

  The second line, so far as it went, overlooked the Laramie Trail, which fact was proof that the old trail-finders had as keen eyes as engineers.

  With a large band of hostile Sioux watching their movements the engineer corps found it necessary to have the troops close at hand all the time. The surveyors climbed the ridges while the soldiers kept them in sight from below. Day after day this futile search for a pass went on. Many of the ridges promised well, only to end in impassable cliffs or breaks or ascents too steep. There were many slopes and they all looked alike. It took hard riding and hard climbing. The chief and his staff were in despair. Must their great project fail because of a few miles of steep ascent? They would not give up.

  The vicinity of Cheyenne Pass seemed to offer encouragement. Camp was made in the valley on a creek. From here observations were taken. One morning the chief, with his subordinates and a scout, ascended the creek and then through the pass to the summit. Again the old St. Vrain and Laramie Trail lay in sight. And again the troops rode along it, with the engineers above.

  The chief with his men rode on and up farther than usual; farther than they ought to have gone unattended. Once the scout halted and gazed intently across the valley.

  "Smoke signals over thar," he said.

  The engineers looked long, but none of them saw any smoke. They moved on. But the scout called them back.

  "Thet bunch of redskins has split on us. Fust thing we'll run into some of them."

  It was Neale's hawk eye that first sighted Indians. "Look! Look!" he cried, in great excitement, as he pointed with shaking finger.

  Down a grassy slope of a ridge Indians were riding, evidently to head off the engineers, to get between them and the troops.

  "Wal, we're in fer it now," declared the scout. "We can't get back the way we come up."

  The chief gazed coolly at the Indians and then at the long ridge sloping away from the summit. He had been in tight places before.

  "Ride!" was his order.

  "Let's fight!" cried Neale.

  The band of eight men were well armed and well mounted, and if imperative, could have held off the Sioux for a time. But General Lodge and the scout headed across a little valley and up a higher ridge, from which they expected to sight the troops. They rode hard and climbed fast, but it took a quarter of an hour to gain the ridge-top. Sure enough the troops were in sight, but far away, and the

  Sioux were cutting across to get in front.

  It was a time for quick judgment. The scout said they could not ride down over the ridge, and the chief decided they must follow along it. The going got to be hard and rough. One by one the men dismounted to lead their horses. Neale, who rode a mettlesome bay, could scarcely keep up.

  "Take mine," called Larry King, as he turned to Neale.
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  "Red, I'll handle this stupid beast or; "

  "Wal, you ain't handlin' him," interrupted King. "Hosses is my job, you know."

  Red took the bridle from Neale and in one moment the balky horse recognized a master arm.

  "By Heaven! we've got to hurry!" called Neale.

  It did seem that the Indians would head them off. Neale and King labored over the rocky ground as best they could, and by dint of hard effort came up with their party. The Indians were quartering the other ridge, riding as if on level ground. The going grew rougher. Baxter's horse slipped and lamed his right fore leg. Henney's saddle turned, and more valuable time was lost. All the men drew their rifles. At every dip of ground they expected to come to a break that would make a stand inevitable.

  From one point on the ridge they had a good view of the troops.

  "Signal!" ordered the chief.

  They yelled and shot and waved hats and scarfs. No use; the soldiers kept moving on at a snail pace far below.

  "On; down the ridge!" was the order.

  "Wal, General, thet looks bad to me," objected the scout. Red King shoved his lean, brown hand between them. There was a flame in his flashing, blue glance as it swept the slowly descending ridge.

  "Judgin' the lay of land is my job," he said, in his cool way. "We'll git down heah or not at all."

  Neale was sore, lame, and angry as well. He kept gazing across at the Sioux.

  "Let's stop; and fight," he panted. "We can; whip; that bunch."

  "We may have to fight, but not yet," replied the chief. "Come on."

  They scrambled on over rocky places, up and down steep banks. Here and there were stretches where it was possible to ride, and over these they made better time. The Indians fell out of sight under the side of the ridge, and this fact was disquieting, for no one could tell how soon they would show up again or in what quarter. This spurred the men to sterner efforts.

  Meanwhile the sun was setting and the predicament of the engineers grew more serious. A shout from Neale, who held up the rear, warned all that the Indians had scaled the ridge behind them and now were in straightaway pursuit. Thereupon