him that his pity and tenderness were not love. Still there had been another emotion connected with Allie—a strange thing too subtle and brief for him to analyze; when away from her he lost it. Could that have been love? He thought of the day she waded the brook, the feel of her as he carried her in his arms; and of that last sight of her, on her knees in the cabin, her face hidden, her slender form still as a statue. His own heart was touched. Yet this was not love. It was enough for Neale to feel that he had done what he would have applauded in another man, that he seemed the better for his pledge, that the next meeting with Allie was one he looked forward to with a strange, new interest.
September came and half sped by before Neale, with Larry and an engineer named Service, arrived at the head of Sherman Pass with pack-burros and supplies, ready to begin the long vigil of watching the snow drift over the line in winter.
They were to divide the pass between them, Service to range the upper half and Neale the lower. As there were but few trees up in that locality, and these necessary for a large supply of fire-wood, they decided not to attempt building a cabin for Service, but to dig a dugout. This was a hole hollowed out in a hillside and covered with a roof of branches and earth.
No small job, indeed, was it to build a satisfactory dugout—one that was not conspicuous from every ridge for Indian eyes to spy out—and warm and dry and safe. They started several before they completed one.
“It’ll be lonesomer for you—and colder,” observed Neale.
“I won’t mind that,” replied the other.
“We’ll see each other before the snow flies, surely.”
“Not unless you come up. I’m no climber. I’ve got a bad leg.”
“I’ll come, then. We may have weeks of fine weather yet. I’m going to hunt some.”
“Good luck to you.”
So these comrades parted. They were only two of the intrepid engineers selected to brave the perils and hardships of that wild region in winter, to serve the great cause.
The golds and purples of autumn mingled with the predominating green of Slingerland’s valley. In one place beaver had damned the stream, forming a small lake, and here cranes and other aquatic birds had congregated. Neale saw beaver at work, and deer on the hillside.
“It’s been three months,” he soliloquized, as he paused at the ford which Allie had so bravely and weakly tried to cross at his bidding. “Three months! So much can have happened. But Slingerland is safe from Indians. I hope—I believe I’ll find her well.”
He was a prey to dread and yet he did not hurry. Larry, driving the pack-train, drew on ahead and passed out of sight in a green bend of the brook. At length Neale saw a column of blue smoke curling up above the trees, and that sight relieved him. If the trapper was there, the girl would be with him.
At this moment his horse shot up his long ears and snorted.
A gray form glided out of the green and began to run down the trail toward him—a lithe, swift girl in buckskin.
“An Indian girl!” ejaculated Neale.
But her face was white, her hair tawny and flying in the wind. Could that be Allie? It must be she. It was.
“Lord! I’m in for it!” muttered Neale, dismounting, and he gazed with eager eyes. She was approaching quickly.
“Neale! You’ve come!” she cried, and ran straight upon him.
He hardly recognized her face or her voice, but what she said proclaimed her to be Allie. She enveloped him. Her arms, strong, convulsive, clasped him. Up came her face, white, gleaming, joyous, strange to Neale, but he knew somehow that it was held up to be kissed. Dazedly he kissed her—felt cool sweet lips touch his lips again and then again.
“Allie! … I—I hardly knew you!” was his greeting. Now he was holding her, and he felt her press her head closely to his breast, felt the intensity of what must have been her need of physical contact to make sure he was here in the flesh. And as he held her, looking down upon her, he recognized the little head and the dull gold and ripple of chestnut hair. Yes—it was Allie. But this new Allie was taller—up to his shoulder—and lithe and full-bosomed and strong. This was not the frail girl he had left.
“I thought—you’d—never, never come,” she murmured, clinging to him.
“It was—pretty long,” he replied, unsteadily. “But I’ve come. … And I’m very glad to see you.”
“You didn’t know me,” she said, shyly. “You looked—it.”
“Well, no wonder. I left a thin, pale little girl, all eyes—and what do I find? … Let me look at you.”
She drew back and stood before him, shy and modest, but without a trace of embarrassment, surely the sweetest and loveliest girl he had ever beheld. Some remembered trace he found in her features, perhaps the look, the shape of her eyes—all else was unfamiliar. And that all else was a white face, blue-veined, with rich blood slowly mantling to the broad brow, with sweet red lips haunting in their sadness, with glorious eyes, like violets drenched in dew, shadowy, exquisite, mournful and deep, yet radiant with beautiful light.
Neale recognized her beauty at the instant he realized her love, and he was so utterly astounded at the one, and overwhelmed with the other, that he was mute. A powerful reaction took place within him, so strong that it helped to free him from the other emotions. He found his tongue and controlled his glance.
“I took you for an Indian girl in all this buckskin,” he said.
“Dress, leggings, moccasins, I made them all myself,” she replied, sweeping a swift hand from fringe to beads. “Not a single button! Oh, it was hard—so much work! But they’re more comfortable than any clothes I ever had.”
“So you’ve not been—altogether idle since I left?”
“Since that day,” and she blushed exquisitely at the words, “I’ve been doing everything under the sun except that grieving which you disliked—everything—cooking, sewing, fishing, bathing, climbing, riding, shooting—AND watching for you.”
“That accounts,” he replied, musingly.
“For what?”
“Your—your improvement. You seem happy—and well.”
“Do you mean the activity accounts for that—or my watching for you?” she queried, archly. She was quick, bright, roguish. Neale had no idea what qualities she might have possessed before that fateful massacre, but she was bewilderingly different from the sick-minded girl he had tried so hard to interest and draw out of her gloom. He was so amazed, so delighted with her, and so confused with his own peculiar state of mind, that he could not be natural. Then his mood shifted and a little heat at his own stupidity aroused his wits.
“Allie, I want to realize what’s happened,” he said. “Let’s sit down here. We sat here once before, if you remember. Slingerland can wait to see me.”
Neale’s horse grazed along the green border of the brook. The water ran with low, swift rush; there were bees humming round the autumn flowers and a fragrance of wood-smoke wafted down from the camp; over all lay the dreaming quietness of the season and the wild.
Allie sat down upon the rock, but Neale, changing his mind, stood beside her. Still he did not trust himself to face her. He was unsettled, uncertain. All this was like a dream.
“So you watched for me?” he asked, gently.
“For hours and days and weeks,” she sighed.
“Then you—cared—cared a little for me?”
She kept silence. And he, wanting intensely to look up, did not.
“Tell me,” he insisted, with a hint of the old dominance. He remembered again the scene