The U. P. Trail Part 30

As Allie lay there, slowly succ.u.mbing to weariness and drowsiness, she thought of the irony of fate that had let her escape the Sioux only to fall into the hands of Durade. Still, there was hope. Durade was traveling toward the east. Out there somewhere he would meet Neale, and then blood would be spilled. She had always regarded Durade strangely, wondering that in spite of his kindness to her she could not really care for him. She understood now and hated him pa.s.sionately. And if there was any one she feared it was Durade. Allie lost herself in the past, seeing the stream of mixed humanity that pa.s.sed through Durade's gambling-halls. No doubt he was on his way, first to search for her mother, and secondly, to profit by the building of the railroad. But he would never find her mother. Allie was glad.

At length she fell asleep and slept long, then dozed at intervals. The caravan halted. Allie heard the familiar sing-song calls to the oxen.

Soon all was bustle about her, and this fully awakened her. In a moment or more she must expect to be face to face with Durade. What should she tell him? How much should she let him know? Not one word about her mother! He would be less afraid of her if he found out that the mother was dead. Durade had always feared Allie's mother.

The women with whom Allie had ridden helped her out of the wagon, and, finding her too weak to stand, they made a bed for her on the ground.

The camp site appeared to be just the same as any other part of that monotonous plain-land, but evidently there was a stream or water-hole near by. Allie saw her companions were the only women in the caravan; they were plain persons, blunt, yet kind, used to hard, honest work, and probably wives of defenders of the wagon-train.

They could not conceal their curiosity in regard to Allie, nor their wonder. She had heard them whispering together whenever they came near.

Presently Allie saw Durade. He was approaching. How well she remembered him! Yet the lapse of time and the change between her childhood and the present seemed incalculable. He spoke to the women, motioning in her direction. His bearing and action were that of a man of education, and a gentleman. Yet he looked what her mother had called him--a broken man of cla.s.s, an adventurer, a victim of base pa.s.sions.

He came and knelt by Allie. "How are you now?" he asked. His voice was gentle and courteous, different from that of the other men.

"I can't stand up," replied Allie.

"Are you hurt?"

"No--only worn out."

"You escaped from Indians?"

"Yes--a tribe of Sioux. They intended to keep me captive. But a young squaw freed me--led me off."

He paused as if it was an effort to speak, and a long, thin, shapely hand went to his throat. "Your mother?" he asked, hoa.r.s.ely. Suddenly his face had turned white.

Allie gazed straight into his eyes, with wonder, pain, suspicion. "My mother! I've not seen her for nearly two years."

"My G.o.d! What happened? You lost her? You became separated?...

Indians--bandits?... Tell me!"

"I have--no--more to tell," said Allie. His pain revived her own. She pitied Durade. He had changed--aged--there were lines in his face that were new to her.

"I spent a year in and around Ogden, searching," went on Durade. "Tell me--more."

"No!" cried Allie.

"Do you know, then?" he asked, very low.

"I'm not your daughter--and mother ran off from you. Yes, I know that,"

replied Allie, bitterly.

"But I brought you up--took care of you--helped educate you," protested Durade, with agitation. "You were my own child, I thought. I was always kind to you. I--I loved the mother in the daughter."

"Yes, I know.... But you were wicked."

"If you won't tell me it must mean she's still alive," he replied, swiftly. "She's not dead;... I'll find her. I'll make her come back to me--or kill her... After all these years--to leave me!"

He seemed wrestling with mingled emotions. The man was proud and strong, but defeat in life, in the crowning pa.s.sion of life, showed in his white face. The evil in him was not manifest then.

"Where have you lived all this time?" he asked, presently.

"Back in the hills with a trapper."

"You have grown. When I saw you I thought it was the ghost of your mother. You are just as she was when we met."

He seemed lost in sad retrospection. Allie saw streaks of gray in his once jet-black hair.

"What will you do?" asked Allie.

He was startled. The softness left him. A blaze seemed to leap under skin and eyes, and suddenly he was different--he was Durade the gambler, instinct with the l.u.s.t of gold and life.

"Your mother left me for YOU," he said, with terrible bitterness. "And the game has played you into my hands. I'll keep you. I'll hold you to get even with her."

Allie felt stir in her the fear she had had of him in her childhood when she disobeyed. "But you can't keep me against my will--not among people we'll meet eastward."

"I can, and I will!" he declared, softly, but implacably. "We're not going East. We'll be in rougher places than the gold-camps of California. There's no law but gold and guns out here... But--if you speak of me to any one may your G.o.d have mercy on you!"

The blaze of him betrayed the Spaniard. He meant more than dishonor, torture, and death. The evil in him was rampant. The love that had been the only good in an abnormal and disordered mind had turned to hate.

Allie knew him. He was the first person who had ever dominated her through sheer force of will. Unless she abided by his command her fate would be worse than if she had stayed captive among the Sioux. This man was not an American. His years among men of later mold had not changed the Old World cruelty of his nature. She recognized the fact in utter despair. She had not strength left to keep her eyes open.

After a while Allie grew conscious that Durade had left her. She felt like a creature that had been fascinated by a deadly snake and then left to itself; in the mean time she could do nothing but wait. Shudderingly, mournfully, she resigned herself to the feeling that she must stay under Durade's control until a dominance stronger than his should release her.

Neale seemed suddenly to have retreated far into the past, to have gone out of the realm of her consciousness. And yet the sound of his voice, the sight of his face, would make instantly that spirit of hers--his spirit--to leap like a tigress in her defense. But where was Neale? The habits of life were all powerful; and all her habits had been formed under Durade's magnetic eye. Neale retreated and so did spirit, courage, hope. Love remained, despairing, yet unquenchable.

Allie's resignation established a return to normal feelings. She ate and grew stronger; she slept and was refreshed.

The caravan moved on about twenty-five miles a day. At the next camp Allie tried walking again, to find her feet were bruised, her legs cramped, and action awkward and painful. But she persevered, and the tingling of revived circulation was like needles p.r.i.c.king her flesh. She limped from one camp-fire to another; and all the rough men had a kind word or question or glance for her. Allie did not believe they were all honest men. Durade had employed a large force, and apparently he had taken on every one who applied. Miners, hunters, scouts, and men of no hall-mark except that of wildness composed the mixed caravan. It spoke much for Durade that they were under control. Allie well remembered hearing her mother say that he had a genius for drawing men to him and managing them.

Once during her walk, when every one appeared busy, a big fellow with hulking shoulders and bandaged head stepped beside her.

"Girl," he whispered, "if you want a knife slipped into Durade, tell him about me!"

Allie recognized the whisper before she did the heated, red face with its crooked nose and bold eyes and ugly mouth. Fresno! He must have escaped from the Sioux and fallen in with Durade.

Allie shrunk from him. Durade, compared with this kind of ruffian, was a haven of refuge. She pa.s.sed on without a sign. But Fresno was safe from her. This meeting made her aware of an impulse to run back to Durade, instinctively, just as she had when a child. He had ruined her mother; he had meant to make a lure of her, the daughter; he had showed what his vengeance would be upon that mother, just as he had showed Allie her doom should she betray him. But notwithstanding all this, Durade was not Fresno, nor like any of those men whose eyes seemed to burn her.

She returned to the wagon and to the several women and men attached to it, with the a.s.surance that there were at least some good persons in that motley caravan crew.

The women, naturally curious and sympathetic, questioned her in one way and another. Who was she, what had happened to her, where were her people or friends? How had she ever escaped robbers and Indians in that awful country? Was she really Durade's daughter?

Allie did not tell much about herself, and finally she was left in peace.

The lean old scout who had first seen Allie as she staggered into the trail told her it was over a hundred miles to the first camp of the railroad-builders.

"Down-hill all the way," he concluded. "An' we'll make it in a jiffy."

Nevertheless, it took nearly all of four days to sight the camp of the traders--the advance-guard of the great construction work.