hase--a
part of his life ended there.

"Son, it's over," said Slingerland, who watched with him. "Allie's gone
home--back to whar she belongs--to come into her own. Thank God! An'
you--why this day turns you back to whar you was once.... Allie owes her
life to you an' her father's life. Think, son, of these hyar times--how
much wuss it might hev been."

Neale's sense of thankfulness was unutterable. Passively he went with
Slingerland, silent and gentle. The trapper dressed his wounds, tended
him, kept men away from him, and watched by him as if he were a sick
child.

Neale suffered only the weakness following the action and stress
of great passion. His mind seemed full of beautiful solemn bells of
blessing, resonant, ringing the wonder of an everlasting unchangeable
truth. Night fell--the darkness thickened--the old trapper kept his
vigil--and Neale sank to sleep, and the sweet, low-toned bells claimed
him in his dreams.

How strange for Neale to greet a dawn without hatred! He and Slingerland
had breakfast together.

"Son, will you go into the hills with me?" asked the old trapper.

"Yes, some day, when the railroad's built," replied Neale, thoughtfully.

Slingerland's keen eyes quickened. "But the railroad's about done--an'
you need a vacation," he insisted.

"Yes," Neale answered, dreamily.

"Son, mebbe you ought to wait awhile. You're packin' a bullet somewhar
in your carcass."

"It's here," said Neale, putting his hand to his breast, high up toward
the shoulder. "I feel it--a dull, steady, weighty pain.... But that's
nothing. I hope I always have it."

"Wal, I don't.... An', son, you ain't never goin' back to drink an'
cards-an' all thet hell?... Not now!"

Neale's smile was a promise, and the light of it was instantly reflected
on the rugged face of the trapper.

"Reckon I needn't asked thet. Wal, I'll be sayin' good-bye.... You kin
expect me back some day.... To see the meetin' of the rails from east
an' west--an' to pack you off to my hills."

Neale rode out of Roaring City on the work-train, sitting on a flat-car
with a crowd of hairy-breasted, red-shirted laborers.

That train carried hundreds of men, tons of steel rails, thousands of
ties; and also it was equipped to feed the workers and to fight Indians.
It ran to the end of the rails, about forty miles out of Roaring City.

Neale sought out Reilly, the boss. This big Irishman was in the thick
of the start of the day--which was like a ba