down hyar--on the
bench--beside me. Thar!... Allie, I've a powerful lot to tell you."

"Wait! To see you--and to hear--of him--almost killed me with joy," she
panted. Her little hands, once so strong and brown, but now thin and
white, fastened tight in the fringe of his buckskin hunting-coat.

"Lass, sight of you sort of makes me young agin--but--Allie, those are
not the happy eyes I remember."

"I--am very unhappy," she whispered.

"Wal, if thet ain't too bad! Shore it's natural you'd be downhearted,
losin' Neale thet way."

"It's not all--that," she murmured, and then she told him.

"Wal, wal!" ejaculated the trapper, stroking his beard in thoughtful
sorrow. "But I reckon thet's natural, too. You're strange hyar, an' thet
story will hang over you.... Lass, with all due respect to your father,
I reckon you'd better come back to me an' Neale."

"Did he tell you--to say that?" she whispered, tremulously.

"Lord, no!" ejaculated Slingerland.

"Does he--care--for me still?"

"Lass, he's dyin' fer you--an' I never spoke a truer word."

Allie shuddered close to him, blinded, stormed by an exquisite
bitter-sweet fury of love. She seemed rising, uplifted, filled with
rich, strong joy.

"I forgave him," she murmured, dreamily low to herself.

"War, mebbe you'll be right glad you did--presently," said Slingerland,
with animation. "'Specially when thar wasn't nothin' much to forgive."

Allie became mute. She could not lift her eyes.

"Lass, listen!" began Slingerland. "After you left Roarin' City Neale
went at hard work. Began by heavin' ties an' rails, an' now he's
slingin' a sledge.... This was amazin' to me. I seen him only onct
since, an' thet was the other day. But I heerd about him. I rode over to
Roarin' City several times. An' I made it my bizness to find out about
Neale.... He never came into the town at all. They said he worked like a
slave the first day, bleedin' hard. But he couldn't be stopped. An' the
work didn't kill him, though thar was some as swore it would. They said
he changed, an' when he toughened up thar was never but one man as could
equal him, an' thet was an Irish feller named Casey. I heerd it was
somethin' worth while to see him sling a sledge.... Wal, I never seen
him do it, but mebbe I will yet.

"A few days back I met him gettin' off a train at Roarin' City. Lord! I
hardly knowed him! He stood like an Injun, with the big muscles bulgin',
an' his face was clean an' dark, his eye li