The U. P. Trail, Zane Grey [robert munsch read aloud .txt] 📗

Her heart seemed to collapse. All within her was riot.

“Neale!” she whispered, in anguish.

“All right an’ workin’ hard. He sent me,” replied Slingerland, swift to get his message out.

Allie quivered and closed her eyes and leaned against him. A beautiful something pervaded her soul. Slowly the tumult within her breast subsided. She recovered.

“Uncle Al!” she called him, tenderly.

“Wal, I should smile! An’ glad to see you—why Lord! I’d never tell you!... You’re white an’ shaky, lass.... Set 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 like fire.... He nearly shook the daylights out of me. ‘Slingerland, I want you!’ he kept yellin’ at me. An’ I said, ‘So it ‘pears, but what fer?’ Then he told me he was goin’ after the gold thet Horn had buried along the old Laramie Trail. Wal, I took my outfit, an’ we rode back into the hills. You remember them. Wal, we found the gold, easy enough, an’ we packed it back to Roarin’ City. Thar Neale sent me off on a train to fetch the gold to you. An’ hyar I am an’ thar’s the gold.”

Allie stared at the pack, bewildered by Slingerland’s story. Suddenly she sat up and she felt the blood rush to her cheeks.

“Gold! Horn’s gold! But it’s not mine! Did Neale send it to me?”

“Every ounce,” replied the trapper, soberly. “I reckon it’s yours. Thar was no one else left—an’ you recollect what Horn said. Lass, it’s yours—an’ I’m goin’ to make you keep it.”

“How much is there?” queried Allie, with thrills of curiosity. How well she remembered Horn! He had told her he had no relatives. Indeed, the gold was hers.

“Wal, Neale an’ me couldn’t calkilate how much, hevin’ nothin’ to weigh the gold. But it’s a fortune.”

Allie turned from the pack to the earnest face of the trapper. There had been many critical moments in her life, but never one with the suspense, the fullness, the inevitableness of this.

“Did Neale send anything else?” she flashed.

“Wal, yes, an’ I was comin’ to thet,” replied Slingerland, as he unlaced the front of his hunting-frock. Presently he drew forth a little leather note-book, which he handed to Allie. She took it while looking up at him. Never had she seen his face radiate such strange emotion. She divined it to be the supreme happiness inherent in the power to give happiness.

Allie trembled. She opened the little book. Surely it would contain a message that would be as sweet as life to dying eyes. She read a name, written in ink, in a clear script: “Beauty Stanton.”

Her pulses ceased to beat, her blood to flow, her heart to throb. All seemed to freeze within her except her mind. And that leaped fearfully over the first lines of a letter—then feverishly on to the close—only to fly back and read again. Then she dropped the book. She hid her face on Slingerland’s breast. She clutched him with frantic hands. She clung there, her body all held rigid, as if some extraordinary strength or inspiration or joy had suddenly inhibited weakness.

“Wal, lass, hyar you’re takin’ it powerful hard—an’ I made sure—”

“Hush!” whispered Allie, raising her face. She kissed him. Then she sprang up like a bent sapling released. She met Slingerland’s keen gaze—saw him start—then rise as if the better to meet a shock.

“I am going back West with you,” she said, coolly.

“Wal, I knowed you’d go.”

“Divide that gold. I’ll leave half for my father.” Slingerland’s great hands began to pull at the pack.

“Thar’s a train soon. I calkilated to stay over a day. But the sooner the better.... Lass, will you run off or tell him?”

“I’ll tell him. He can’t stop me, even if he would.... The gold will save him from ruin....He will let me go.”

She stooped to pick up the little leather note-book and placed it in her bosom. Her heart seemed to surge against it. The great river rolled on—rolled on—magnified in her sight. A thick, rich, beautiful light shone under the trees. What was this dance of her blood while she seemed so calm, so cool, so sure?