There was to be one more incident relating to this poor girl before Benton in its mad rush should forget her.

Neale divined the tragedy before it came to pass, but he was as powerless to prevent it as any other spectator in Beauty Stanton’s hall.

Larry King reacted in his own peculiar way to the news of Ruby’s suicide, and the rumored cause.  He stalked into that dancing-hall, where his voice stopped the music and the dancers.

“Come out heah!” he shouted to the pale Cordy.

And King spun the man into the center of the hall, where he called him every vile name known to the camp, scorned and slapped and insulted him, shamed him before that breathless crowd, goaded him at last into a desperate reaching for his gun, and killed him as he drew it.

21

Benton slowed and quieted down a few days before pay-day, to get ready for the great rush.  Only the saloons and dance-halls and gambling-hells were active, and even here the difference was manifest.

The railroad-yard was the busiest place in the town, for every train brought huge loads of food, merchandise, and liquor, the transporting of which taxed the teamsters to their utmost.

The day just before pay-day saw the beginning of a singular cycle of change.  Gangs of laborers rode in on the work-trains from the grading-camps and the camps at the head of the rails, now miles west of Benton.  A rest of several days inevitably followed the visit of the pay-car.  It was difficult to keep enough men at work to feed and water the teams, and there would have been sorry protection from the Indians had not the troops been on duty.  Pay-days were not off-days for the soldiers.

Steady streams of men flowed toward Benton from east and west; and that night the hum of Benton was merry, subdued, waiting.

Bright and early the town with its added thousands awoke.  The morning was clear, rosy, fresh.  On the desert the colors changed from soft gray to red and the whirls of dust, riding the wind, resembled little clouds radiant with sunset hues.  Silence and solitude and unbroken level reigned outside in infinite contrast to the seething town.  Benton resembled an ant-heap at break of day.  A thousand songs arose, crude and coarse and loud, but full of joy.  Pay-day and vacation were at hand!

    “Then drill, my Paddies, drill! 
     Drill, my heroes, drill! 
     Drill all day,
     No sugar in your tay,
     Workin’ on the U. P. Railway.”

Casey was one Irish trooper of thousands who varied the song and tune to suit his taste.  The content alone they all held.  Drill!  They were laborers who could turn into regiments at a word.

They shaved their stubby beards and donned their best—­a bronzed, sturdy, cheery army of wild boys.  The curse rested but lightly upon their broad shoulders.

Strangely enough, the morning began without the gusty wind so common to that latitude, and the six inches of powdery white dust did not rise.  The wind, too, waited.  The powers of heaven smiled in the clear, quiet morning, but the powers of hell waited—­for the hours to come, the night and the darkness.