The sun rose upon a squalid scene—­a wide flat area where stakes and floors and frames mingled with all the flotsam and jetsam left by a hurried and profligate populace, moving on to another camp.  Daylight found no man there nor any living creature.  And all day the wind blew the dust and sheets of sand over the place where had reigned such strife of toil and gold and lust and blood and death.  A train passed that day, out of which engineer and fireman gazed with wondering eyes at what had been Benton.  Like a mushroom it had arisen, and like a dust-storm on the desert wind it had roared away, bearing its freight of labor, of passion, and of evil.  Benton had become a name—­a fabulous name.

But nature seemed more merciful than life.  For it began to hide what man had left—­the scars of habitations where hell had held high carnival.  Sunset came, then night and the starlight.  The lonely hours were winged, as if in a hurry to resolve back into the elements the flimsy remains of that great camp.

And that spot was haunted.

29

Casey left Benton on the work-train.  It was composed of a long string of box—­and flat-cars loaded with stone, iron, gravel, ties—­ all necessaries for the up-keep of the road.  The engine was at the rear end, pushing instead of pulling; and at the extreme front end there was a flat-car loaded with gravel.  A number of laborers rode on this car, among whom was Casey.  In labor or fighting this Irishman always gravitated to the fore.

All along the track, from outside of Benton to the top of a long, slow rise of desert were indications of the fact that Indians had torn up the track or attempted to derail trains.

The signs of Sioux had become such an every-day matter in the lives of the laborers that they were indifferent and careless.  Thus isolated, unprotected groups of men, out some distance from the work-train, often were swooped down upon by Indians and massacred.

The troopers had gone on with the other trains that carried Benton’s inhabitants and habitations.

Casey and his comrades had slow work of it going westward, as it was necessary to repair the track and at the same time to keep vigilant watch for the Sioux.  They expected the regular train from the east to overtake them, but did not even see its smoke.  There must have been a wreck or telegraph messages to hold it back at Medicine Bow.

Toward sunset the work-train reached the height of desert land that sloped in long sweeping lines down to the base of the hills.

At this juncture a temporary station had been left in the shape of several box-cars where the telegraph operators and a squad of troopers lived.

As the work-train lumbered along to the crest of this heave of barren land Casey observed that some one at the station was excitedly waving a flag.  Thereupon Casey, who acted as brakeman, signaled the engineer.

“Dom’ coorious that,” remarked Casey to his comrade McDermott.  “Thim operators knowed we’d stop, anyway.”