Casey rolled on, and the train grew plain in his sight.  When perhaps several miles of track lay between him and the approaching engine, he concluded it was time to get ready.  Lifting one of the heavy ties, he laid it in front where he could quickly shove it off with his foot.

Then he stood up.  It was certain that he looked backward, but at no particular thing—­just an instinctive glance.  With his foot on the tie he steadied himself so that he could push it off and leap instantly after.

And at that moment he remembered the little book he had found on Beauty Stanton’s breast, and which contained the letter to his friend Neale.  Casey deliberated in spite of the necessity for haste.  Then he took the book from his pocket.

“B’gorra, yez niver can tell, an’ thim U. P. R. throopers hev been known to bury a mon widout searchin’ his pockets,” he said.

And he put the little book between the teeth that held his pipe.  Then he shoved off the tie and leaped.

30

Neale, aghast and full of bitter amaze and shame at himself, fled from the gambling-hall where he had struck Beauty Stanton.  How beside himself with rage and torture he had been!  That woman to utter Allie Lee’s name!  Inconceivable!  Could she know his story?

He tramped the dark streets, and the exercise and the cool wind calmed him.  Then the whistle of an engine made him decide to leave Benton at once, on the first train out.  Hurriedly he got his baggage and joined the throng which even at that late hour was making for the station.

A regret that was pain burned deep in him—­somehow inexplicable.  He, like other men, had done things that must be forgotten.  What fatality in the utterance of a single name—­what power to flay!

From a window of an old coach he looked out upon the dim lights and pale tent shapes.

“The last—­of Benton! ...  Thank God!” he murmured, brokenly.  Well he realized how Providence had watched over him there.  And slowly the train moved out upon the dark, windy desert.

It took Neale nearly forty-eight hours to reach the new camp—­ Roaring City.  A bigger town than Benton had arisen, and more was going up—­tents and clapboard houses, sheds and cabins—­the same motley jumble set under beetling red Utah bluffs.

Neale found lodgings.  Being without food or bed or wash for two days and nights was not helpful to the task he must accomplish—­the conquering of his depression.  He ate and slept long, and the following day he took time to make himself comfortable and presentable before he sallied forth to find the offices of the engineer corps.  Then he walked on as directed, and heard men talking of Indian ambushes and troops.

When at length he reached the headquarters of the engineer corps he was greeted with restraint by his old officers and associates; was surprised and at a loss to understand their attitude.

Even in General Lodge there was a difference.  Neale gathered at once that something had happened to put out of his chief’s mind the interest that officer surely must have in Neale’s trip to Washington.  And after greeting him, the first thing General Lodge said gave warrant to the rumors of trouble with Indians.