“Son, look fer the wust,” he said.  “An’ we hain’t got time to waste.”

They pushed open the canvas framework of a door and, stooping low, passed inside.  Neale’s glance saw first the fireplace, where no fire had burned for days.  Snow had sifted into the dugout and lay in little drifts everywhere.  The blankets on the bunk covered Service, hiding his face.  Both men knew before they uncovered him what his fate had been.

“Frozen to death!” gasped Neale.

Service lay white, rigid, like stone, with no sign of suffering upon his face.

“He jest went to sleep—­an’ never woke up,” declared Slingerland.

“Thank God for that!” exclaimed Neale.  “Oh, why did I not stay with him?”

“Too late, son.  An’ many a good man will go to his death before thet damn railroad is done.”

Neale searched for Service’s notes and letters and valuables which could be turned over to the engineering staff.

Slingerland found a pick and shovel, which Neale remembered to have used in building the dugout; and with these the two men toiled at the frozen sand and gravel to open up a grave; It was like digging in stone.  At length they succeeded.  Then, rolling Service in the blankets and tarpaulin, they lowered him into the cold ground and hurriedly filled up his grave.

It was a grim, gruesome task.  Another nameless grave!  Neale had already seen nine graves.  This one was up the slope not a hundred feet from the line of survey.

“Slingerland,” exclaimed Neale, “the railroad will run along there!  Trains will pass this spot.  In years to come travelers will look out of the train windows along here.  Boys riding away to seek their fortunes!  Bride and groom on their honeymoon!  Thousands of people—­ going, coming, busy, happy at their own affairs, full of their own lives—­will pass by poor Service’s grave and never know it’s there!”

“Wal, son, if people must hev railroads, they must kill men to build them,” replied the trapper.

Neale conceived the idea that Slingerland did, not welcome the coming of the steel rails.  The thought shocked him.  But then, he reflected, a trapper would not profit by the advance of civilization.

With the wind in their backs Neale and Slingerland were practically blown home.  They made it up between them to keep knowledge of the tragedy from Allie.  So ended the coldest and hardest and grimmest day Neale had ever known.

The winter passed, the snows melted, the winds quieted, and spring came.

Long since Neale had decided to leave Allie with Slingerland that summer.  She would be happy there, and she wished to stay until Neale could take her with him.  That seemed out of the question for the present.  A construction camp full of troopers and laborers was no place for Allie.  Neale dreaded the idea of taking her to Omaha.  Always in his mind were haunting fears of this Spaniard, Durade, who had ruined Allie’s mother, and of the father whom Allie had never seen.  Neale instinctively felt that these men were to crop up somewhere in his life, and before they did appear he wanted to marry Allie.  She was now little more than sixteen years old.