She held him with strong and passionate clasp and kissed him again and again.

“Good-by!” Her last word was low, choked, poignant, and had in it a mournful reminder of her old tragic woe.

Then he was alone.  Mounting clumsily, with blurred eyes, he rode into the winding trail.

10

Neale and King traveled light, without pack-animals, and at sunrise they reached the main trail.

It bore evidence of considerable use and was no longer a trail, but a highroad.  Fresh tracks of horses and oxen, wagon-wheel ruts, dead camp-fires, and scattered brush that had been used for wind-breaks—­ all these things attested to the growing impetus of that movement; soon it was to become extraordinary.

All this was Indian country.  Neale and his companion had no idea whether or not the Sioux had left their winter quarters for the war-path.  But it was a vast region, and the Indians could not be everywhere.  Neale and King took chances, as had all these travelers, though perhaps the risk was not so great, because they rode fleet horses.  They discovered no signs of Indians, and it appeared as if they were alone in a wilderness.

They covered sixty miles from early dawn to dark, with a short rest at noon, and reached Fort Fetterman safely without incident or accident.  Troops were there, but none of the U. P. engineering staff.  Neale did not meet any soldiers with whom he was acquainted.  Orders were there for him, however, to report to North Platte as soon as it was possible to reach there.  Troops were to be moving soon, so Neale learned, and the long journey could be made in comparative safety.

Here Neale received the tidings that forty miles of railroad had been built during the last summer, and trains had been run that distance west from Omaha.  His heart swelled.  Not for many a week had he heard anything favorable to the great U. P. project, and here was news of rails laid, trains run.  Already this spring the graders were breaking ground far ahead of the rail-layers.  Report and rumor at the fort had it that lively times had attended the construction.  But the one absorbing topic was the Sioux Indians, who were expected to swarm out of the hills that summer and give the troops hot work.

In due time Neale and Larry arrived at North Platte, which was little more than a camp.  The construction gangs were not expected to reach there until late in the fall.  Baxter was at North Platte, with a lame surveyor, and no other helpers; consequently he hailed Neale and Larry with open arms.  A summer’s work on the hot monotonous plains stared Neale in the face, but he must resign himself to the inevitable.  He worked, as always, with that ability and energy which had made him invaluable to his superiors.  Here, however, the labor was a dull, hot grind, without any thrills.  Neale filled the long days with duty and seldom let his mind-wander.  In leisure hours, however, he dreamed of Allie and the future.  He found no trouble in passing time that way.  Also he watched eagerly for arrivals from the west, whom he questioned about Indians in the Wyoming hills; and from troops or travelers coming from the east he heard all the news of the advancing railroad construction.  It was absorbingly interesting, yet Neale could credit so few of the tales.