It needed only a few days and nights for Allie Lee to divine Durade’s retrogression.  Before this he had been a gambler for the sake of gambling, even a sportsman in his evil way; now he seemed possessed of an unscrupulous intent, a strange, cold, devouring passion to get gold and more gold—­always more gold.  Allie divined evidence of this, saw it, heard it.  The man had struck the descent, and he was all the more dangerous for his lapse from his former standards, poor as they had been.

Not a week had elapsed before the gambling-hell roared all night.  Allie got most of her sleep during the day.  She tried to shut out what sound she could, and tried to be deaf to the rest.  But she had to hear the angry brawls, pistol-shots, and shrill cries; yes, and the trample of heavy boots as men dragged a dead gamester out to the ditch.

Day was a relief, a blessing.  Allie was frequently cooped up in her narrow canvas-covered wagon, but she saw from there the life of the grading camp.

There were various bosses—­the boarding boss, who fed the laborers; the stable boss, who had charge of the teams; the grading boss, who ruled the diggers and scrapers; and the time-keeper boss, who kept track of the work of all.

In the early morning a horde of hungry men stampeded the boarding-tents where the cooks and waiters made mad haste to satisfy loud and merry demands.  At sunset the same horde dropped in, dirty and hot and lame, and fought for seats while others waited for their turn.

Out on the level plain stretched the hundreds of teams, moving on and returning, the drivers shouting, the horses bending.  The hot sun glared, the wind whipped up the dust, the laborers speeded up to the shout of the boss.  And ever westward crept the low, level, yellow bank of sand and gravel—­the road-bed of the first transcontinental railway.

Thus the daytime had its turmoil, too, but this last was splendid, like the toil of heroes united to gain some common end.  And the army of soldiers waited, ever keen-eyed, for the skulking Sioux.

Mull, the boss of the camp, became a friend of Durade’s.  The wily Spaniard could draw to him any class of men.  This Mull had been a driver of truck-horses in New York, and now he was a driver of men.

He was huge, like a bull, heavy-lipped and red-cheeked, hairy and coarse, with big sunken eyes.  A brute—­a caveman.  He drank; he gambled.  He was at once a bully and a pirate.  Responsible to no one but his contractor, he hated the contractor and he hated his job.  He was great in his place, brutal with fist and foot, a gleaner of results from hard men at a hard time.

He won gold from Durade, or, as Fresno guffawed to a comrade, he had been allowed to win it.  Durade picked his man.  He had big schemes and he needed Mull.

Benton was Durade’s objective point—­Benton, the great and growing camp-city, where gold and blood were spilled in the dusty streets and life roared like a blast from hell.