The U. P. Trail by Zane Grey (historical books to read TXT) 📗
- Author: Zane Grey
Book online «The U. P. Trail by Zane Grey (historical books to read TXT) 📗». Author Zane Grey
“That so?” replied Neale, thoughtfully. “Let me talk to her.”
At a slight sign from Stanton, Ruby joined the group.
“Ruby, you’ve already introduced yourself to this gentleman, but not so nicely as you might have done,” said Beauty.
“I’m sorry,” replied Ruby. A certain wistfulness showed in her low tones.
“Maybe I was rude,” said Neale. “I didn’t intend to be. I couldn’t dance with any one here—or anywhere....” Then he spoke to her in a lower tone. “But I’ll tell you what I will do. I won a thousand dollars to-night. I’ll give you half of it if you’ll go home.”
The girl shrank as if she had received a stab. Then she stiffened.
“Why don’t you go home?” she retorted. “We’re all going to hell out here, and the gamest will get there soonest.”
She glared at Neale an instant, white-faced and hard, and then, rejoining her companions, she led them away.
Beauty Stanton seemed to have received something of the check that had changed the girl Ruby.
“Gentlemen, you are my only friends in Benton. But these are business hours.”
Presently she leaned toward Neale and whispered to him: “Boy, you’re courting death. Some one—something has hurt you. But you’re young.... GO HOME!”
Then she bade him good night and left the group.
He looked on in silence after that. And presently, when Ancliffe departed, he was glad to follow Hough into the street. There the same confusion held. A loud throng hurried by, as if bent on cramming into a few hours the life that would not last long.
Neale was interested to inquire more about Ancliffe. And the gambler replied that the Englishman had come from no one knew where; that he did not go to extremes in drinking or betting; that evidently he had become attached to Beauty Stanton; that surely he must be a ruined man of class who had left all behind him, and had become like so many out there—a leaf in the storm.
“Stanton took to you,” went on Hough. “I saw that.... And poor Ruby! I’ll tell you, Neale, I’m sorry for some of these women.”
“Who wouldn’t be?”
“Women of this class are strange to you, Neale. But I’ve mixed with them for years. Of course Benton sets a pace no man ever saw before. Still, even the hardest and vilest of these scullions sometimes shows an amazing streak of good. And women like Ruby and Beauty Stanton, whose early surroundings must have been refined—they are beyond understanding. They will cut your heart out for a slight, and sacrifice their lives for sake of a courteous word. It was your manner that cut Ruby and won Beauty Stanton. They meet with neither coldness nor courtesy out here. It must be bitter as gall for a woman like Stanton to be treated as you treated her—with respect. Yet see how it got her.”
“I didn’t see anything in particular,” replied Neale.
“You were too excited and disgusted with the whole scene,” said Hough as they reached the roaring lights of the gambling-hell. “Will you go in and play again? There are always open games.”
“No, I guess not—unless you think—”
“Boy, I think nothing except that I liked your company and that I owed you a service. Good night.”
Neale walked to his lodgings tired and thoughtful and moody. Behind him the roar lulled and swelled. It was three o’clock in the morning. He wondered when these night-hawks slept. He wondered where Larry was. As for himself, he found slumber not easily gained. Dawn was lighting the east when he at last fell asleep.
16
Neale slept until late the next day and awoke with the pang that a new day always gave him now. He arose slowly, gloomily, with the hateful consciousness that he had nothing to do. He had wanted to be alone, and now loneliness was bad for him.
“If I were half a man I’d get out of here, quick!” he muttered, in scorn. And he thought of the broken Englishman, serene and at ease, settled with himself. And he thought of the girl Ruby who had flung the taunt at him. Not for a long time would he forget that. Certainly this abandoned girl was not a coward. She was lost, but she was magnificent.
“I guess I’ll leave Benton,” he soliloquized. But the place, the wildness, fascinated him. “No! I guess I’ll stay.”
It angered him that he was ashamed of himself. He was a victim of many moods, and underneath every one of them was the steady ache, the dull pain, the pang in his breast, deep in the bone.
As he left his lodgings he heard the whistle of a train. The scene down the street was similar to the one which had greeted him the day before, only the dust was not blowing so thickly. He went into a hotel for his meal and fared better, watching the hurry and scurry of men. After he had finished he strolled toward the station.
Benton had two trains each day now. This one, just in, was long and loaded to its utmost capacity. Neale noticed an Indian arrow sticking fast over a window of one of the coaches. There were flat cars loaded with sections of houses, and box-cars full of furniture. Benton was growing every day. At least a thousand persons got off that train, adding to the dusty, jostling melee.
Suddenly Neale came face to face with Larry King.
“Red!” he yelled, and made at the cowboy.
“I’m shore glad to see you,” drawled Larry. “What ‘n hell busted loose round heah?”
Neale drew Larry out of the crowd. He carried a small pack done up in a canvas covering.
“Red, your face looks like home to a man in a strange land,” declared Neale. “Where are your horses?”
Larry looked less at his ease.
“Wal, I sold them.”
“Sold them! Those great horses? Oh, Red, you didn’t!”
“Hell! It costs money to ride on this heah U.P.R. thet we built, an’ I had no money.”
“But what did you sell them for? I—I cared for those horses.”
“Will you keep quiet aboot my hosses?”
Neale had never before seen the tinge of gray in that red-bronze face.
“But I told
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