The U. P. Trail by Zane Grey (historical books to read TXT) 📗
- Author: Zane Grey
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And as it hovered over hers so it hovered over other nameless graves.
In the eternal workshop of nature, the tenants of these unnamed and forgotten graves would mingle dust of good with dust of evil, and by the divinity of death resolve equally into the elements again.
The place that had known Benton knew it no more. Coyotes barked dismally down what had been the famous street of the camp and prowled in and out of the piles of debris and frames of wood. Gone was the low, strange roar that had been neither music nor mirth nor labor. Benton remained only a name.
The sun rose upon a squalid scene—a wide flat area where stakes and floors and frames mingled with all the flotsam and jetsam left by a hurried and profligate populace, moving on to another camp. Daylight found no man there nor any living creature. And all day the wind blew the dust and sheets of sand over the place where had reigned such strife of toil and gold and lust and blood and death. A train passed that day, out of which engineer and fireman gazed with wondering eyes at what had been Benton. Like a mushroom it had arisen, and like a dust-storm on the desert wind it had roared away, bearing its freight of labor, of passion, and of evil. Benton had become a name—a fabulous name.
But nature seemed more merciful than life. For it began to hide what man had left—the scars of habitations where hell had held high carnival. Sunset came, then night and the starlight. The lonely hours were winged, as if in a hurry to resolve back into the elements the flimsy remains of that great camp.
And that spot was haunted.
29
Casey left Benton on the work-train. It was composed of a long string of box—and flat-cars loaded with stone, iron, gravel, ties—all necessaries for the up-keep of the road. The engine was at the rear end, pushing instead of pulling; and at the extreme front end there was a flat-car loaded with gravel. A number of laborers rode on this car, among whom was Casey. In labor or fighting this Irishman always gravitated to the fore.
All along the track, from outside of Benton to the top of a long, slow rise of desert were indications of the fact that Indians had torn up the track or attempted to derail trains.
The signs of Sioux had become such an every-day matter in the lives of the laborers that they were indifferent and careless. Thus isolated, unprotected groups of men, out some distance from the work-train, often were swooped down upon by Indians and massacred.
The troopers had gone on with the other trains that carried Benton’s inhabitants and habitations.
Casey and his comrades had slow work of it going westward, as it was necessary to repair the track and at the same time to keep vigilant watch for the Sioux. They expected the regular train from the east to overtake them, but did not even see its smoke. There must have been a wreck or telegraph messages to hold it back at Medicine Bow.
Toward sunset the work-train reached the height of desert land that sloped in long sweeping lines down to the base of the hills.
At this juncture a temporary station had been left in the shape of several box-cars where the telegraph operators and a squad of troopers lived.
As the work-train lumbered along to the crest of this heave of barren land Casey observed that some one at the station was excitedly waving a flag. Thereupon Casey, who acted as brakeman, signaled the engineer.
“Dom’ coorious that,” remarked Casey to his comrade McDermott. “Thim operators knowed we’d stop, anyway.”
That was the opinion of the several other laborers on the front car. And when the work-train halted, that car had run beyond the station a few rods. Casey and his comrades jumped off.
A little group of men awaited them. The operator, a young fellow named Collins, was known to Casey. He stood among the troopers, pale-faced and shaking.
“Casey, who’s in charge of the train?” he asked, nervously.
The Irishman’s grin enlarged, making it necessary for him to grasp his pipe.
“Shure the engineer’s boss of the train an’ I’m boss of the gang.”
More of the work-train men gathered round the group, and the engineer with his fireman approached.
“You’ve got to hold up here,” said Collins.
Casey removed his pipe to refill it. “Ah-huh!” he grunted.
“Wire from Medicine Bow—order to stop General Lodge’s train—three hundred Sioux in ambush near this station—Lodge’s train between here and Roaring City,” breathlessly went on the operator.
“An’ the message come from Medicine Bow!” ejaculated Casey, while his men gaped and muttered.
“Yes. It must have been sent here last night. But O’Neil, the night operator, was dead. Murdered by Indians while we slept.”
“Thot’s hell!” replied Casey, seriously, as he lit his pipe.
“The message went through to Medicine Bow. Stacey down there sent it back to me. I tried to get Hills at Roaring City. No go! The wire’s cut!”
“An’ shure the gineral’s train has left—wot’s that new camp—Roarin’ wot?”
“Roaring City.... General Lodge went through two days ago with a private train. He had soldiers, as usual. But no force to stand off three hundred Sioux, or even a hundred.”
“Wal, the gineral must hev lift Roarin’ City—else thot message niver would hev come.”
“So I think.... Now what on earth can we do? The engineer of his train can’t stop for orders short of this station, for the reason that there are no stations.”
“An’ thim Sooz is in ambush near here?” queried Casey, reflectively. “Shure thot could only be in wan place. I rimimber thot higher, narrer pass.”
“Right. It’s steep up-grade coming east. Train can be blocked. General Lodge with his staff and party—and his soldiers—would be massacred without a chance to fight. That pass always bothered us for fear of ambush. Now the Sioux have come west far enough to find it.... No chance on earth for a train there—not if it carried a thousand soldiers.”
“Wal, if the gineral an’ company was sthopped somewhere beyond thot pass?” queried Casey, shrewdly, as he took a deep pull at his pipe.
“Then at least they could fight. They have stood off attacks before. They might hold out for the train following, or even run back.”
“Thin, Collins, we’ve only got to sthop the gineral’s train before it reaches thot dom’ trap.”
“But we can’t!” cried Collins.
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