"
"Young man, we only know what Al told us," replied the trapper. "He
said the only time he ever left the lass alone was the very day she
was taken. Al come home to find the cabin red-hot ashes. Everythin'
gone. No sign of the lass. No sign of murder. She was jest carried
off. There was tracks--hoss tracks an' boot tracks, to the number of
three or four men an' hosses. Al trailed 'em. But thet very night he
had to hold up to keep from bein' drowned, as we had to hyar. Wal,
next day he couldn't find any tracks. But he kept on huntin' fer a
few days, an' then give up. He said she'd be dead by then--said she
wasn't the kind thet could have lived more 'n a day with men like
them. Some hard customers are driftin' by from the gold-fields. An'
Bill an' I, hyar, ain't in love with this railroad idee. It 'll ruin
the country fer trappin' an' livin'."
Some weeks later a gaunt and ragged cowboy limped into North
Platte, walking beside a broken horse, upon the back of which swayed
and reeled a rider tied in the saddle.
It was not a sight to interest any except the lazy or the curious,
for in that day such things were common in North Platte. The horse
had bullet creases on his neck; the rider wore a bloody shirt; the
gaunt pedestrian had a bandaged arm.
Neale lay ill of a deeper wound while the bullet-hole healed in his
side.
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