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.
All that Allie heard of Benton increased her dread, and at last she
determined that she would run any risk rather than be taken there.
And so one night, as soon as it grew dark, she slipped out of the
wagon and, under cover of darkness, made her escape.
15
The building of the U. P. R. as it advanced westward caused many
camps and towns to spring up and flourish, like mushrooms, in a
single night; and trains were run as far as the rails were laid.
Therefore strange towns and communities were born, like to nothing
that the world had ever seen before.
Warren Neale could not get away from the fascination of the work and
life, even though he had lost all his ambition and was now nothing
more than an ordinary engineer, insignificant and idle. He began to
drink and gamble in North Platte, more in a bitter defiance to fate
than from any real desire; then with Larry King he drifted out to
Kearney.
At Kearney, Larry got into trouble--characteristic trouble. In a
quarrel with a construction boss named Smith, Larry accused Smith of
being the crooked tool of the crooked commissioners who had forced
Neale to quit his job.
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