“Did he tell you—­to say that?” she whispered, tremulously.

“Lord, no!” ejaculated Slingerland.

“Does he—­care—­for me still?”

“Lass, he’s dyin’ fer you—­an’ I never spoke a truer word.”

Allie shuddered close to him, blinded, stormed by an exquisite bitter-sweet fury of love.  She seemed rising, uplifted, filled with rich, strong joy.

“I forgave him,” she murmured, dreamily low to herself.

“War, mebbe you’ll be right glad you did—­presently,” said Slingerland, with animation. “‘Specially when thar wasn’t nothin’ much to forgive.”

Allie became mute.  She could not lift her eyes.

“Lass, listen!” began Slingerland.  “After you left Roarin’ City Neale went at hard work.  Began by heavin’ ties an’ rails, an’ now he’s slingin’ a sledge....  This was amazin’ to me.  I seen him only onct since, an’ thet was the other day.  But I heerd about him.  I rode over to Roarin’ City several times.  An’ I made it my bizness to find out about Neale....  He never came into the town at all.  They said he worked like a slave the first day, bleedin’ hard.  But he couldn’t be stopped.  An’ the work didn’t kill him, though thar was some as swore it would.  They said he changed, an’ when he toughened up thar was never but one man as could equal him, an’ thet was an Irish feller named Casey.  I heerd it was somethin’ worth while to see him sling a sledge....  Wal, I never seen him do it, but mebbe I will yet.

“A few days back I met him gettin’ off a train at Roarin’ City.  Lord!  I hardly knowed him!  He stood like an Injun, with the big muscles bulgin’, an’ his face was clean an’ dark, his eye like fire....  He nearly shook the daylights out of me.  ’Slingerland, I want you!’ he kept yellin’ at me.  An’ I said, ’So it ’pears, but what fer?’ Then he told me he was goin’ after the gold thet Horn had buried along the old Laramie Trail.  Wal, I took my outfit, an’ we rode back into the hills.  You remember them.  Wal, we found the gold, easy enough, an’ we packed it back to Roarin’ City.  Thar Neale sent me off on a train to fetch the gold to you.  An’ hyar I I am an’ thar’s the gold.”

Allie stared at the pack, bewildered by Slingerland’s story.  Suddenly she sat up and she felt the blood rush to her cheeks.

“Gold!  Horn’s gold!  But it’s not mine!  Did Neale send it to me?”

“Every ounce,” replied the trapper, soberly.  “I reckon it’s yours.  Thar was no one else left—­an’ you recollect what Horn said.  Lass, it’s yours—­an’ I’m goin’ to make you keep it.”

“How much is there?” queried Allie, with thrills of curiosity.  How well she remembered Horn!  He had told her he had no relatives.  Indeed, the gold was hers.

“Wal, Neale an’ me couldn’t calkilate how much, hevin’ nothin’ to weigh the gold.  But it’s a fortune.”

Allie turned from the pack to the earnest face of the trapper.  There had been many critical moments in her life, but never one with the suspense, the fullness, the inevitableness of this.