With one quick, impulsive motion he pressed her to him, passionately
kissing the tears from her lowered lashes, unable longer to conceal the
tremor that shook his own voice. "Never, never doubt it, lassie. It
will not take me long, and if I live I come straight back."
He watched her slender, white-robed figure as it passed slowly down the
deserted street. Once only she paused, and waved back to him, and he
returned instant response, although scarcely realizing the act.
"Poor little lonely girl! perhaps I ought to have told her the whole
infernal story, but I simply haven't got the nerve, the way it reads
now. If I can only get it straightened out, it'll be different."
Mechanically he thrust an unlighted cigar between his teeth, and
descended the steps, to all outward appearance the same reckless,
audacious Hampton as of old. Mrs. Guffy smiled happily from an open
window as she observed the square set of his shoulders, the easy,
devil-may-care smile upon his lips.
The military telegraph occupied one-half of the small tent next the
Miners' Retreat, and the youthful operator instantly recognized his
debonair visitor.
"Well, Billy," was Hampton's friendly greeting, "are they keeping you
fairly busy with 'wars and rumors of wars' these days?"
"Nuthin' doin', just now," was the cheerful reply. "Everything goin'
ter Cheyenne. The Injuns are gittin' themselves bottled up in the Big
Horn country."
"Oh, that's it? Then maybe you might manage to rush a message through
for me to Fort A. Lincoln, without discommoding Uncle Sam?" and Hampton
placed a coin upon the rough table.
"Sure; write it out."
"Here it is; now get it off early, my lad, and bring the answer to me
over at the hotel. There 'll be another yellow boy waiting when you
come."
The reply arrived some two hours later.
"FORT A. LINCOLN, June 17, 1876.
"HAMPTON, Glencaid: "Seventh gone west, probably Yellowstone. Brant with them. Murphy,
government scout, at Cheyenne waiting orders.
"BITTON, Commanding."
He crushed the paper in his hand, thinking--thinking of the past, the
present, the future. He had borne much in these last years, much
misrepresentation, much loneliness of soul. He had borne these
patiently, smiling into the mocking eyes of Fate. Through it all--the
loss of friends, of profession, of ambition, of love, of home--he had
never wholly lost hold of a sustaining hope, and now it would seem that
this long-abiding faith was at last to be rewarded. Yet he realized,
as he fronted the facts, how very little he really had to build
upon,--the fragmentary declaration of Slavin, wrung from him in a
moment of terror; an idle boast made to Brant by the surprised scout; a
second's glimpse at a scarred hand,--little enough, indeed, yet by far
the most clearly marked trail he had ever struck in all his vain
endeavor to pierce the mystery which had so utterly ruined his life.
To run this Murphy to cover remained his final hope for retrieving
those dead, dark years. Ay, and there was Naida! Her future, scarcely
less than his own, hung trembling in the balance.