By the time Hampton swung up the coulée, he had dismissed from his

attention everything but the business that had brought him there. No

lingering thought of Naida, or of the miserable Murphy, was permitted

to interfere with the serious work before him. To be once again with

the old Seventh was itself inspiration; to ride with them into battle

was the chief desire of his heart. It was a dream of years, which he

had never supposed possible of fulfilment, and he rode rapidly forward,

his lips smiling, the sunshine of noonday lighting up his face.

He experienced no fear, no premonition of coming disaster, yet the

reawakened plainsman in him kept him sufficiently wary and cautious.

The faint note of discontent apparent in Brant's concluding

words--doubtless merely an echo of that ambitious officer's dislike at

being put on guard over the pack-train at such a moment--awoke no

response in his mind. He possessed a soldier's proud confidence in his

regiment--the supposition that the old fighting Seventh could be

defeated was impossible; the Indians did not ride those uplands who

could do the deed! Then there came to him a nameless dread, that

instinctive shrinking which a proud, sensitive man must ever feel at

having to face his old companions with the shadow of a crime between.

In his memory he saw once more a low-ceiled room, having a table

extending down the centre, with grave-faced men, dressed in the full

uniform of the service, looking at him amid a silence like unto death;

and at the head sat a man with long fair hair and mustache, his proud

eyes never to be forgotten. Now, after silent years, he was going to

look into those accusing eyes again. He pressed his hand against his

forehead, his body trembled; then he braced himself for the interview,

and the shuddering coward in him shrank back.

He had become wearied of the endless vista of desert, rock, and plain.

Yet now it strangely appealed to him in its beauty. About him were

those uneven, rolling hills, like a vast storm-lashed sea, the brown

crests devoid of life, yet with depressions between sufficient to

conceal multitudes. Once he looked down through a wide cleft in the

face of the bluff, and could perceive the head of the slowly advancing

pack-train far below. Away to the left something was moving, a dim,

shapeless dash of color. It might be Benteen, but of Reno's columns he

could perceive nothing, nor anything of Custer's excepting that broad

track across the prairies marked by his horses' hoofs. This track

Hampton followed, pressing his fresh mount to increased speed,

confident that no Indian spies would be loitering so closely in the

rear of that body of cavalry, and becoming fearful lest the attack

should occur before he could arrive.




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