“Is that all you know?”

The younger man bent his head, his face grave and perplexed.  “Practically all.”

Hampton wet his dry lips with his tongue, his breath quickening.

“And in that she was right,” he said at last, his eyes lowered to the ground.  “I will tell you why.  It was the father of Naida Gillis who was convicted of the murder of Major Brant.”

“Oh, my father?  Is she Captain Nolan’s daughter?  But you say ‘convicted.’  Was there ever any doubt?  Do you question his being guilty?”

Hampton pointed in silence to the hideous creature behind them.  “That man could tell, but he has gone mad.”

Brant endeavored to speak, but the words would not come; his brain seemed paralyzed.  Hampton held himself under better control.

“I have confidence, Lieutenant Brant, in your honesty,” he began, gravely, “and I believe you will strive to do whatever is best for her, if anything should happen to me out yonder.  But for the possibility of my being knocked out, I would n’t talk about this, not even to you.  The affair is a long way from being straightened out so as to make a pleasant story, but I ’ll give you all you actually require to know in order to make it clear to her, provided I shouldn’t come back.  You see, she doesn’t know very much more than you do—­only what I was obliged to tell to keep her from getting too deeply entangled with you.  Maybe I ought to have given her the full story before I started on this trip.  I ’ve since wished I had, but you see, I never dreamed it was going to end here, on the Big Horn; besides, I did n’t have the nerve.”

He swept his heavy eyes across the brown and desolate prairie, and back to the troubled face of the younger man.  “You see, Brant, I feel that I simply have to carry these despatches through.  I have a pride in giving them to Custer myself, because of the trouble I ’ve had in getting them here.  But perhaps I may not come back, and in that case there would n’t be any one living to tell her the truth.  That thought has bothered me ever since I pulled out of Cheyenne.  It seems to me that there is going to be a big fight somewhere in these hills before long.  I ’ve seen a lot of Indians riding north within the last four days, and they were all bucks, rigged out in war toggery, Sioux and Cheyennes.  Ever since we crossed the Fourche those fellows have been in evidence, and it’s my notion that Custer has a heavier job on his hands, right at this minute, than he has any conception of.  So I want to leave these private papers with you until I come back.  It will relieve my mind to know they are safe; if I don’t come, then I want you to open them and do whatever you decide is best for the little girl.  You will do that, won’t you?”

He handed over a long manila envelope securely sealed, and the younger man accepted it, noticing that it was unaddressed before depositing it safely in an inner pocket of his fatigue jacket.