"Have you heard anything lately, Bob, about the Seventh?" she asked, finally. "Since—since N Troop left here?"
He answered with well-simulated carelessness. "No; but it is most likely they are well into the game by this time. It's bound to prove a hard campaign, to judge from all visible indications, and the trouble has been hatching long enough to get all the hostiles into a bunch. I know most of them, and they are a bad lot of savages. Crook's column, I have just heard, was overwhelmingly attacked on the Rosebud, and forced to fall back. That leaves the Seventh to take the brunt of it, and there is going to be hell up north presently, or I 've forgotten all I ever knew about Indians. Sitting Bull is the arch-devil for a plot, and he has found able assistants to lead the fighting. I only wish it were my luck to be in it. But come, little girl, as I said, I 'm quite likely to be off before night, provided I am fortunate enough to strike a fresh trail. Under such conditions you won't mind my kissing you out here, will you?"
She held up her lips and he touched them softly with his own. Her eyes were tear-dimmed. "Oh, Bob, I hate so to let you go," she sobbed, clinging to him. "No one could have been more to me than you have been, and you are all I have left in the world. Everything I care for goes away from me. Life is so hard, so hard!"
"Yes, little girl, I know," and the man stroked her hair tenderly, his own voice faltering. "It's all hard; I learned that sad lesson long ago, but I 've tried to make it a little bit easier for you since we first came together. Still, I don't see how I can possibly help this. I 've been hunting after that fellow a long while now, a matter of fifteen years over a mighty dim trail, and it would be a mortal sin to permit him to get away scot-free. Besides, if this affair only manages to turn out right, I can promise to make you the happiest girl in America. But, Naida, dear, don't cling to me so; it is not at all like you to break down in this fashion," and he gently unclasped her hands, holding her away from him, while he continued to gaze hungrily into her troubled face. "It only weakens me at a time when I require all my strength of will."
"Sometimes I feel just like a coward, Bob. It's the woman of it; yet truly I wish to do whatever you believe to be best. But, Bob, I need you so much, and you will come back, won't you? I shall be so lonely here, for—for you are truly all I have in the world."
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.