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.
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