n until the barrier of
underbrush had been completely penetrated, and they stood face to face
under the trees. Then Brant spoke.

"Naida," he said, gravely, "I have come back, as I said I would, and
surely I read welcome in your eyes?"

"Yes."

"And I have come to say that there is no longer any shadow of the dead
between us."

She looked up quickly, her hands clasped, her cheeks flushing. "Are
you sure? Perhaps you misunderstand; perhaps you mistake my meaning."

"I know it all," he answered, soberly, "from the lips of Hampton."

"You have seen him? Oh, Lieutenant Brant, please tell me the whole
truth. I have missed him so much, and since the day he rode away to
Cheyenne not one word to explain his absence has come back to me. You
cannot understand what this means, how much he has become to me through
years of kindness."

"You have heard nothing?"

"Not a word."

Brant drew a long, deep breath. He had supposed she knew this. At
last he said gravely:

"Naida, the truth will prove the kindest message, I think. He died in
that unbroken ring of defenders clustered about General Custer on the
bluffs of the Little Big Horn."

Her slight figure trembled so violently that he held her close within
his arms.

"There was a smile upon his face when we found him. He performed his
full duty, Naida, and died as became a soldier and a gentleman."

"But--but, this cannot be! I saw the published list; his name was not
among them."

"The man who fell was Robert Nolan."

Gently he drew her down to a seat upon the soft turf of the bank. She
looked up at him helplessly, her mind seemingly dazed, her eyes yet
filled with doubt.

"Robert Nolan? My father?"

He bent over toward her, pressing his lips to her hair and stroking it
tenderly with his hand.

"Yes, Naida, darling; it was truly Robert Hampton Nolan who died in
battle, in the ranks of his old regiment,--died as he would have chosen
to die, and died, thank God! completely cleared of every stain upon his
honor. Sit up, little girl, and listen while I tell you. There is in
the story no word which does not reflect nobility upon the soldier's
daughter."

She uplifted her white face. "Tell me," she said, simply, "all you
know."

He recounted to her slowly, carefully, the details of that desperate
journey northward, of their providential meeting on the Little Big
Horn, of the papers left in his charge, of Hampton's riding forward
with despatches,