The others are ahead, and Custer, with five troops, has moved to the right.
He is somewhere among those ridges back of the bluff." The man turned and looked where the officer pointed, shading his eyes with his hand.

Before him lay only the brown, undulating waves of upland, a vast desert of burnt grass, shimmering under the hot sun.
"Can you give me a fresh horse, a bite to eat, and a cup of coffee, down there ?" he asked, anxiously.

"You see I 've got to go on." "Go on?
Good God! man, do you realize what you are saying?
Why, you can hardly sit the saddle! You carry despatches, you say?
Well, there are plenty of good men in my troop who will volunteer to take them on.
You need rest." "Not much," said Hampton.

"I'm fit enough, or shall be as soon as I get food.

Good Lord, boy, I am not done up yet, by a long way! It's the cursed loneliness out yonder," he swept his hand toward the horizon, "and the having to care for him, that has broken my heart.