Trooper Tales — page 127: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A Soldier of Misfortune. “qr 5 strapped and their ladies walked—these women turned their eyes from the Porto Rican city, which was vanish- ing behind harbor mists, and they saw the timid native maiden, shrinking close to the form of a big enlisted man, whose face was not pleasant. Then one of these American ladies voiced the senti- ments of the rest—God forgive them—and it was the master of the ship who was forced to hear her say that she would not eat at the same table with any native maiden; that she thought it was an outrage for an en- listed man to dare bring such a woman on a ship with American ladies ; that she for one would at least see that such a woman staid in the part of the ship she deserved. The captain of the ship, being a commissioned officer, the same as this lady’s husband—well, what could he do but admire Duffie’s good taste and refuse him a state-room for his wife? How could he furnish her meals the same as saloon passengers? Far more than Euphrasie did the big ex-cavalryman, the silent man, suffer, because the Corizel maiden had to sleep down in the hammock-hold with the soldiers. Little, indeed, did she mind eating army rations, for women in her land eat little at best; but her husband’s face grew white when he thought of all these things, and there was a nasty gleam in his gray eyes. In a canvas hammock, down in the dirty hold of a transport, surrounded by scores of men, rough and un- educated, lots of them—yet Euphrasie, the wife, was just as safe as she ever had been among her own native hills, COMME NOOLKS (EO)