Trooper Tales — page 147: what you’re looking at

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

BACK TO SAN ANTON. Nobody thought that old Geldez would remember the thrashing Mulgowan gave him. Not a man in the troop would have given old Geldez credit for fiendish contriv- ings. It wasn’t because he was a drunken wretch and a beggar by nature that made the boys hate him. Old Geldez was a greaser, which implies everything weakly, malevolent and detestable, and it was said that he was in the habit of beating the little maiden of dark eyes who called him father. A civilian greaser was old Geldez— what could be more despised? Yet many a pay-day would have known no muscal, and been. correspondingly cheerless, had it not been for old Geldez, who often weighted his boat down with Mexican wines and paddled softly across the Rio Grande, with no- | body watching but the moon, all of which is contrary to _ the laws of a mighty nation. It is true that the troopers paid many prices to the greaser, but muscal is coeee at any cost on pay-days. Now Mulgowan was a sergeant in rank, but at heart _ he was never anything but a private and the prince of good fellows. Because he could vault the highest horse in the troop and make no specialty of it; because he could Eomicbooks: co