Trooper Tales — page 152: what you’re looking at

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

140 _ Back to San Anton’. San Anton’ bar-room several nights after the Geldez place had been closed. It was very late. They said that the man was mad and that he drank, drank, until stupor came. And when he could drink no more the man was heard to mutter : “Cover them up, my little Dark Eyes—cover them up. For God’s sake, cover them up, I say!” They all knew the dark eyes of the San Anton’ valley and they went at once to the place of old Geldez, the greaser—many of them. The moon whitened the sand about, but all was dark inside—dark and silent. It was a low hut with four windows. The three in front were tightly shuttered and ominous. The back window was open, and the shutters were stretched apart. One of them hung lightly on its hinges, and the night wind made it sway and softly creak. They entered, the fascination of terror was upon them. A human voice would have made them turn and flee. Had a cat purred they would have shrank back affrighted, as if from an uncanny sound. Had it rubbed its furry sides against them in the darkness they would have stood fear-frozen, as if in the clutch of the devil. Curious and uncertain things are those fibres we call nerves. Truly, they seemed to crawl: through the empty, bar- room with its two tightly shuttered windows—through another room, where the third window was accounted for. Then the leading man stepped upon the threshold of the last room and looked. Have you ever heard the scream of a frightened horse? connicbooks (E) ,