Trooper Tales — page 164: what you’re looking at

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

I 52 The Voice in the Fourth Cell. while you forgot that there were such things in creation as carbines, cartridges and venison steaks? We were very weary, Silk Redmond and I. We were blue, too, and foolish enough to let our minds wander back to the States where our hearts were. We were too weary to make a fire that night. Had we done so, we would not have heard the soul-melting melody of the Porto Rican bandit. A moment or two later, and we would not have heard it, except as angel music in a dream, for our eyes were weighted down with sleep. We did not move. It was a soothing touch upon our foreheads, like the pressure of a mother’s hand. It brushed away the calloused places in our souls and changed us for one memorable moment from cavalrymen into little children. It would have made us feel, had we ever doubted, that there are raptures hidden away in heaven. The moon shone high upon the cliffs. The rocks stood out in the pallid radiance. The Rio Grande twinkled back at the stars above the gorge and hummed low of peace and slumber. Down from the cliffs there came to us a quaver of enchantment. Then the magic voice was silent. It was: “Like the last sweet note From a wild bird’s throat, As off to the south he goes.” Black Stick was untamed still, but he was sad, too, and very lonely. By his song we knew it. CONNIE DOO KS {CeClnn)