Trooper Tales — page 165: what you’re looking at

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

The Voice in the Fourth Cell. 1 ite For several moments Silk Redmond’s heart was so big that it choked his throat, and he could not speak. This is what the words were, when they came: “I’m going to pull my freight in the morning and let the poor devil starve and sing himself to death. I wouldn’t shoot that chap any more than I would—eat a baby.” The Rio Grande purred and prattled on. It was very dark in the gorge. I reached for Redmond’s hand. His was groping for mine. Then we dreamed of great cities and loving white faces in the Northland, while the moon mounted the skies above the gorge, and its white bars played in the depths of the running river. In the morning, the rest of the squad ran into us. “Well, what do you know?” -the old sergeant asked. “Black Stick may be in Jericho for all I can tell,” Red- mond averred hopelessly. | “In my opinion, Black Stick and his melancholy music is all a fake,’ some one said. I acknowledged, without choking, that he voiced my sentiments exactly. We were standing upon the river bank. The cliffs rose high above us. “Well, that beats the devil,” said the old cavalry ser- geant. “We are certainly a gang of coffee-coolers.” A great rock knocked down a horse in our midst. It was hurled from the heights. Then came another. “All a fake,” Redmond repeated nervously. ‘Then the sergeant spoke again: Eomichbooks (€()