Trooper Tales — page 167: 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. 155 being much better. Had we been good soldiers we would have captured Black Stick on the same night we heard his songs. Had we been good soldiers we would have had to carry the bandit’s body down the cliffs, in- stead of allowing him to lead the way. _ Strong was the guard that took Juan Tosta, alias Black Stick, to Manati prison. Strong and thick are the ma- hogany bars which keep him in the dark, fourth cell. The spirit of a bandit is broken within him. Hunger plays sadly upon a man’s nerve. And then the bandit spirit is not mighty in the Porto Rican at best. But his voice is not dead. It is as subtle as the cen- tury-old wine in the cellars of the mighty EF] Alcaldo. It is as sweet as the memory of dear ones far away. And the eyes of Juan Tosta, once a slave, once the dreaded Black Stick, shine with the light of a living soul when he sings. , Juan cannot understand why we two, who took him from the Great White Cliffs, sit at evening at the ma- hogany bars of his cell—sit silent, almost breathless, until he sings the slumber song and the bugle calls us back to camp. Juan cannot understand why a warm, gray blan- ket with a big U. S. in the centre, was given him to sleep upon. Juan cannot understand why Silk Redmond thrust a trembling hand through the mahogany bars last night, when the slumber song was ended—a trembling hand which grasped his own and lingered there. Juan Tosta will never know why the two American Eomichooks:co