Trooper Tales — page 254: what you’re looking at

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

238 A Soldier and a Man. slowly up the trail toward the plaza and the quarters; yet in the mind of each there was heaviness. The man was thinking of the joy and pain of human attachments. In a glance of the red maiden’s wonderful eyes as she stood beside him in the falling night, he had seen her passionate soul. He had never meant to play with Eu- lalie. He knew the wounds and wickedness of such a doing. A woman in the Northland had inflicted such wounds upon her dog, Palto—but he had kissed the little red maiden! And that night the soldier knew that he could crush the heart of Eulalie through a careless word or a scornful glance—even as his own had been crushed. But what did he care—bah! He had lived his life. He would be a soldier now until the hateful breathing was over. He hoped it would be over soon. He was not to blame if his nature became a mass of broken fragments because of the caprice of a white woman. He had lived his life. He could not love—no, it was a hard, a bitter thing to love! Still he could pity. But what did he care? . . . Still—he—could—pity! Of what was the little red maiden thinking? Of each moment which had been a rapture until she saw the ugly black face and the horrid eyes of Manrique, the ox-driver, glaring at her from a shadow as she walked up the trail toward the plaza. That night before the man and maiden parted, Eulalie turned her eyes toward the face of the soldier, and her hands were upon the soldier’s shoulder. Then Trooper Arden kissed the little red maiden as any other Ameri- Comicbooks co