Trooper Tales — page 259: what you’re looking at

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

A Soldier and a Man. 243 laid perfectly still upon his bunk and puffed away at a cigarette while I took a foot of stitches in his back.” “Tt isn’t a case of taps, is it?” the captain inquired. The surgeon did not think so. There were conditions, however. He believed that his patient knew more about — what had happened to him than he cared to tell. But he did not divine the true reason why Arden was silent. All the commissioned officers knew that there would be no sleep and much trouble in the cavalry quarters until the native who cut Arden was cold—that is, if his identity became known. They knew, too, that there was a possi- bility of a young war being started, because it often hap- pens that when troopers are unleashed for an hour they remain restless for days. You could not have made a® commissioned officer believe, however, that Arden was silent because he also understood this point. The fortnight following evinced certain peculiarities. Any hour almost in the long, hot days, Trooper Arden had only to glance out of the big door of the quarters to see a face, the expression of which was a mute prayer that he would live. Eulalie, the little red maiden, was as near his side as she dared to be. The agony of her heart was reflected in the eyes that peered into the cav- alry quarters—peered hungrily, hopelessly, for the glance of the soldier who had become her God, whose breath was her morning and her night, whose smile was her heaven! Had you driven her away from the door-way of the American garrison, Eulalie would have died—after one thing was accomplished. The soldiers laughed at her; GOmichbookszcom