Trooper Tales — page 48: what you’re looking at

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

~ 40 : The Silent Trooper. “You saw it all?” she questioned, slowly. “And he was your friend ?” I bowed. “Then you will kill the coward for your friend’s sake?” She spoke the words altogether too loudly. “He is my superior officer, madame,” I whispered. “Leave me now,” she commanded. “But, madame,” I objected, “I must walk with you back to the village.” “No, no! Leave me. I have this.” She was replacing the cartridges into the cylinder. As I stood watching her, a bugler in the camp a mile away played the last call a soldier hears at night—the mournful, melancholy taps. And I looked down upon my friend, the silent man—they would sound taps over him to-morrow—and I forgot that I was only a private in the regular army. “Leave me now,” she repeated. -And when I had gone a few paces I turned. She was bending low. The moon was high above Old Baldy now, and its whiteness was upon the upturned face of the silent man. Lieut. Mat Crim called for his horse the next morning, when a guard told him that the bodies of Private Lander and a white woman had been found out in the chaparral. Eomichbooks (GO)