THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 w 
 
 ***/
 
 TROOPER TALES 
 
 A SERIES OF SKETCHES 
 
 OF 
 
 The Real American Private Soldier 
 
 BY 
 
 WILL LEVINGTON COMFORT 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 STREET & SMITH, PUBLISHERS 
 238 WILLIAM STREET
 
 Copyright, 
 
 1899, 
 STREET & SMITH.
 
 PS 
 
 tlje great outer wall of a great rjation, 
 THE REGULAR ARMY MAN, 
 
 who does what he is told, silently, ingloriously, 
 
 surely, this volume of cavalry sketches 
 
 is dedicated by one who lingered 
 
 with you for a little while, and 
 
 knows, therefore, how 
 
 great you are. 
 
 715763
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PACB 
 
 The New Recruit in the Black Cavalry. . . 11 
 
 The Silent Trooper 22 
 
 The Degeneration of Caddie 43 
 
 Toreador the Game One. .... 55 
 
 The Wooing of Beuito. 69 
 
 Two Women and a Soldier 81 
 
 Red Brennan of the Seventh 95 
 
 A Soldier of Misfortune. . . '... 107 
 
 Shadow and the Cherub 121 
 
 Back to San Anton'. 133 
 
 The Voice in the Fourth Cell 145 
 
 The Good Which Was in Him. . . . 159 
 
 The Aberration of Private Brown. . . . 173 
 
 The Last Cell to the Right 187 
 
 The Fever's Fifth Man 201 
 
 The Story of a Cavalry Horse. . . . 211 
 
 A Soldier and a Man. 225
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Civilians write army stories. Commissioned officers 
 write army stories. Enlisted men laugh at the former 
 because the author is remote and they cannot bruise 
 him. Had they the power to lure the civilian into their 
 midst they would shortly drill him full of real army col 
 oring, and his effusions would be shrunken 'with lean, 
 beautiful wisdom ever after. But, since he keeps his per 
 sonality removed, the soldiers can only laugh. 
 
 The literary efforts of commissioned officers are dis 
 cussed in whispers by the enlisted men, because they are 
 only enlisted men, while the commissioned officers are 
 old and young gods, who become very masterful beings 
 when criticised audibly by men from the ranks. 
 
 But no one can deny that the army stories of commis 
 sioned officers are full of officers' instinct, and officers' 
 fleckless uniforms, and clubs, and ladies. The enlisted 
 men who emerge upon these idyllic pages are sort of 
 baneful and temporary necessities, as are warts. There 
 are orderlies with square shoulders and brick faces, whose 
 vocabularies consist of "Yes, sir," and "No, sir," uttered 
 in disfigured English. In the stories of commissioned 
 officers the enlisted man is a thing for duty, not for speech 
 a thing to fight if necessary, not to think an animal 
 whose pastimes are cards, canteens and colored ladies
 
 viii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 whose realm does not embrace an aptness in the softer 
 arts. In short/ he is an atom of no consequence. 
 
 I realize that, in writing thus, I hurl from me all dreams 
 of ever being a private soldier again at least, under the 
 name I used in my last enlistment. It is pathetic for a 
 writer who might be a soldier to starve just because he is 
 frank. 
 
 The army stories which civilians write have none of this 
 ungovernable officer's instinct. Corporals and colonels 
 become chummy in such tales. A trooper and a troop 
 commander wax convivial together at the canteen. And 
 that is why enlisted men who read all army stories grin 
 unfeelingly. 
 
 The young man who scans this volume of cavalry 
 stories and enlists afterward will probably make a good 
 soldier, because he must be a very reckless young man. 
 The enclosed choice cuts of wisdom were drilled and 
 pounded into the author, and the wisdom which leaves 
 tooth marks behind is not superficial. 
 
 And yet the man does not exist who has once soldiered 
 who does not yearn sometimes to again be a blue atom in 
 the great blue mass which makes the backbone of Uncle 
 Sam's fighting bottom when it comes to a show down. 
 
 The cactus and alkali of the Southwest blows about in 
 a couple of these yarns, because I "soldiered" there. The 
 flies and fever of a Southern army camp crawl about in 
 a couple of others because I "soldiered" there. A num 
 ber of the yarns are full of the groans and drug odors of 
 an army hospital, because I was fortunate enough to get
 
 INTRODUCTION. ix 
 
 out of there alive. Some of the stories are spattered with 
 the mud of Porto Rican hills, and are dark brown from the 
 grisly pressure of Cuban sunshine I left friends (and I 
 hope no debts) in both places. Only a few others re 
 main. These are yellow with guard-house coloring, be 
 cause I "soldiered" well, all good soldiers have served 
 time. 
 
 It would arouse suspicion to declare that the accom 
 panying yarns are all true, but I'll swear that I tried to 
 make pictures of real American cavalrymen and their 
 troop horses and the pictures were made mostly be 
 tween bugle-calls. I have tried to show that there are 
 men in the ranks of Uncle Sam's horsemen wild, in 
 corrigible, splendid men ! 
 
 If I have made an inglorious fizzle of the task well, I 
 have "soldiered" in vain. 
 
 Wiw, LEVINGTON COMFORT.
 
 The Recruit in the Black Cavalry.
 
 THE 
 
 RECRUIT IN THE BLACK CAVALRY. 
 
 What his real name was, nobody remembered. It could 
 be found somewhere in the troop-books. Because he could 
 sing like a woman, the boys in the Black Horse troop 
 called him "Sadie." There are two colored cavalry regi 
 ments in Uncle Sam's service. Both showed what great 
 black demons they could be last summer in the hills back 
 of Santiago. 
 
 A train containing part of one of these regiments 
 stopped in Tampa for a few minutes near a white cavalry 
 camp. It is a wonder that there was no blood shed. 
 There were many men from the South in the ranks of the 
 white troops. They were in a frenzy of rage because 
 the darkeys were under orders for the front, while they, 
 were being slowly broiled under the canvas of a torrid 
 camp. A month later, many of those same darkey cav 
 alrymen were brought back. They had been to the front. 
 They had heafd the song of the Mauser. Many times 
 the song had ended in a grunt from some sandy, sticky 
 throat, and a hero was made. The wounded cavalrymen 
 in the hospital train were deliriously happy. The battle 
 fever fires one's blood for weeks after.
 
 14 The Recruit in the Black Cavalry. 
 
 The wounded coming back were received differently. 
 The Tampan troopers were browner and thinner and 
 uglier than before, but they cheered and petted the heroes 
 until the train pulled out for the Northern hospitals. 
 After that the men who had never left the States became 
 sullen and insubordinate and worked themselves into a 
 state of melancholy inebriation because they had not 
 been given a chance to prove that they were soldiers all. 
 But this is the story of Sadie, the toughest, blackest and 
 sweetest-voiced recruit who ever came to the Black Horse 
 troop. 
 
 His beauty was purely physical. He never learned 
 anything about horses in the cavalry service. It was his 
 instinct to master a mount. His limbs had a most beau 
 tiful cavalry curve, and superb saddle muscles bulged out 
 the thick trousers of army blue. His shoulders and lungs 
 were equaled only in power by his digestion. 
 
 Sadie never had a serious interval. At least, not while 
 he was a soldier. In fact, there is less seriousness in a 
 black troop of cavalry than in any other place in the 
 world. But you ought to see them on a skirmish line! 
 They fight without nerves, feelings, fears. They know 
 no hunger, thirst or pain. 
 
 To hear Sadie sing, "Swing a-low, Sweet Chariot," on 
 the moon-lit deck of a transport well, a man would 
 think things which never occurred to him before espe 
 cially if he were advancing toward a hostile coast. And 
 then there was a little gunboat shining through the dark 
 off the starboard bow a pugnacious little fellow that
 
 The Recruit in the Black Cavalry. 15 
 
 shot toward every suspicious gleam or shadow on the 
 tropic sea, and tried to darken the moon with its search 
 light. The great dark transport steamed southward 
 through the gloom, secure in the protection of her baby 
 consort's big guns. Indeed, she could have steamed 
 southward just as steadily if the gunboat had perched 
 itself upon her hurricane deck. And Sadie, the black re 
 cruit, lounged in the moonlight with the other cavalry 
 men, and crooned soft melodies about dusky maidens 
 back in the summer States. 
 
 As a rule, American soldiers, white and black, eat three 
 times a day. Once in a while, however, in the stress of 
 international war, or an indisposed second cook, it be 
 comes necessary to forego government straights. A box 
 of hard tack is then placed in a convenient place and the 
 men receive orders to "bust" themselves. When the sun 
 is pouring down yellow volleys which make you limp and 
 vicious; when your tongue shrivels up like a boiled clam 
 at the mere sight of salt water ; when the fresh water is 
 warm as a flask of spirits kept in a laborer's hip pocket, 
 and smells as if it had been filtered through all the 
 blankets in the forecastle ; when you are unloading petu 
 lant and plunging cavalry horses, and your feet are blis 
 tered from the hot decks, and your blue army shirt steams 
 and suffocates well, no matter if you are fond of hard 
 tack, you can't choke it down. 
 
 The black troops landed, while the little gunboat 
 watched and pointed its guns toward the great, brown, 
 treeless hills. Somewhere back of those sun-burned, de-
 
 16 The Recruit in the Black Cavalry. 
 
 serted hills there was a city, which sported the wrong 
 flag. The name of that city was Santiago. The black 
 cavalrymen knew that they must hunt the hills for the 
 town and correct the little mistake about the flag more 
 than that was the business of the white commissioned 
 officers. 
 
 Back from the hills the night shadows crept. The 
 sun sank blood-red and vicious across the water. The 
 smell of rain was in the air. The picket lines were 
 stretched upon the shore, and the baggage was piled 
 above the high-tide mark. There had been an informal 
 guard-mount, and the men had received orders not to 
 leave the camp. They were refreshed by hot coffee and 
 a plunge in the sea, but they were hungry still. A couple 
 of vultures trailed across the sky, but nothing human 
 could be seen by the troopers on land nothing save the 
 darkening hills and the watcher out on the bay. A rain 
 cloud skirted the shore-line to the left t and its torrents 
 pounded the water and the hill-margins a half mile away. 
 The men could hear it coming closer. Those who watched 
 from the gunboat could see faint red lights far back in 
 the hills. 
 
 The black troopers growled because they had to smoke 
 on an empty stomach ; they growled because the rain put 
 out their pipes and the cook fires, and because they would 
 have to shiver in the wet and cold for a dozen hours. 
 Tropical showers do not last, but it is unpleasant to sleep 
 where they have been. But big, black, toughened cav 
 alrymen can sleep anywhere. It was very late when the
 
 The Recruit in the Black Cavalry. 17 
 
 dripping stable guard of the Black Horse troop kicked 
 about among the puddles and snoring soldiers, inquiring 
 testily : 
 
 "Wheah's Sadie wheah's dat a-fool niggah, Sadie?" 
 
 Now, the sentry had walked his post up and down the 
 picket line for two long, soaking hours. He wanted to 
 turn over his orders to Sadie, and be relieved. But it 
 was evident that Sadie was not in camp. To go about 
 proclaiming the fact would mean trouble for the missing 
 recruit, therefore the sentry went back to his post and 
 started to do Sadie's guard. The idea that he was doing 
 anybody in particular a good turn did not worry the 
 sentry, but if he could have caught the black recruit that 
 minute something would have happened. 
 
 That night the corporal of the guard did an unsoldierly 
 thing. He deliberately woke up, consulted his watch, and 
 figured out by a process of his own that Sadie should be 
 walking his post down on the picket line. As Sadie was 
 a recruit, and it was the first night on hostile soil, the 
 corporal deemed it advisable to find out if his man would 
 challenge properly. The top layer of wet sand under the 
 non-commissioned officer was thoroughly warmed 
 through, and he hated to let it cool off, which was very 
 easy as compared to the warming process, but a conscien 
 tious man was the corporal. When he found the wrong 
 man on post, he was glad that he had left his warm hole 
 in the sand. 
 
 Not long after that, Sadie slipped past the guard with' 
 two limp pullets and a very noisy, very much animated
 
 i8 The Recruit in the Black Cavalry. 
 
 game chicken in his arms. The recruit was panting and 
 wet, indeed, but his eyes were shining. He tethered the 
 game one out in the bush and concealed the two limp 
 birds under his blanket. Then he buckled on his six- 
 shooter, shouldered his carbine, and started for the picket 
 line to relieve his man. It was not until Sadie had told 
 the much-abused sentry where he would find a plump 
 chicken that there was peace. Meanwhile the corporal 
 figured out the best way was to do his duty on the fol 
 lowing day, and slowly re-warmed his hole in the sand. 
 And the gaudy little gamecock ruffled his feathers in the 
 dark and clucked low, and scolded. 
 
 The result of the corporal's figuring reached Sadie 
 about seven o'clock the following morning. He was in 
 condition to hear the worst, for one of those plump pul 
 lets had been broiled at dawn. There is the makings of 
 a mighty soldier in a plump Spanish chicken. The col 
 ored corporal reported the absence of the black recruit 
 to the top sergeant, also black. Among other things, the 
 top sergeant mentioned the affair to the troop com 
 mander, who was white, and also very wet and ugly that 
 morning. And so it came about that the black recruit 
 saw the troop commander striding his way about seven 
 a. m. with blood in his eye and these words: 
 
 "Do you think this troop is out hunting butterflies 
 eh? You're under arrest understand? And I'll court- 
 martial you when the men take that town up in the hills 
 understand eh ?" 
 
 It would be prompt and certain self-destruction for the
 
 The Recruit in the Black Cavalry. 19 
 
 black recruit to answer back a white commissioned offi 
 cer, who was so wet and ugly. Sadie was enough of a 
 soldier to know this. He stood at attention and saluted 
 gracefully every time his superior officer finished a sen 
 tence. After that he was placed under a guard. The 
 sentry who had done an extra hour for the recruit the 
 night before was Sadie's friend for life. This was 
 brought about because the second plump pullet had 
 also been broiled at dawn. The two friends conferred 
 together during the first hour of the recruit's incarcera 
 tion. 
 
 "Ah mos' cert'ny feels strong dis a-mawnin'," observed 
 the black boy. "Dat Spanish chickum did mos' glori- 
 fusly do her duty by a-me. But Ah had to gib obah mah 
 shootin' ir'ns to dat Gawd-a-fearin' cawpril. What foh 
 does yoh s'pose he dun wanted to make trouble foh a-me 
 dat away? . . . Is de troop dun a-gwine up de hills 
 dis a-mawnin'?" 
 
 The prisoner was told that all the horses were to be 
 kept back with one troop to guard them that the others 
 were going to start up toward the city as dough boys 
 early in the afternoon that there were a half dozen 
 dough-boy regiments farther up the hills that there 
 were acres of block houses and miles of barb-wire fences 
 and trenches, and a whole Spanish army hidden some 
 where within the sound of cannon that the American 
 fleet was laying off the coast in front of Santiago, and 
 that the Spanish squadron was behind Castle Morro in
 
 2O The Recruit in the Black Cavalry. 
 
 the harbor that there was going to be merry hell up the 
 hills which would last for a week or ten days. 
 
 "Is de Black Hoss troop dun agwine up 
 de hills or stay back?" Sadie's full lips, which 
 formed the question, were ashy gray. The words were 
 uttered in a slow, hopeless whisper. Here's the reply to 
 his question: 
 
 "Does yoh fink for one moment dat dey's agwine to 
 leab de cream an' skallups ob de whole niggah regiment 
 back heah to shine up de skates when de band's dun 
 agwine to play dead marches an' de variations up yon- 
 dah?" 
 
 The troop commander was approaching. The sentry 
 came to "present arms," and the prisoner stood "at at 
 tention." Great thoughts were in the brain of the black 
 recruit. He was about to make the bravest effort of his 
 life. 
 
 "Will de captain 'low me to go up de hills in de troop 
 to-day an' serve mah time after de fun am obah, sah ?" 
 
 "I'll turn you over to the other troop, where you'll be 
 under a guard that's what I'll do to you understand 
 eh?" 
 
 The sun was steaming out the rain from the troop 
 commander's blouse, but he was wet and ugly still. Sadie 
 saluted in graceful silence, and choked down a great, dry 
 lump in his throat. After the captain was out of earshot, 
 the black recruit said to his friend : 
 
 "Las' night Ah dun larieted mah HI* game chickum out 
 in the bresh. He wah a-crowin' up in de hills, when Ah
 
 The Recruit in the Black Cavalry. 21 
 
 heard him. Ah knowed he wah a game chickum 'cos he 
 dun crowed in de night time. You bring him heah to 
 a-me. I wants dat HI' game chickum. He dun make me 
 lose de onliest chance in dis niggah's life." 
 
 The little game one was tethered by one leg in front 
 of the quarters of the disgraced Sadie. The two talked 
 to each other, while the mutual friend was absent for a 
 handful of grain. 
 
 "Whah foh yoh dun call to me in de night time, when 
 yoh knows Ah mustn't leab a-camp ?" 
 
 The game one talked back spitefully. His beady black 
 eyes sparkled with pure wickedness, and he squared off 
 in splendid fighting form when the prisoner thrust his 
 heavy boot within the circle of the tether. The bird had 
 thick, stocky legs, and gaffs hard as crystal. His body 
 feathers were glossy black, and his muscular neck had 
 copper-hued trimmings. Even for a Spanish chicken, the 
 game one was a fancy article. 
 
 "Ah mos' cert'ny los' mah nerve when Ah heard yoh 
 callin' to me up in de hills las' ebenin'. Ah sure knowed 
 you had some HI' sisters up dar. You ought to be a mos' 
 broken-hearted HI' chickum foh dis a-poh niggah. Ah 
 hopes de whole Spanish army and barb wires comes 
 aheah when de odah troops is dun gone. Yoh and me, 
 an' dose Bay Hoss niggahs will dun take de island bah 
 ahselves. . . . What yoh dun scoldin' about, mah 
 HI' game chickum ?" 
 
 The hot, brown hills were darkening again. Over in 
 the low southeast, the crescent shaving of a moon paled
 
 32 The Recruit in the Black Cavalry. 
 
 in the deepening twilight. Out in the bay, the gunboat 
 leaned on its moorings and watched. All at once there 
 ripped over the hot Cuban hills a ragged carbine volley. 
 Evidently the black troops had found something to play 
 with. An hour afterwards, and the hills were great dark 
 shadows, for the night overhung them. The white shav 
 ing of a moon was higher. 
 
 About this time every darkey cavalryman in the Bay 
 Horse troop heard the howls of a fallen sentry, and the 
 angry cackling of an outraged game chicken. But not 
 one of the boys who stayed behind saw the black recruit, 
 who was clutching a loaded carbine and whirring away 
 toward the great black shadows. 
 
 Now, everybody knows that you can't see Santiago 
 from the coast. You can't even see Morro Castle a mile 
 out at sea, because its ramparts are the color of the rocks. 
 Entering the channel, your craft will be at the mercy of 
 Morro's guns. Then you will pass the sunken Merrimac, 
 and a couple of Spanish men-of-war, the cabins of which 
 are excellent breeding-places for big fish. After that you 
 will see a round basin full of warm, yellow water and 
 hungry sharks. To the left is a sun-scorched plain, where 
 yellow-fever patients fight for life, losing generally; and 
 in front, sitting on the slope of a hill, is Santiago, minus 
 some of its rottenness of a year ago, but hardly immacu 
 late yet. 
 
 Four miles back of Santiago there is a hill which looks 
 down upon the city and its harbor. Upon the top of that 
 hill there is a big block-house. Upon its sides there are
 
 The Recruit in the Black Cavalry. 23 
 
 many other block-houses, also barbed pitfalls, intrench- 
 ments and graves. It was upon that hill that the black 
 demons broke their leash, forgot their thirst, and gained 
 everything save the glory they deserved. But they were 
 only regulars. 
 
 Something went wrong in a volunteer battalion that 
 afternoon. They were good men and brave, but raw. 
 They had not eaten for many hours. The sun beat piti 
 lessly down. It soaked into the wet sand and sent forth 
 a sickening steam. It sank through the dusty campaign 
 hats of the volunteers and put mad thoughts in every 
 brain. It swung a black-dotted haze before every eye. 
 It chafed the skin under every cartridge belt, and blis 
 tered every neck. And all the while there came down 
 from the hill the nagging, maddening patter of the long- 
 range Mausers. And all the while there came down from 
 the sky the stifling, pitiless pressure of the sun. 
 
 The volunteer battalion wavered and fell back "re 
 tired in disorder," the official report read. It was the 
 one ugly blotch on the American soldiers in Cuba. The 
 volunteers have long since been forgiven by the friends 
 of their native State ; but the colored cavalry troops, and 
 the other regulars who did not fall back, will never for 
 give that battalion for what the sun madness wrought in 
 their raw ranks at the base of San Juan hill that July 
 day. 
 
 The "niggers" went by them a cursing, unfeeling 
 mass of animals. They preserved a ragged skirmish line 
 all the way. They ran a little, dropped to their bellies
 
 24 The Recruit in the Black Cavalry. 
 
 and fired, vaulted the barbed entanglements and caught 
 their breath in the trenches they had gained. And Sadie 
 was in the ranks of his own Black Horse troop, clutching 
 a red-hot carbine, and talking to himself in a perfect de 
 lirium of joy! 
 
 "Dose white ladies is a-mos' cert'ny unhappy," the 
 black recruit was heard to mutter after the raw battalion 
 was left behind. The words came in a stifled whisper. 
 His throat was caked with hot dust, and his nostrils were 
 full of it, but Sadie did not know. He did not remem 
 ber that he should have been a prisoner back with the 
 game chicken and the Bay Horse troops. He did not 
 know that the troop commander had seen him on the 
 skirmish line with the others, and the white officer hardly 
 knew whether to laugh or swear. As a matter of fact, 
 the troop commander did both, and he also hoped that the 
 black recruit would get wounded, so that he might forego 
 the punishment which his insubordination made neces 
 sary. Sadie knew nothing, felt nothing but the glory of 
 the moment. 
 
 "An* dis am mos' cert'ny a wahm time. Is Ah glad 
 Ah'm libbin'? Well, Ah hope Ah is. ... Dey sure 
 ought to gib us asbestos mittins to pump dese heah car 
 bines, foh dey would mos' cert'ny boil coffee! . . . 
 Hello, dar, mah angel broddah, gimme dat a-cigarette. 
 Ain't yoh a-dyin' fast enuf, widout hittin' de coffin 
 nails?" 
 
 A wounded Spaniard, braced up in a trench, was weak 
 ly puffing at a cigarette; nor was he the only one who
 
 The Recruit in the Black Cavalry. 25 
 
 was seen smoking and dying on the slope of San Juan 
 Hill that day. Sadie drew a deep inhalation into his 
 lungs, then put the cigarette back between the lips of the 
 Spanish soldier. 
 
 "Ah guess Ah don't want yoh las' butts yoh may 
 wake up in de middle ob de night an' need it. ... 
 O-o-o-oh, dah's dat Gawd-a-fearin' cawpril!" 
 
 The non-commissioned officer who had made trouble 
 for the recruit a few nights before was having a very 
 fast time. A Spanish infantryman was in the trench with 
 him. Both were fighting for their lives. The Spaniard 
 had a bayonet attached to his, Mauser ; the corporal had 
 nothing but a bare, hot carbine. Sadie settled the matter 
 in favor of the Black Horse trooper. Many of the block 
 houses were silenced, but whistling death still blazed out 
 of the big one on top of the hill. The barb wire traps 
 became thicker, and more men on the skirmish line fell 
 back into the trenches and grunted out impotent curses. 
 Many others lay silent. The black troops were not the 
 only ones who kept the small of their backs to the 
 trenches, no longer Spanish, that afternoon. 
 
 "Dis cert'ny am de mos' glorifussest moment ob mah 
 life," gasped the black recruit. He vaulted a barbed wire 
 pitfall and was racing toward a trench, two rods ahead. 
 Two Spaniards scrambled out and started to dash for the 
 summit. They never reached it, because too many Ameri 
 can soldiers were counting on just such chances as that. 
 The battle fever was wild in Sadie's blood. At that mo 
 ment some one up in the block-house did not shoot too
 
 26 The Recruit in the Black Cavalry. 
 
 high. Sadie stumbled and was the first man who landed 
 in the upper pit. 
 
 "Ugh!" grunted the black recruit. "Ah mos' cert'ny 
 am punctahed at de present time. Ah wondah ef dose 
 fool Spaniards am acquaintanced ob de fac' dat dey can't 
 kill dis a-niggah. . . . Ah is dun agwine to sit heah 
 till de boys am in de block-house up yondah." 
 
 The above came in choking fragments. The troop 
 commander had seen the rescue of the corporal and the 
 plunge of the black recruit into the higher trench. For 
 some reason he swore. It was not a loud oath. The dust 
 which stuck in his throat would not permit that. And 
 that night from the top of San Juan Hill many American 
 soldiers, white and black, but Americans all, saw the 
 lights of Santiago shining down in the valley. And all 
 night long the Red Cross men kicked about the trenches 
 with lanterns. 
 
 They found the black recruit sitting in one of the high 
 est pits. His blue army shirt was wet and gory. A car 
 bine rested across his knees. The barrel was cold now. 
 Sadie was asleep. 
 
 The Red Cross men thrust the lantern into the face 
 of the black recruit. He opened his eyes, squinted hard 
 at the light, and muttered : 
 
 "Wheah's mah lil' game chickum?" 
 
 The troop commander stood at the bunk of the black 
 recruit in the temporary hospital just outside of Santiago. 
 By the way, the city no longer sported the wrong flag.
 
 The Recruit in the Black Cavalry. 27 
 
 And there was a twinkle in the eyes of the troop com 
 mander as he said: 
 
 "We're going to send you back to the States to-morrow 
 on the hospital ship. We won't court-martial you until 
 you get back from sick-leave understand eh ?" 
 
 "If de captain dun gibs me five yeahs an' a bob-tail, 
 Ah'll still be glad dat Ah wah .in de Black Hoss troop at 
 de propah moment, sah !" 
 
 "You sabed mah life," said the corporal. 
 
 "Why, what yoh talkin' about, cawpril?" said Sadie. 
 
 And when the captain and the corporal had gone away, 
 the black recruit questioned his best friend in this wise: 
 
 "Is de Bay Hoss niggahs come up yet wif mah lil' 
 game chickum?"
 
 The Silent Trooper.
 
 THE SILENT TROOPER. 
 
 Lander, trooper in private ranks, never told just why 
 he was kicked by his lieutenant, Mat Crim. Lander never 
 told anything. That accounts for his being left to him 
 self more than is common or judicious for one of Uncle 
 Sam's horsemen in field or post. 
 
 A troop is a family of big boys. Some of them are big 
 bad boys, and an odd thing about it is that these are not 
 always the unpopular ones. Troopers do not fall on the 
 neck of a new man. They treat him with pinnacled dig 
 nity, like old cavalry horses treat additions to the picket 
 line. If the new man, in a reasonable period, develops 
 no objectionable traits, he will find himself a member of 
 the family, which is other words for a good fellow. 
 
 Because a man happens to be a gambler or a drunkard ; 
 or because he has a deep-rooted aversion for the various 
 prongs of the law a kind of shuddering aversion such 
 as many soldiers and gentlemen have for work none of 
 these things form a primary necessity for his ostracism 
 from the family group. 
 
 But he can't be a silent man nor a sneak ; neither can 
 he manipulate a voluminous correspondence. These 
 things are fatal. Lander was a silent man. 
 
 He was also my "bunkie," which means that I could
 
 32 The Silent Trooper. 
 
 put out a hand almost any time in the night and touch 
 him. Naturally, under such conditions, my very proper 
 prejudice against him on account of his infernal reserve 
 would either grow into an uncomfortable suspicion, if 
 not worse, or else I would learn to look beyond this seri 
 ous mental derangement of his. As it was, I began to 
 feel for him that strong, wholesome respect which one 
 always has for physical capability, when it is not accom 
 panied by mental sluggishness. 
 
 Then I liked Lander's face. He was a handsome devil 
 handsome astride his horse, and at mess and at groom 
 ing handsome when silent. Yet I have seen his eye 
 lids droop over a wicked pair of shining eyes, and seen an 
 ugly, bloodless look about his lower lip. 
 
 I saw this on the hot day when Lieut. Mat Crim 
 kicked him in the back, because I wish I knew myself. 
 I will tell you what I saw. 
 
 A couple of troops of the regiment were out on target 
 range. We were camped in a bunch of unaspiring foot 
 hills which, late in the afternoon, rested in the huge coni 
 cal shadow of Old Baldy. The tip of Old Baldy's icy 
 cone punctures the sky at one of the highest points in 
 Arizona. We were in that sand-stricken land where way 
 farers have to climb for water and dig for fuel-wood. We 
 were in that heat-ridden land where the lean, long coyote 
 scents death and trots cautiously thither where the vul 
 ture cranes his bare, crimson neck from behind a cloud, 
 and peers earthward for dying things. 
 
 The loose walls of the big Sibley tent were not flapping
 
 The Silent Trooper. 33 
 
 in a breeze that afternoon. The silken, tasseled flag which 
 crested headquarters hung limp and motionless. The 
 sun's rays were slanting and vicious. They sapped the 
 energy out of the breezes as they did out of every living 
 thing. The men rolled about the tents in wet, wilted 
 misery. Grooming call would soon be sounded. That 
 meant three-quarters of an hour over a sweating horse 
 in the sunshine. The men were putting on their dis 
 carded shirts now, and swearing in a listless monotone. 
 
 Lieut. Mat Crim was a little, wasp-waisted chap, who 
 had a dirty trick of getting mad. His West Point days 
 were too fresh in his mind for him to be a good officer. 
 He never allowed himself to lose sight of the fact that 
 he was a commissioned officer and that a mighty stretch 
 of superiority lay between him and a common, enlisted 
 man. Crim had just been transferred to our troop. Lan 
 der had come from another regiment two months before. 
 The two men met that hot afternoon just before groom 
 ing time. 
 
 Lander saluted. Crim stopped short, caught at his 
 breath several times and began to relieve himself of a 
 lot of livid English, all of which struck me as mysterious. 
 Lander stood "at attention," said something in a low voice 
 and walked away. 
 
 Lieut. Crim was ungovernable. He sprang after Lan 
 der, kicked him in the back and said : 
 
 "I'll make life a hell for you, Charlie Howard !" which 
 I judge must have been Lander's civilian name.
 
 34 The Silent Trooper. 
 
 Lander turned, looked devilish and raised his big right 
 arm. His superior officer was under it. 
 
 But Lander's arm never touched Lieut. Crim, a circum 
 stance which made me cry aloud: 
 
 "Thank God!" 
 
 It dropped down, while Lander laughed low and me 
 lodiously. I was thinking how wicked Lander looked 
 when he laughed that way. Then the bugle sounded 
 "stables." 
 
 Every man in the troop detested the lieutenant, and 
 all admired Lander for keeping his nerve. One of the 
 most unprofitable things a soldier can do is to strike a 
 superior officer. The same kind of a finish awaits him 
 as if he had been found sleeping at his post. 
 
 I watched Lander, and Lander watched Lieut. Crim 
 during the several following weeks. And they were not 
 pretty eyes, those strange eyes of Lander's, as they trailed 
 the movements of his superior officer. 
 
 To all he preserved his self-bound intensity. Glad, in 
 deed, would I have been to come very close to the heart 
 of this silent man, because I learned to have deep feelings 
 for him. He possessed the cold nerve which makes 
 heroes, and the great, warm heart which makes friends 
 I was sure of this. But his nature was broad enough 
 to cover his troubles, so he did not confide in men. Heroes 
 can hate well. , 
 
 Why my eyes wandered to the opposite side of one of 
 Lander's letters while he was holding it up, and there 
 lingered for a single disgraceful second, is something
 
 The Silent Trooper. 35 
 
 more than I can explain. I can only regret it. At any 
 rate, I saw these words: 
 
 "Oh, Charlie, do let me come to you!" 
 
 A lady-killer is my silent friend, thought I ; but I didn't 
 mean to read part of his letter really, I didn't. 
 
 After five weeks the troops were ordered to the bar 
 racks. No one was sorry, for life on target range in 
 Arizona is tedious, putting it with studied mildness. And 
 then they have mosquito netting in the barracks. 
 
 A tragedy was enacted on those moonlit foothills at 
 Old Baldy's base the last night on range. I am not a 
 handy man at tragedies. It was this way: 
 
 "Say, old chap," said Lander in a light manner the 
 morning before, "do a little favor for me, will you? I 
 want you to meet a lady for me. I believe I will have 
 another engagement to-night!" 
 
 "A lady in this damned country !" I whispered excited 
 ly. Nothing but greaser maidens and squaws had I seen 
 for months it seemed. 
 
 Reluctantly he handed me a note, part of which is 
 below : 
 
 "I could not help coming. I was frantic when I learned 
 that he was transferred to your troop. You must meet 
 me to-night. Did you think I could forget you? Oh, 
 Charlie, I may be acting unwomanly, but I am desperate. 
 No one knows me here in the village. I will be near the 
 last adobe hut on the north. Oh, why did you go away? 
 I thought * * * Come to-night. ELSIE." 
 
 "It's a common yarn," said Lander nervously. "She
 
 36 The Silent Trooper. 
 
 knew me up north as a civilian. Crim and I were sta 
 tioned there, but he did not know me. I was only a 
 private. She was lovely to us both. The queer thing 
 about it is that I won out. Then it occurred to me that 
 I was only a common soldier, who had flunked at every 
 thing else he tried, and hardly fit to marry, so I applied 
 for a transfer and chased out. She wouldn't have Crim, 
 anyway. 
 
 "Now Crim turns up again in the attitude of my supe 
 rior officer, which is very dramatic, and the little woman 
 is here, which is also very dramatic; and as I can't see 
 them both I want you to go to her. I must keep the 
 other engagement. Tell her I'm a deserter, or dead, or 
 any old thing." 
 
 For the second time I heard Lander laugh low and 
 melodiously. I can hear it yet. He was either acting or 
 a devil for coolness. 
 
 "There'll be a show down to-night," he said. 
 
 After retreat, the lieutenant called for his horse and 
 loped slowly townward. The sun was red and low, and 
 the silken flag over headquarters was cased for the night. 
 A little later Lander entered the tent, drew his cartridge 
 belt about him and sauntered carelessly out. 
 
 "Don't keep the little woman waiting long," he whis 
 pered to me. I watched his form grow dim in the shadows 
 toward the village. Then I stepped into my cartridge 
 belt, looked at my six-shooter, and became one of the 
 mysterious townward procession. Something is going to 
 drop on the village road this night, I thought.
 
 The Silent Trooper. 37 
 
 Lander was sitting by the roadside a mile from camp. 
 He was puffing a cheroot, and smiled, but did not speak 
 to me. A round moon whitened the heavens about Old 
 Baldy. I walked away from the village, then stole back 
 concealed by the chaparral. While I waited, I wondered 
 why I had not remembered to shake hands with Lander 
 that night. 
 
 It seemed a long time before the lieutenant's horse was 
 heard down the road. I hoped that Lander would pick 
 off his man from ambush. I hated to think he would 
 do it. 
 
 "Dismount, lieutenant!" sang out the man who had 
 been kicked, and he did not salute his superior officer. 
 
 What Crim said as he obeyed is rather important but 
 not necessary to this narrative. But Crim knew then 
 that he was only a common human man, like the being 
 before him., whom he had kicked. He saw in the faded 
 twilight a private in the regular army who, in the presence 
 of other men, was his slave, but who, alone in the foot 
 hills of Arizona, was a cool, determined, smiling foe. He 
 saw before him the handsome Charlie Howard, who was 
 loved by a woman he loved. He saw the reckless light 
 in Howard's eyes which boded no good. And in spite of 
 all these things, Lieut. Mat Crim was game. 
 
 The moon was looking over Old Baldy's icy crown 
 now, and the great dome above and the sand below were 
 filled with its whiteness. 
 
 "You acted the coward once, little officer try to be 
 a man to-night," I heard Lander say. "It was imprac-
 
 38 The Silent Trooper. 
 
 ticable to procure seconds, so you will have to rely upon 
 the honor of a common soldier. Perhaps you never as 
 sociated such sentiments with an enlisted man. I see 
 that you have your six-shooter. I was too soft-hearted 
 to bruise you with my hands." 
 
 Crim looked at his man keenly. He then looked over 
 his six-shooter carefully. He had been a clever shot at 
 West Point. 
 
 "Who gives the signal ?" he added, clearing his throat. 
 
 "Count three in the position of 'raise pistol/ " said Lan 
 der politely, "after which you are at liberty to fire as 
 soon as you please." 
 
 Crim's tall gelding browsed uneasily and whinnied. 
 He wanted to get back to the hay on the picket line, but 
 he was a trained cavalry horse and did not think of 
 trotting off alone. I watched, not knowing what else 
 to do. 
 
 Both men took position, and came to the regulation 
 "raise pistol." 
 
 "Ready?'' asked the lieutenant, clearing his throat 
 again. 
 
 "All ready," answered the silent man cheerfully. The 
 moonbeams whitened his forehead. 
 
 "One," said the lieutenant. Both men were motionless. 
 
 "Two!" he screamed. His arm dropped. There was 
 a noise and an empty shell in his six-shooter. The lieu 
 tenant had forgotten to say "Three." 
 
 Lander was dying in the moonlight, and there was no
 
 The Silent Trooper. 39 
 
 empty shell in his six-shooter! Mat Crim, his superior 
 officer, ran to his horse like a thing affrighted, and gal 
 loped away. 
 
 "Go and tell her, old chap," Lander whispered, "that 
 Charlie Howard was afraid to meet her to-night. Tell 
 her that his memory is a far worthier shrine for her wor 
 ship than a common cavalryman. Tell her I was a de 
 serter, because damn it all, old- man, I think a lot of 
 the little witch. You needn't tell her that Crim is a 
 coward just say he is a good shot." 
 
 And when there were no more words I hurried away 
 to the village to keep Lander's engagement. She was 
 there a little thing, pretty and trembling. There was a 
 lace handkerchief in her hand and a soft perfume about 
 her. 
 
 I told her what Lander had said. She did not cry, 
 but clutched my arm with fierce strength. 
 
 "Take me to him/' she demanded. 
 
 I led the way back over the rolling road, and when we 
 neared the spot where I had left my silent friend in the 
 moonlight, I heard a long, low, mournful howl, the an 
 swer mingled with the echo. 
 
 "Let us hurry faster !" I said. 
 
 There was no change. Lieut. Mat Crim had not re 
 turned. The woman picked up the pistol which had fallen 
 by the silent man's side, and drew open the cylinder with 
 the ease of a veteran. Six loaded cartridges fell into her 
 hand.
 
 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.
 
 The Degeneration of Laddie,
 
 THE DEGENERATION OF LADDIE. 
 
 In trouble was his normal condition. Laddie was 
 considerable of an artist in the first place, therefore he 
 could not have found himself in a worse predicament than 
 to be in Uncle Sam's service. If his artistic nature had 
 only been in his fingers, instead of his whole being, Lad 
 die might have found hapiness in the troop, for we all 
 loved him. 
 
 In that affected brain of his there was another dis 
 torted idea. He was possessed of the wild notion that he 
 was as clever a chap mentally and with his muscles as 
 any of his superior officers oh ! 
 
 Laddie feared neither black man nor white. He had 
 been in Porto Rico three months, and had enjoyed only 
 ten days' liberty. In spite of this handicap, the smiles of 
 the richest and prettiest senoritas in Manati were for him 
 solely, and I honestly believe that he had more friends 
 among the natives than any other cavalryman. His was 
 a genius for making friends 
 
 Three soldiers were standing on a mountain side just 
 out of Ciales. It was early evening. Twenty miles 
 away, through a rift in the mountains, they could see the
 
 46 The Degeneration of Laddie. 
 
 Atlantic. The sun was sinking into the sea. The east 
 ern highlands were dim and shadowy now. 
 
 "Say we walk to Manati," suggested one of the three, 
 grinning. It was eight miles. Many are the govern 
 ment mules that have lain down and died on that trail. 
 The Manati River crosses it eleven times. Many are the 
 government mules that have kicked vainly and been car 
 ried away limp and lifeless, because they struck the Ma 
 nati fords in a wrong place. And government mules are 
 not without a number of kicks. 
 
 "You could not pay me to hit that trail in the night 
 time," declared the second soldier. 
 
 "I'll go with you," said Laddie, smiling. He was think 
 ing of the bright-eyed senorita, whose father had a cellar 
 full of wines, pale and ruddy. The idea grew upon him. 
 
 "Oh, I wouldn't go unless all three of us do," put in 
 the cavalryman who was first to speak. 
 
 Laddie was silent. He knew that he would go alone 
 if he saw the senorita that night. 
 
 "What time is it?" he asked finally. 
 
 "Five forty-five." 
 
 "Have you got a coin? Throw it up. If it's head, I 
 go alone." Laddie was smiling still. 
 
 "You've only been out of calaboose a couple of days. 
 Be careful you don't get collared again," warned the sol 
 dier holding the coin. He threw it up. 
 
 "Tail she is," they told Laddie. Together the soldiers 
 three wended their way back toward Ciales. A hundred
 
 The Degeneration of Laddie. 47 
 
 yards they traversed in silence. Laddie stopped short. 
 He was not smiling now. 
 
 "Throw it up once more," he asked of them. By his 
 manner one would think he was trying to borrow money. 
 The other two soldiers made use of those expressions 
 which the natives over here picked up first. 
 
 "Well, you've got your way. It's head this time." 
 
 Laddie rolled up his sleeves. Then he felt in his pock 
 ets. "Give me a piece of tobacco. I'm short." 
 
 It was handed to him. 
 
 "I'll be back by reveille," he sang, and trotted down 
 the trail toward the first ford. 
 
 ******** 
 
 "Why, it's a cinch," quoth Laddie in the first stream. 
 The ripples splashed against his thighs, and his lower 
 jaw became unruly. He made the first four fords, and 
 the day was gone. He sat down on a rock and rested, 
 while the moon rose up and cheered him. 
 
 "Look out for the fifth and sixth fords going to Ciales 
 the sixth and seventh they are coming back." He had 
 often heard the boss of the pack train say this. And he 
 remembered how his own horse had struggled in these 
 places when the squad came up from Manati. Laddie 
 shivered and started on. 
 
 "A man ought to have four legs for this fording busi 
 ness. Why in the devil was I born such a noodle? The 
 sixth is deep and broad ; the seventh is fast and deep." 
 
 He scrambled down the bank of the sixth. Already he 
 could hear the splashing down stream the splashing of
 
 48 The Degeneration of Laddie. 
 
 the falls just at the right of the seventh crossing. He 
 stood ankle deep in the river. A big red horse, resting in 
 the shallows, skipped out almost from under his feet. It 
 thrilled him unpleasantly. Faintly, in the moonlight, he 
 ' could see the trail continuing oh the other side. He 
 faced a few degrees up stream and plunged in. The 
 mountain current chilled him breast high, and soaked 
 some papers in the pocket of his army shirt. 
 
 Laddie made the sixth, and the seventh, too after a 
 fearful fight. His constant thought was, "What would I 
 do without the moonlight ?" He felt strong when he dis 
 cerned the lights of Manati, glimmering in the valley be 
 low. It was only half-past eight. He had done well. 
 
 Laddie passed the volunteer military headquarters 
 going back, and inquired of the sentinel the time of night. 
 It was about to strike twelve. He would be in his own 
 quarters by three if the moon shone on the fords. He 
 was quite happy. 
 
 Stars were visible only in patches. Black streaks were 
 moving around the moon. Laddie looked up and started 
 on a trot. When the city was left behind, he removed 
 his trousers and put on his leggins once more next to the 
 skin. The memory of the red horse in the shallows made 
 him do this. For the first time he felt weary, when he 
 climbed up the Ciales bank of the fourth crossing. Rain 
 drops struck his face. The next ford was the ugly one, 
 and it was growing darker, darker. Already he could 
 hear the plunging river. His feet were troubling him 
 now, and the trail was slippery from rain.
 
 The Degeneration of Laddie. 49 
 
 "God help me if I don't get there by reveille. They'll 
 think I've deserted and with my record, heavens !" 
 ******** 
 
 He stood in the murky blankness on the fifth river 
 bank. It was so dark that he could not tell where the 
 cliffs ended and the sky began ; he could not see half way 
 across the angry Manati. Ah, but he could hear its roar ! 
 Yes, and when he looked long he could see its foam. The 
 tropical rain beat down. 
 
 His strength was not so great as before, Laddie 
 thought. The waters beat mightily against him. Every 
 time he raised his foot he feared that he must fall. He 
 passed the nucleus of the river's force. His breath failed. 
 He stepped on a rolling stone, sank, and fought the 
 waters hands and feet. Chilled and bruised, he groped in 
 the rain for the trail. He had made the fifth ford going 
 back oh, but he was weary. It seemed as if he found 
 the way and he walked on for ages. His feet were 
 feverish and painful. He approached the river, the last 
 one he feared. It looked ugly and unnatural. 
 
 Laddie plunged in, struck a deep hole and was borne 
 swiftly down stream. He had hit the Manati in a wrong 
 place. And then began a cavalry recruit's battle against 
 faintness, fatigue, and a wicked current. The perpetual 
 smile on Laddie's tanned countenance vanished when he 
 told of that battle. 
 
 "I felt that my time to croak had come," Laddie said. 
 Two hundred yards below the point where he entered 
 the stream, the young cavalryman clambered up on the
 
 50 The Degeneration of Laddie. 
 
 other side, and then he fell down in the rain. This is the 
 way he goes on with the story : 
 
 "I was groggy when I got up, and cold with the wind 
 and wet. I knew that I had wandered from the trail be 
 tween the fifth and sixth fords, because I had struck deep 
 water. I groped along the bank both ways, until I 
 thought dawn must be near. I prayed that I would stum 
 ble upon the trail. 
 
 "This extremity I would not have deemed necessary, if 
 I was only to be hung for missing reveille, but I would 
 get a call-down from four different parties besides. This 
 thought kept me on my feet. At last I walked away 
 from the river and got tangled up in a barbed wire fence. 
 The heavens did not give forth a ray, and it rained on. 
 Following the fence to the left, it led me back to the river. 
 I shuddered. There was still one more chance to go 
 the other way with the wires. This I did, and to my 
 ears was borne a sweet sound. When I had wrung the 
 water out of my eyes, I also saw a sweet sight. A dog 
 barked and a shadowy shack loomed up before me. 
 
 "I knew I would get shot at for a guerrilla, if I stole 
 up, because the dog was making announcements. I 
 vented Spanish, therefore, in a loud voice and at a dis 
 tance : 
 
 " 'Americano soldato ! Americano soldato !' I threw 
 in some English to make a hit, and the rear door opened 
 a couple of inches. 'Tengo muchas penas, senor,' I 
 wailed, all of which means that I was an American sol 
 dier of many sorrows.
 
 The Degeneration of Laddie. 51 
 
 " 'Enter, Senor Americano. Que lastima.' I was sin 
 gularly relieved to see the good wife hang up the family 
 musket. I was also made happy to see the good wife 
 rake up the coals in the fire-place and start a pot of cof 
 fee. Porto Rican coffee is as delicate and subtle in flavor 
 as it is mighty in body. I drank and would have departed. 
 There were dry clothes for me in the woman's hand. Her 
 husband had lit a cigar and gave it to me. An extra 
 hammock had been strung. How I wished I was not a 
 soldier that night. 
 
 "Yes, I rested. I thought I had made the Spaniard 
 understand the imperative nature of reveille roll-call, but 
 I hadn't. His spirit of hospitality was too massive. He 
 would not let me depart until I had lain down. How de 
 licious was the drowsiness that stole over me how beau 
 tiful that sleep. Alas, but it was a long one, too." 
 ******** 
 
 The first streaks of pink dawn were mellowing the east, 
 when Laddie moved. The cigar was still in his hand. 
 He jumped up with a groan of pain. His feet were sore, 
 his muscles lame and stiff. The pot of coffee was still 
 warm upon the embers. He swallowed a quantity and 
 jumped into his wet clothes. The operation was a pain 
 ful one, putting it with studied mildness. Then he 
 grasped the hand of the Spanish gentleman, murmured 
 his gratitude, and dashed out into the dawn toward the 
 trail. He could see it now winding upward toward the 
 heights. He had missed it the night before by a quarter 
 of a mile.
 
 52 The Degeneration of Laddie. 
 
 Laddie reached the summit. Ciales stood out upon 
 the cliffs a mile and a half away. And from the tiny vil 
 lage over the rocks and hills there was borne the first call 
 a soldier hears in the morning, the cheery reveille. Poor 
 Laddie groaned. He did not hurry after that. 
 
 The troopers were at breakfast when he reached the 
 quarters. The top-sergeant met him with certain phrases 
 of English which would look strange if reproduced, and 
 then went with him to the commanding officer. The cap 
 tain told Laddie, among other things, that he was a dis 
 grace to his country, and ordered him looked up. The 
 prisoner wearily moved his bunk over to the Spanish jail, 
 and rested all the rest of the day. Then he commenced 
 to think. That evening when Kruger, a Hoosier recruit, 
 brought Laddie's supper over to the jail, he found that the 
 prisoner had become solid with the Spanish policemen 
 already solid to such an extent that they had allowed 
 him to stroll in the plaza and watch the sunset. It is 
 pretty to see the sun sink beyond the mountains away up 
 there in Ciales. And Kruger, the Hoosier recruit, told 
 the top-sergeant how solid Laddie was with the Spanish 
 policemen all of which caused the top to be very angry 
 and much trouble for the prisoner. The latter spent the 
 night in thought. 
 
 ******** 
 
 On the morning of the second day after this, they 
 found that Laddie's bunk was empty, except for the fol 
 lowing letter, which was characteristic :
 
 The Degeneration of Laddie. 53 
 
 "Dear Captain My chief regret in taking this step is 
 that I do so while the features of Kruger, the Hoosier 
 child, are still intact. If a dirty word is written next to 
 my name in the troop books, it is because there is no al 
 ternative. I believe that it is the desire of those above 
 me to omit my name from roll calls. 
 
 "I make no rash promises about being dead when re 
 taken, if any such unfortunate circumstance should oc 
 cur. I could not wait for a legitimate discharge, because 
 the vermin here have got me bluffed. And besides, I am 
 afraid of the noisome la viruella (smallpox). My fellow 
 convict was taken away with it this morning. He was 
 quite a gentleman, by the way. 
 
 "Pure Castilians walk through my apartments with 
 their noses in a sling. They walk through rapidly. I 
 have not that privilege. I did not consult the worthy 
 Porto Rican policia before leaving. Had I done so they 
 would probably have wished me godspeed. 
 
 "I have enjoyed the service. I have met some right 
 royal good fellows. I have not the space nor the com 
 mand of English to write concerning some others. I 
 have several sore toes, and a painful remembrance of the 
 Manati fords. I hate to face my mother. 
 
 "Here's looking at you all. I do this with no rum in 
 my brain. May you all serve your thirty years and live 
 happily ever afterwards in the soldiers' home, and may I 
 reach God's country *>efore I'm twenty-one. 
 
 "Lovingly, LADDIE."
 
 Toreador, the Game One.
 
 TOREADOR, THE GAME ONE. 
 
 Only two things in this world did Benito, the poor 
 Porto Rican, love. One was Marie, who lived with her 
 mother in a tiny shack away up in the mountains, and the 
 other was Toreador, a very fancy, very trim and very, 
 very game little red chicken. 
 
 Now, Sunday is market day in that little tropical island, 
 and the natives bring their wares to the plazas of the vil 
 lages. Then in loud voices they tell the passers-by just 
 how good and cheap their things are. And every Sun 
 day morning Marie used to trip down the trail into Cori- 
 zel, with a basket of sweetmeats upon her head, and then 
 she would cry : "Cocoa de dulce ! Cocoa de dulce !" until 
 her apron was heavy, and jingled with big centavos, and 
 all the sweetmeats were gone. 
 
 Benito would lavish his single centavo for a piece of 
 Marie's sweets, but mostly he cared for the smile from 
 Marie's dark, pretty eyes, which she always gave him. 
 When Marie called aloud, "Cocoa de dulce," Benito 
 thought that it was the sweetest sound he had ever heard, 
 and after Marie's cute figure was lost in the coffee shrubs 
 which bordered the trail, Benito would sigh and walk
 
 58 Toreador, the Game One. 
 
 back to his little room in the poorest and shabbiest of all 
 the poverty shacks in the district. Then he would di 
 vide the cocoanut sweets with Toreador, telling the game 
 one all the while how wonderfully sweet and pretty was 
 the maiden whom he gazed at so long every Sunday. 
 
 Now, Toreador had blood in his veins as blue as the 
 ocean at night. He was only a baby bird, but his race 
 dated back to the time when Castilians ruled the world 
 and owned most of it. Toreador was the scion of the 
 gamest fighting stock ever pitted in that land of fair seno- 
 ritas and fancy cocks. Toreador had gaffs as sharp as a 
 surgeon's lance and as tough as ivory. Muscles were on 
 his body as hard as steel nails. He had a wicked beak 
 and a long, thick neck a typical fighting neck, and 
 brownish black eyes so bright that they shone like elec 
 tric sparks. 
 
 Toreador's father was a champion of other days. 
 Everybody for miles around Corizel knew the record and 
 pedigree of this bird, and everybody envied the rich 
 Spanish planter who owned him, because many were the 
 pesos which the gamecock piled up for him every Sun 
 day. Now Benito had seen the doughty chicken's last 
 fight, after he had laid low five other birds in two hours. 
 He was fighting in the dark, for the spark had run out 
 of both his eyes. And no one was sadder than Benito 
 when the great battle was over and the head of Torea 
 dor's splendid sire dropped into the dust of the pit and 
 rested there. 
 
 The mother of Benito's bird was as trim and fancy a
 
 Toreador, the Game One. 59 
 
 lady as ever strutted about a fresh-laid egg. No one but 
 Benito knew of Toreador's illustrious parentage, and no 
 one but Benito knew how the tiny chicken became pos 
 sessed by the poor Porto Rican. One morning the little 
 brothers and sisters of the artistocratic brood missed one 
 of their number, and the mighty el capitan of the Ameri 
 can soldiers, who owned them all, likewise missed the 
 youngster, whom Benito called Toreador and learned to 
 love. That was all there was to it. 
 
 In the days that follow Marie grew more pretty to 
 Benito's eyes, and the game one grew strong and hard 
 ened. 
 
 Time came when Benito could no longer wait for Sun 
 days in order that he might see the little dark-eyed 
 maiden who parted her red lips in a smile for him. So, 
 one evening, he crept up the trail toward the little high 
 land shack of Marie and her mother, and watched while 
 the moon rose. Away up in the northland where the 
 American soldiers came from and lingeringly talked 
 about, it was winter; but the night was warm where 
 Benito was, and the breezes of evening were as soft as 
 only breezes are, and they were laden with the perfume 
 of orange groves wild and vast. The moon rose into the 
 heights and candles glinted in the village down in the val 
 ley. Meanwhile Benito watched, and the little Corizel 
 River purled and tinkled on its way to join the Rio 
 Grande. 
 
 And when the moon was so bright and big that its 
 white radiance dimmed the stars, Marie came out of the
 
 60 Toreador, the Game One. 
 
 doorway and turned her face upward. Then she sang to 
 the great, white beauty of the heavens she sang of love's 
 enchantment, and every note was a rapture to the poor 
 Porto Rican who watched. It seemed to him one mo 
 ment that his heart must burst, so big was it. Then Marie 
 sang soft and low of slumber, and the tinkle of the tiny 
 Corizel was hushed when the slumber song was ended. 
 The aged mother of the dark-eyed maiden sat with 
 drowsy eyes in the doorway, biding her time. 
 
 Next Sunday Marie smiled upon Benito prettier than 
 ever, for she saw that he had a faint look, and that his 
 face was very wan and ashy for a Porto Rican's. She 
 did not know that he had been toiling from dawn to 
 dark for six days, prodding weary oxen over the rocky 
 trail between a big hacienda and Corizel, carrying tons of 
 green coffee. She did not know that he had not eaten 
 enough in those six days to satisfy the game one, nor that 
 he had four bright silver pesos hidden away in his shabby 
 shack. Marie did not know that his four silver pesos and 
 his starvation were for her. But somehow she smiled 
 upon him very sweetly that Sunday. Perhaps it was be 
 cause she pitied his wan face. And, oh, how happy was 
 Benito, the poor Porto Rican, that day. 
 
 A week passed and there were four more silver pesos 
 hidden away in the dingy shack, and Marie did not see 
 Benito this Sunday. Strange things were going on in 
 his hut. Toreador was trimmed for action, like the decks 
 of great fighting ships are. The green and copper-hued 
 feathers of Toreador's neck were cut away. His wings
 
 Toreador, the Game One. .61 
 
 were clipped, and his limbs and breast laid bare. Then 
 very skillfully, very carefully, Benito scraped and sharp 
 ened the gaffs of the game one until they shone like the 
 sabers of American cavalrymen and were as keen as 
 needlepoints. 
 
 All the while Toreador clucked and scolded angrily. 
 Never before did his brownish-black eyes gleam with 
 such wicked intensity, and never before did Benito see a 
 bird in such splendid fighting form as was his own little 
 game one, as he strutted about the shack and scolded. 
 
 When all the preparations were over, Benito wrapped 
 his eight silver pesos in a cloth, and with the game one 
 under his arm he walked across the town to the cock-pit. 
 Toreador had no experience only instinct. He was 
 matched against a fancy gray chicken who had won bat 
 tles before. But the gray chicken never won another, 
 because Toreador, somewhat scratched, but with two 
 eyes and much nerve and wind, crowed lustily while the 
 other was weakly pounding the turf with both wings and 
 a bleeding crest. Marie was gone from the plaza when 
 Benito returned, but he was never so happy before, since 
 he had twice as many pesos as when he started, and he 
 was nearer to the day when he might tell Marie's old 
 mother where his heart was, without shame. 
 
 So time passed and Benito's handkerchief became 
 heavier and heavier, while Toreador added craft to his in 
 stinct and honor to his race. And Benito alone knew the 
 stock from which his game one sprung. 
 
 At last the great day dawned.
 
 62 Toreador, the Game One. 
 
 Now it was very natural that the captain of the Ameri 
 can soldiers should hear of the fame which a certain ple- 
 bian bird was making, and straightway he sought out 
 the poor native who owned this bird, and fixed a day 
 when he should match his high-born Morro with the 
 dauntless Toreador. 
 
 The great day was fixed the day that would make 
 Benito rich enough to speak to Marie's mother, or so 
 poor that he would long for death. 
 
 Thus it was that Toreador, whom men called the peer 
 less plebeian, met the mighty Morro, and great, indeed, 
 was the battle. So nearly alike were the two birds that 
 Benito found it necessary to distinguish Toreador by a 
 ribbon on his left ankle. Men marveled at the likeness 
 between the two birds, and trembled when they thought 
 how terrible the battle would be. The American captain 
 hired a native to train his bird. Benito and this man 
 stood alone in the pit. Each held a chicken under his 
 arm. The cocks were quivering, straining, clucking low 
 and defiantly. The wagers were made; the birds were 
 cooled with an icy spray, and the big cock-pit became as 
 silent as the great white cliffs above. 
 
 Benito never could tell what he did the next hour. It 
 was a lifetime for him. His face mirrored the agony, the 
 struggles, the determination of his game one. He thought 
 not of Marie, not of the little fortune he would win or 
 lose. He thought only, lived only for the doughty Spar 
 tan, whom he had reared from a chick, and who was try 
 ing to live under the onslaught of a worthy foe.
 
 Toreador, the Game One. 63 
 
 Toreador did not feel Morro's keen gaff as it dark 
 ened one side of his head one whit more than did Benito ; 
 and the heart of the poor Porto Rican grew cold. Ah, 
 yes, Morro was a worthy foe, but Toreador had not weak 
 ened yet. The American captain's chicken hugged 
 closely to Toreador's dark side and stabbed often and 
 deep. At last the birds went into the air. There were 
 thrusts that moment which no one saw. And when the 
 rivals landed, Morro could not keep his feet. He sank 
 to his breast, then slowly, very slowly, his beak dropped 
 toward the turf. 
 
 Toreador did not crow. He was staggering, pecking 
 wildly at thin air. Both sides were dark now. Toreador 
 did not know that he had won his last battle. And as 
 the great shout went up for the winning bird, not a soul 
 thought that Toreador had laid his own brother low. 
 
 That night Benitoi walked up the trail toward the 
 shack of Marie and her mother. Twilight had dimmed 
 the sunset land. Over in the low southeast the moon was 
 rising. 
 
 Benito was not so happy as he dreamed he would be 
 this moment, yet he was rich now, and yearned to see the 
 little dark-eyed maiden of the highland shack. He 
 thought of the songs she had sung that night, while she 
 gazed up into the twinkling heights. He thought of 
 Toreador, stiff and wounded, back in the town. 
 
 Farther up toward the cliffs he could see the shadowy 
 outline of Marie's home. The night was falling upon it, 
 and the tiny Corizel tinkled among the big stones. More
 
 64 Toreador, the Game One. 
 
 and more of the rocky trail was silently left behind. Very 
 cautiously he emerged from the coffee shrubs a few rods 
 from the shack. He was weak; his breath came fast. 
 The big bag of silver pesos seemed very heavy. 
 
 And as Benito's eyes peered through the dark he saw 
 the little maiden whom he loved. The arms of a big 
 American cavalryman were around her, and she was 
 smiling into his eyes. 
 
 Then Benito crawled back toward the lights of the vil 
 lage. The heavy bag of silver pesos lay by a big stone at 
 the edge of the trail. 
 
 Down in Benito's shack, Toreador, sore and blinded, 
 dreamed of the battle he had won. 
 
 But the story of Benito, the poor Porto Rican, is not 
 ended.
 
 The Wooing of Benito.
 
 THE WOOING OF BEN1TO. 
 
 Silk Redmond, cavalryman through necessity, and pri 
 vate of course, sat on the porch of an old banana-house, 
 high up in the interior of Porto Rico. For a trooper, he 
 sadly exerted his brain. It was very foolish for a man 
 in Redmond's position to think at all. It seemed ages to 
 him since patriotic proclivities went quivering through 
 the land and the bodies and souls of callow young men. 
 Then, for the first time in Redmond's life, he had been 
 close enough to the world to discover how threadbare it 
 was worn in some places. 
 
 Redmond had just emerged from college. There was 
 a classical unsophistication about him. The youngster 
 who blackened his boots might have given him all kinds 
 of points concerning mundane matters then. Redmond 
 could have composed an astronomical essay with ease 
 and effect, but he couldn't dash off a murder yarn and 
 make an edition for anything short of a weekly paper. 
 Theoretically, he would have made a fast lawyer, but in 
 practice it would have meant incarceration for a poor 
 devil, whose jag had been officially spoiled, to trust to his 
 pleading in police court.
 
 70 The Wooing of Benito. 
 
 Silk Redmond needed to be polished off with that sort 
 of jagged pumice which a man gets only by brushing 
 about city streets and in Uncle Sam's service. 
 
 As the tall trooper sat on the porch of the old banana- 
 house, with his toughened cavalry legs hanging over, he 
 mused savagely on the days when he had a grudge against 
 himself those days when he tried to work off patriotic 
 chills and fever, and be a civilian still. 
 
 Turning his back upon college days and a pretty girl, 
 Redmond plunged southward to join his regiment; and 
 not until he sat on the dirty deck of a transport, smoking 
 a very black pipe, and watching the officers up on the 
 spotless bridge, where he dare set foot only at the price 
 of his liberty, did Silk Redmond get time to think. And 
 at night, away up north, a little college girl had com 
 pleted her studies for the day, and was thinking of a big, 
 noble soldier fellow ; and often her eyelids were moist ere 
 her student lamp flickered and sputtered out. But she 
 did not write because she had a mind of her own, this lit 
 tle college girl, and she had told a certain big fellow that 
 he was many kinds of a chump to chase away from his 
 prospects, and everybody who liked him, when there was 
 no show of his ever getting shot at, anyway. 
 
 ******** 
 
 Mail had come in from the States that day, but there 
 was no letter from the little college town. It was even 
 ing now. A disgusted cavalryman swung down from 
 the porch of the old banana-house, answered retreat in a 
 surly tone, and then strolled up the rocky trail toward a
 
 The Wooing of Benho. 71 
 
 tiny shack where a dark-eyed maiden lived. Now Silk 
 Redmond did this to get even with himself and the col 
 lege girl. His heart was not with the little dark-eyed 
 maiden, whose name was Marie, but far away in the 
 northland. Redmond was not happy as he panted up the 
 steep trail. 
 
 The village of Corizel was in the valley below him, and 
 the little Corizel River splashed down the mountain side, 
 passed by the village and tinkled on toward the Rio 
 Grande. No cavalryman dared enter that village toward 
 which the river was spreading. Hideous la viruela was 
 there smallpox, the Americans called it. A quarantine 
 hung over the whole valley. That was why Uncle Sam's 
 cavalrymen were quartered in the old banana-house, two 
 miles beyond the village. 
 
 Marie had dark, Spanish eyes, cute smiles and ways, 
 the prettiest of red lips and the tiniest of white teeth ; but 
 somehow Silk Redmond was gloomy that night. He 
 could think only of the other maiden away up in the 
 northlabd, where the white faces and the great cities were 
 the maiden of the little college town, who would not 
 write to him because he was a trooper. 
 
 Together they stood, the trooper and Marie, in the 
 moonlight, in front of the highland shack. The great 
 white cliffs rose up above them ; and as they stood there 
 with the white moonbeams resting upon their faces, Silk 
 Redmond kissed the little dark-eyed maiden, because it 
 was the proper thing for a trooper to do at such a junc 
 ture.
 
 7* The Wooing of Benito. 
 
 And at that moment the heart of Benito, the poor Porto 
 Rican, was almost broken. 
 
 It must be remembered that Benito, who lived in the 
 poorest and shabbiest of all the poverty shacks in Cori- 
 zel, had loved Marie long and dearly. And on Sundays 
 in the plaza, the little dark-eyed maiden had often smiled 
 sweetly upon him. Now Benito never told Marie that he 
 loved her, yet all the while he was starving and slaving 
 so that some day he might have money enough to tell 
 her without shame. 
 
 Then it was that Toreador, the game one, the fanciest 
 of fighting cocks, whom Benito had reared from a tiny 
 chick, met the mighty Morro in the cock-pit, and laid him 
 low. And many were the silver pesos which Toreador 
 won for Benito that day. But the game one could never 
 be pitted again, for the gaffs of the mighty Morro had 
 darkened the spark in both his eyes. 
 
 Let it be known, too, that Benito, no longer poor after 
 the battle, had crept up the trail toward Marie's shack in 
 the shadow of the great white cliffs. A big bag of silver 
 pesos was in his hand. Benito was sad because the splen 
 did Toreador, whom he loved next to Marie, must live 
 always in darkness after that day. Had not Toreador 
 given his eyes that he might have Marie? But Benito 
 thought also, as he crept up the trail, of the little dark- 
 eyed maiden, and of joys sweet and lasting. 
 
 Slowly, very slowly, Benito crawled down once more. 
 He had seen Marie's laughing eyes as the big cavalryman 
 kissed her lips in the moonlight. His brain conceived no
 
 The Wooing of Benito. 73 
 
 thought of vengeance that moment, but, oh, how it 
 throbbed and burned ! 
 
 It was not long after that when Silk Redmond kicked 
 his foot against a big bag of silver pesos as he hastened 
 down the trail. He whistled softly and marveled. The 
 cavalryman had not been paid for two months, but, 
 strangely enough, the idea did not occur to Redmond to 
 buy bottles of rum, by which he might make himself for 
 ever solid with his fellow troopers. He was not an old 
 enough cavalryman for that. 
 
 Rapidly the tall trooper trotted down the trail. Indis 
 tinctly among the shadows and moonbeams ahead Silk 
 Redmond saw a dark form creeping slowly toward the 
 village. Softly he followed, clinging to the bag of silver. 
 
 Was it a sob that he faintly heard above the splashing 
 of the Corizel ? Anyway, the tall trooper forgot that taps 
 would sound in a half hour and that cavalrymen are sup 
 posed to be in their bunks when the bugle notes are 
 ended. He disregarded the stern order about entering 
 the town, and cautiously followed the dark figure to the 
 shabbiest of all shacks in the poverty district of Corizel 
 followed him through the very lurking-places of the noi 
 some la viruela. And at last Silk Redmond saw Benito 
 push open the door of his dingy hut and disappear. 
 
 Then the big cavalryman heard a piteous sound. It 
 was the weeping of a man whose heart was breaking 
 poor, harmless Benito! 
 
 It was a queer moment for Trooper Redmond. There 
 was no light but that of the moon within the shack, and
 
 74 The Wooing of Benito. 
 
 when the big soldier peered in he saw the bowed head of 
 the Porto Rican, trembling in sorrow. And Toreador, 
 with hurting wounds and shrunken eyes, drowsed and 
 dreamed in the dark. 
 
 A thought crept into the head of Silk Redmond. It 
 caused him to chase over to a store. It made him pur 
 chase a candle and return to the hut of Benito. And 
 everybody stared hard at the tall trooper as he passed 
 by. They knew that he had no right to be walking the 
 streets of quarantined Corizel. 
 
 "I'm going to find out what that poor devil is 'loco' 
 about," muttered Redmond as he tapped at the door of 
 the shack. He held the bag of silver in one hand. In 
 silence and solemnity the cavalryman lit the candle, and 
 looked into the eyes of the Porto Rican. They were great, 
 dark eyes, staring in wonderment and grief, and lustrous 
 with tears. They moved piteously from the bag of silver 
 to the face of the cavalryman, who came from the great 
 land over in the northwest beyond the sea, and they grew 
 more lustrous with tears. 
 
 Then the two talked in Spanish for many minutes. 
 Something that was in the heart of the tall trooper 
 something which shone out of his eyes soothed the sor 
 row of the poor Porto Rican as he told the story of 
 Toreador, the game one, and of Marie, who lived with her 
 mother away up toward the great white cliffs. 
 
 And one time Silk Redmond had to turn his face away 
 so the other might not see that something which was 
 in his eyes, for it was something which did not look well
 
 The Wooing of Benito. 75 
 
 in the eyes of a big cavalryman. Before leaving the shack 
 Silk Redmond spoke these words in Spanish : 
 
 "Look pleasant, and do as I say, and we'll manage 
 about the senorita. Meet me half way up the trail to 
 morrow at two. Fasten a grin on your face now, even if it 
 is painful, and go to sleep. I'll do the rest, and don't let 
 that bag of money go kicking around any old trail. Keep 
 close to that and the grin, and I'll make you the man of 
 that shack up there where Marie and her old woman 
 live." 
 
 A half-hour later the tall trooper had stolen past the 
 guard and crawled into his bunk. Then he lighted a very 
 black pipe and began to think of young men and maid 
 ens, light and dark. And back in the college town one of 
 the young lady students tore up a letter addressed to a 
 big soldier, because the last page had wet spots upon it. 
 
 For six afternoons Redmond met the Porto Rican and 
 stood over him while the latter choked down great quan 
 tities of manhood in the form of army rations. 
 
 "Get outside of those beans, they'll make a man of you. 
 Assimilate that hunk of sow-belly, it'll sparkle in your 
 blood." These remarks dropped out with puffs from a 
 very black pipe. 
 
 On the sixth day Redmond brought with him a cake 
 of "government bouquet" and a clean shirt. Then he 
 administered unto Benito a thorough scrubbing down in 
 the Corizel, and finally groomed him up nicely in the shirt 
 of army blue. Puffing meanwhile, the tall trooper sur-
 
 76 The Wooing of Benito. 
 
 veyed his job and was satisfied. That evening the two 
 walked together on the trail toward the highland shack. 
 
 And there was the same old smile for Benito. He had 
 a well-fed, natty look, which surprised her. Silk Red 
 mond was silent through the heavy effort of his brain. 
 
 "The American el capitan is a mighty man," he sug 
 gested finally. Benito and Marie were of the same opin 
 ion. Then the tall trooper took Marie out into the moon 
 light and told her many things which we all know. Mean 
 while Benito clung to his grin and money-bag, and shed 
 abroad mild Spanish commonplaces for the benefit of 
 Marie's old mother. 
 
 "The American el capitan has made up his mind," con 
 tinued Redmond, once more in the shack, "that Benito, 
 my friend, has arrived at sufficient property and years, to 
 hitch his fortunes to some pretty senorita. The captain 
 has appointed me to pick out the maid." The tall trooper 
 said all these things in Spanish. 
 
 "I have written concerning the matter to my wife," he 
 resumed, seriously. The immensity of his fabrications 
 tickled his throat. Marie puckered up her red lips re 
 proachfully. "My wife, who is a very learned woman, 
 says that Benito and Marie are twin souls, and so it must 
 be. I will leave you now, my children " 
 
 Benito clutched at a grin, but it was a pathetic one, 
 and with hands that trembled, he placed the bag of silver 
 pesos in the lap of his twin soul. The little maiden 
 pouted at the tall trooper as he disappeared. 
 
 Before the night that Silk Redmond sank down on his
 
 The Wooing of Benito. 77 
 
 bunk with deathly pains in his head and back, he had the 
 satisfaction to learn from Benito's own lips that Toreador, 
 the game one, would shortly be moved up to the shack in 
 the shadow of the great white cliffs. 
 
 Not many days afterward the troop commander tele 
 graphed back to the States that Private Redmond was 
 lying very low with smallpox. That very night, the girl 
 who lived in the college town wrote a long letter to her 
 big trooper. There were wet spots on every page, but 
 she sent it, anyway. 
 
 And that letter was read to the sick soldier by a com 
 rade in the hospital corps six days afterward. It made 
 the tall trooper feel so strong that he lit a very black pipe 
 for the first time in many days. 
 
 And now Toreador drowses in the darkness and dreams 
 of the battles he has won, in the shack of Marie and Be 
 nito, far up on the trail. And in the evening the old 
 mother of them both sits in the doorway, biding her time, 
 while the tiny Corizel tinkles on its way to join the Rio 
 Grande.
 
 
 
 "She leaned her face down close to that of the cavalryman, so that he 
 might not also see."
 
 Two Women and a Soldier.
 
 TWO WOMEN AND A SOLDIER. 
 
 When you see a man of wit, culture and intelligence 
 in an awkward cavalry squad, learning the rudiments of 
 military symmetry, you may rest assured that a story 
 lurks behind his enlistment that is, if the arts of peace 
 predominate in his land at the time. There are various 
 reasons why men enter the regular service. Chiefly among 
 these is the desire to live by as little work as possible, 
 and no worry. There are other men, of course, whose 
 personality has become odious in certain sections of the 
 country. These are not worried in the service, because 
 a soldier is judged by his animal worth, and not by the 
 enduring quality of his moral instinct. . . . You 
 would not find another like Yenning in the cavalry. 
 
 In a quiet way he showed his educational attainments. 
 To every man in the troop he also revealed a courtesy 
 which was high and inborn. Inasmuch as the new trooper 
 possessed the form of a Spartan warrior, and a face such 
 as the Greeks loved to picture for their gods, his fellow 
 cavalrymen bore with his infirmities of gentle breeding. 
 
 Earth is considerably remote from some stars. The 
 distance is not greater, however, than the distinction so-
 
 82 Two Women and a Soldier. 
 
 cially between an enlisted man and a commissioned officer 
 of a troop. The fact is well known that it is a breach 
 of military etiquette for an officer to affiliate with a man 
 in the ranks. It is infinitely worse than a breach for an 
 officer's daughter to do this. 
 
 Unfortunately, the laws of nature are mightier than 
 army regulations, and ever since the world has been made 
 merry and sad by human attachments, young girls have 
 become desperate over handsome men. 
 
 Captain Bishop, the troop commander, was one of the 
 best pistol shots and one of the worst drunkards in the 
 army. Very natural it was for such a man to have a 
 pretty daughter. It was very natural, also, for Private 
 Yenning to be chosen orderly the first time he mounted 
 guard. His hose and equipments were perfect ; his cloth 
 ing was new and fitted him ; in short, he was the best 
 looking soldier in the detail. And the best looking sol 
 dier is usually chosen for orderly. 
 
 Now, it is the duty of the orderly to shadow his com 
 manding officer, to keep his chest thrown out, his chin 
 drawn in, and his mouth shut and to obey orders until 
 relieved. Among other minor things which Venning did 
 the next day was to stand "at attention" for four hours 
 in a downtown cafe, while old Bishop waxed con 
 vivial toward himself and lenient toward men and things. 
 During the last hour the troop commander became so 
 popular that he felt called upon to buy drinks for every 
 body in the house, with the exception of his orderly, 
 of course. It would be decidedly unsoldierly for an offi-
 
 Two Women and a Soldier. 83 
 
 cer to drink in the same place with his orderly. Old 
 Bishop was never unsoldierly. 
 
 The result was that Yenning became ugly and white; 
 in the first place, because a deep gash was rent in his 
 pride, and, secondly, because he lost his supper. All of 
 which shows he was not cut out for a common soldier. 
 Had Venning possessed the proper spirit of an orderly, 
 he would have rejoiced over his dry outing, and been 
 proud that his captain trusted him to the extent of dis 
 playing his weaknesses before him. It can be readily 
 seen how culture and education spoils the good soldier 
 in a man. Finally, Venning received the barely articulate 
 order to take his captain back to the post. There was 
 a look upon his handsome face which was far from 
 agreeable while the orderly helped his superior officer 
 into a cab. 
 
 There had been no Mrs. Captain Bishop since Nellie's 
 mother died, happy in her husband's oath of a reforma 
 tion, immediate and absolute. Nellie was the pretty 
 daughter. 
 
 It was quite late when the sentry at the entrance 
 of the post grounds challenged the carriage. At 
 this time Venning's military training only covered a pe 
 riod of six weeks, and it is not wonderful that he forgot all 
 about it, when the dark-eyed young woman whom he had 
 often seen on parade grounds tripped through the vesti 
 bule to the front door of the Bishop residence, where he 
 was standing. 
 
 "I am Orderly Venning, Miss Bishop," he said slowly.
 
 84 Two Women and a Soldier. 
 
 "The captain is in the carriage. If you will show me 
 where his apartments are, I will help him there." 
 
 "Oh!" This was all that the orderly heard from the 
 young lady's lips. Many elements were in her mind that 
 moment. The splendid soldier whom she had so often 
 thought about .was before her. It was late. There was 
 no one but the servants in the house, and they were 
 asleep. She understood thoroughly the condition of her 
 father. Being an officer's daughter, she realized fully the 
 indignity to which this man had been subjected. She 
 felt too degraded for herself to pity Yenning. His voice 
 thrilled in her ears. She was a very young woman. 
 
 Yenning, the cavalryman, would have been a far dif 
 ferent fellow from Yenning, the civilian, had he failed 
 to understand the pressure of the moment. He thought 
 of a couple of circumstances which occurred when he was 
 not clothed in army blue. He thought of a bitter lesson 
 he had learned from a woman, who was neither so young 
 nor so innocent as the maiden who stood in the dimly 
 lighted vestibule. He thought how sweet and dainty the 
 captain's daughter looked. He was tingling still from 
 the shame in the cafe. Yenning never was a saint. He 
 had been a wooer many times, a student all his life, and a 
 gentleman at all times. He was very human, however. 
 He knew what was possible. 
 
 Captain Bishop was in a deep and noisy sleep. Nor 
 was he disturbed in any way when the orderly lifted him 
 from the carriage to his apartments. The young woman
 
 Two Women and a Soldier. 85 
 
 led the way. Shame flushed her cheeks, and sorrow was 
 in her dark eyes. And Yenning pitied her. 
 
 "I will see that everything is cared for," he said, "and 
 I trust you believe, Miss Bishop, that no one will hear of 
 this." 
 
 She hastened down the stairway. Her hands trembled 
 and her eyes were very bright. This man talked to her 
 as an equal, she thought. He had such white, refined 
 hands such a noble face! And his voice was so soft 
 and rich! Surely he was a good man and worthy, in 
 spite of army rules. Why should she be above anybody, 
 with a father like that upstairs ? And Miss Bishop felt 
 an ominous smarting in her eyes, caused by all these 
 thoughts. Suddenly she remembered something and 
 sped into the kitchen. 
 
 Meanwhile the captain was disrobed by his orderly, 
 who had performed similar attentions to many of his 
 friends in civilian days, and knew the trick. His superior 
 officer was at length adjusted comfortably in his proper 
 place, and there was a queer smile upon the face of Yen 
 ning. 
 
 "What an old beast you are!" he muttered. "How 
 easily could I make you suffer for what you have done 
 this night if I cared to !" 
 
 He turned the gas down low, and tip-toed to the stair 
 way. There he paused, listening. The thoughts in his 
 mind could not be described. He descended whistling, 
 whichnvas hardly relevant. 
 
 "Orderly!" The voice reached him from behind the
 
 86 Two Women and a Soldier. 
 
 drawn shades of the dining room. It was the voice of a 
 young woman who is not certain that she is acting with 
 judgment. The word she had uttered filled Yenning with 
 thoughts which pained. For an instant he had forgot 
 ten that he was his captain's valet. The young woman 
 advanced timidly toward him. 
 
 That night, after the cavalryman had supped and de 
 parted, Miss Bishop crept into her father's room. The 
 gas had been lowered until its light did not equal the 
 blaze of a match. The captain was deeply unconscious. 
 Everything in the room was in perfect order. 
 
 "Oh, that he should have to do such things for you," 
 murmured the young woman. Five minutes afterward 
 she was locked in her own apartments. 
 
 Meanwhile Yenning slipped past the sentries, and up 
 the iron stairway of the barracks to his cot. He stood 
 in the dark by the window rolling a cigarette. Over in 
 the captain's quarters, across the parade grounds, a light 
 was still shining upstairs. It was not in the captain's 
 room. When the cigarette- was so short that it burned 
 Venning's fingers -he light still shone in the officer's resi 
 dence. And so Trooper Yenning met the daughter of his 
 troop commander. 
 
 Four months later the command received orders to re 
 pair at once to a point of embarkation. American soldiers 
 were needed to simplify certain matters in Cuba. Al 
 most every day in those four months Yenning had re 
 ceived a letter, addressed in a woman's hand. Its post 
 mark bore the name of a Northern city.
 
 Two Women and a Soldier. 87 
 
 In the deep shadow of an unused building, on the even 
 ing before the cavalrymen left for the front, there came 
 to the daughter of Venning's troop commander a sorrow 
 deep and lasting. 
 
 The captain was at the officers' club-rooms with the 
 other commissioned men. The barracks was brilliantly 
 lighted, and from its open windows Yenning and the 
 maiden could hear the songs of the soldiers. The night 
 before men leave for the front they are always merry 
 as an aeronaut is before swinging off because crowds 
 are watching. The cavalryman and captain's daughter 
 stood together at the wall of an old deserted barracks. 
 Above them a great tree whispered and sighed. The 
 man was vaguely conscious of the silent suffering in the 
 dark eyes of the girl of her face which was white with 
 pain. He was conscious, too, of the moveless chill which 
 filled his breast; but, more than all, he felt a moral 
 strength in his brain which was strange and new. In 
 the branches above them there was a music, low and 
 mournful. 
 
 "Little girl," said the trooper, "I do not know what 
 has come over me. Somehow, I am a different fellow 
 to-night. If I had felt like this before I would never 
 have been a cavalryman, because I could have done no 
 wrong. . . . There, there, Nellie. I do not mean to 
 grieve you through any stories of those other days. 
 . . . I never thought I could hate myself so intensely 
 for them! 
 
 "I feel too black, little girl, to be near you to-night.
 
 88 Two Women and a Soldier. 
 
 I cannot help it. There was a time when I laughed at 
 anybody who spoke of a love, strong and sweet and pure. 
 A man who sears and bruises his conscience for years 
 cannot tear the callous off in a night. I must be good ! 
 I must do something hard ! I must get away from Ven- 
 ning, the animal !" 
 
 The young woman's head drooped toward the ground. 
 The man raised it gently with both his hands upon her 
 cheeks. His whole body seemed to be strained and tense 
 in his effort to control the trembling of his nerves. Only 
 a broken whisper came from his throat now. 
 
 "To-morrow we leave," he continued. "I will not 
 write to you yet. I may never come back to this post 
 or where you are. Little girl, I want you to be the same 
 sweet and pure Nellie who made a man like me love you, 
 and who made a man like me say such things as I have 
 said this night. And remember, had I not spoken such 
 words, my feelings would not be akin to the love which 
 is sacred and beautiful. . . . And, Nellie, when I 
 am man enough, you shall know it !" 
 
 The branches of the great tree above them slowly 
 swayed in the night breeze, and their shadowy deeps were 
 full of sighings. The man and the maiden still lingered. 
 There is silence when hearts are speaking. The man 
 dared not touch his lips to those of the maiden, for his 
 strength was only human. The voices of the soldiers in 
 the barracks seemed far away now, and their laughter 
 was hushed. At last there floated out with the radiance 
 from the windows the strains of a mighty melody. The
 
 Two Women and a Soldier. 89 
 
 voices of men, great and deep and vibrant with soul, were 
 raised in the hymn which soldiers love "God Be With 
 You Till We Meet Again !" 
 
 And that night, in his cot, Yenning smoked many 
 cigarettes, and hoped that his troop would encounter 
 fierce action, bloody action, and much of it ! 
 
 ******** 
 
 The pitiless Cuban sunshine was beating down from the 
 sky; and from the block-house on top of the hill death 
 flashed and screeched out of hot, dusty Mauser barrels. 
 A wavering line of blue gasped in the heat and choked 
 in the dust, but pushed upward toward the block-house 
 falling, cursing, crawling, but always upward! Squares 
 of army blue cloth hung upon the barbed entanglements 
 on the hillside; and dark little men with haggard faces 
 and a strange language were prone in the trenches with 
 the soldiers of a Northern land. And to those men who 
 laid side by side in the trenches, international war had 
 lost its consequence. 
 
 When the afternoon was dimmed by the deepening 
 twilight, the block-house on the top of the hill had 
 changed hands. And the soldiers from the Northern land 
 who held it now were still panting from the greatness of 
 the deed. And when the twilight was darkened by the 
 tropical evening, the Red Cross men lighted their lan 
 terns and crept about the trenches, peering everywhere 
 for warmth and life. 
 
 Among those whom they found who were not cold was 
 Trooper Yenning.
 
 90 Two Women and a Soldier. 
 
 Far below in the valley glinted the lights of Santiago, 
 and upon the hill an American battery was placing its 
 guns. To-morrow those guns would be uncased, and 
 their gaping mouths would roar for cannon meat. They 
 would dictate to the city down in the valley to-morrow. 
 
 When a man has only the life of a baby in his body, 
 when most of his blood and all his passion has trickled 
 out through a wound, and breathing is a burden because 
 he is so weary then one's whole sense is that of con 
 science, and one's brain gropes about among things un 
 seen. Before Yenning slept that night he saw one bright 
 spot standing out from the gloom of the days he had 
 lived. He had been a wooer many times, but he had only 
 loved once. He had thought that purity and truth in a 
 woman's mind were only for the dreams of softer mo 
 ments. But the innocence of a young girl had revealed 
 to him that a mind can be human and beautiful as well. 
 
 As the wounded cavalryman lay in the darkness hardly 
 breathing, many ideas, long latent, were revealed to him. 
 He knew that the impulse of sacrifice, which he had acted 
 upon the last evening at the post, was worthy of every 
 atom of a man. He learned that in the love which man's 
 God smiles upon there is often a sacrifice, sad but just. 
 Before he slept that night he knew that he had done 
 what was best by the daughter of his captain. Against 
 this one action there hung in the balance the whole life 
 of a man of passion. Whether it was the years or the 
 deed of a moment which was found wanting only Ven- 
 ning and his Judge knew, but the sleep which came to the
 
 Two Women and a Soldier. 91 
 
 wounded soldier that night on San Juan Hill brought 
 peace and strength. 
 
 A month afterward Yenning was much stronger. He 
 was in a big army hospital back in the States. His face 
 had always been one which a woman would remember. 
 It was handsome still, but white and drawn from suffer 
 ing. 
 
 A well-dressed woman was just stepping out of the of 
 fice at the entrance of the hospital grounds. She would 
 have attracted a man's eye anywhere. She was the same 
 who had written to Yenning so many times, since he had 
 been a soldier the same who had caused him to become 
 one. A younger woman dressed in black and carrying a 
 hand-satchel entered the office at this moment. The one 
 who had just stepped out heard the other inquire timidly: 
 
 "Can you tell me what ward Private Yenning is in ?" 
 
 The older woman quickened her steps toward one of 
 the large tents at the far end of the grounds. Not long 
 afterwards she was sitting by the side of Venning's cot, 
 holding the soldier's hand. The man's eyelids were 
 closed ; the woman could hear him breathe. She believed 
 that he was very weak still. 
 
 "How did you get away?" Yenning asked. His throat 
 was dry and his words hoarsely uttered. 
 
 "He at last concluded that we were not for each other. 
 He was very gentlemanly about it poor Teddy. You 
 are all mine now, Mister Soldier." The woman was smil 
 ing merrily. 
 
 "Do you mean that he has ?"
 
 92 Two Women and a Soldier. 
 
 "Don't you dare to use that ugly word!" she inter 
 rupted. The afternoon was warm and the flags of the 
 tent were hung back. The sunlight rested upon the cov 
 erlet of Venning's cot and buried itself in the yellow hair 
 of the woman. She placed her hand tenderly upon the 
 soldier's forehead. His lips were white and smileless. 
 There was silence for a moment. 
 
 "Has any other woman visited you here?" 
 
 The cavalryman opened his eyes quickly. There was 
 pain in them, which the woman thought the wound 
 caused. 
 
 "No other woman has visited me here." 
 
 "Oh, how ill you are still, my poor soldier! Tell me, 
 tell me at once if you are sorry I came to you !" 
 
 The man did not answer at once. His eyes were closed. 
 He was silently suffering. 
 
 "I thought," the woman said slowly, "I thought that 
 when you got your sick furlough we would " 
 
 The face of the younger woman was at the far end of 
 the tent. Her dark, wide-open eyes mirrored the suffer 
 ing which was in her soul. For a moment she stood 
 there the only girl who had ever sounded the depths in 
 the nature of her father's orderly. 
 
 And the woman who sat by Venning's side saw the look 
 which was upon the face of the maiden, and she leaned 
 her face down close to that of the wounded cavalryman, 
 so that he might not also see. Then she smiled sweetly, 
 for she had long since mastered the mysteries of maiden
 
 Two Women and a Soldier. 93 
 
 hearts. Daintily she pressed a kiss upon the white lips 
 of the soldier. 
 
 And when the woman raised her head the maiden in 
 the opening was gone. 
 
 The nurse was taking the temperature of a fever pa 
 tient in the farther end of the tent.
 
 'Don't touch him." It was a squaw's voice.
 
 Red Brennan of the Seventh,
 
 RED BRENNAN OF THE SEVENTH, 
 
 Dad Evans told the tale. He is an old cavalryman, 
 born with a saddle between his thighs a soldier by tem 
 perament and a man instinctively. Old Dad has served 
 thirty years, but he was so miserable away from the troop 
 that they took him back in spite of his dimmed eyes and 
 chalky joints. 
 
 Rebellion memories are rampant in Dad Evans' mind. 
 He was a tough little bow-legged cavalryman then. A 
 dozen Indian fights are shown on his discharge papers. 
 And then he was one of those boys who left their horses 
 back in the States and pushed up the sand-soaked hills in 
 front of Santiago, the once coveted. 
 
 But there is one scene which Old Dad's eyes looked 
 upon when they were not dim a scene which appears 
 again when his pipe is lit and his bunk is comfortable a 
 scene and a story, which Dad Evans does not tell except 
 at the canteen, when his month's pay flows with his 
 words. 
 
 Then he will tell you about Rain-in-the-Face, the ugliest 
 of the Sioux, and the craftiest of red men, and about the 
 deserter from the ranks of Uncle Sam's horsemen who 
 was chained to him. He will tell you how Indians fight,
 
 98 Red Brennan of the Seventh. 
 
 how impish was the fury of their squaws, how terrible 
 their numbers. And all cavalrymen forget the glasses in 
 their hands while Dad Evans tells how the field looked, 
 when he helped to bury the dead of Ouster's band way 
 out in Montana on that hot June day. 
 
 Ask any old cavalryman what kind of a fellow was the 
 Michigan man whom the Sioux called Yellow Hair. He 
 was a soldier they will say, not an indulgent officer, but 
 one who feared nothing living or dead. It was Custer 
 who declared: 
 
 "Give me my regiment and I will lick the whole Sioux 
 Nation." 
 
 Custer was tingling to make his name illustrious when 
 he uttered those words. He was confident, experienced 
 a soldier born. He did not think then that his regiment 
 of horsemen would ever be called the "Unlucky Seventh." 
 But all this has been committed to memory by school chil 
 dren. Here is the story of Red Brennan, deserter, once 
 in I troop of Ouster's command, and long since dead the 
 story which Dad Evans tells. It is a true story, for Dad 
 Evans, who saw it enacted, says so. 
 
 Brennan was a bad man. His worst enemies were 
 whisky and himself. His bunk was deserted one morn 
 ing at reveille roll-call, and his troop was detached to hunt 
 him up. The boys found him in a cave, to which they 
 were led by an Indian scout. Brennan was helplessly 
 obfuscated, probably through the medium of unmellowed 
 corn-juice. The Indian scout shuffled about the cave feel 
 ing and smelling things. There were puzzling circum-
 
 Red Brennan of the Seventh. 99 
 
 stances about. Some one had been in the cave with Bren 
 nan, but the identity of this party was an opaque mystery. 
 Nothing but a can of bear's grease was found. Squaws 
 make their braids shiny with bear's grease. A soldier 
 suggested that Kate Poison-Water had perhaps taken 
 Brennan for her paramour. 
 
 When the prisoner staggered out of stupor, he was 
 chained to Rain-in-the-Face, sub-chief of the Sioux. At 
 first he uttered a series of ejaculations that would have 
 plunged an army mule into hysterics. 
 
 ******** 
 
 Kate Poison- Water was a sort of De Stael among the 
 Sioux. She was a serpent in cunning, a tigress in 
 strength and agility a Sioux squaw in general deviltry. 
 It developed that Rain-in-the-Face knew her. 
 
 Custer was in a land ridden with red men. He had no 
 near reserve. It was not a time for courtmartials. Red 
 Brennan ate and slept, but did not become chummy with 
 the rising buck. They were together until the day when 
 Reno took part of the regiment and branched off to the 
 south. Rain-in-the-Face was taken with Reno, while 
 Brennan rejoined his troop in Ouster's division. It is 
 needless to say in whose command was Dad Evans, for 
 had he not been with Reno he would never have sipped 
 canteen beer and told stories these times, nor would he 
 have climbed Cuban hills under Mauser fire. 
 
 The guard in charge of the Sioux prisoner was mur 
 dered in the night. It was done so quietly that the sentry, 
 walking his post fifty yards away, heard no sound and
 
 ioo Red Brennan of the Seventh. 
 
 saw nothing. Then Dad Evans told of a way the body 
 was mutilated so horrible were his words that we turned 
 away shuddering. 
 
 "Only a squaw does the trick," Evans explained. "We 
 thought Kate Poison- Water had made possible the escape 
 of Rain-in-the-Face, because of the manner of the deed. 
 This idea grew upon us. Meanwhile, that day of history 
 dawned." 
 
 Ouster's command was four miles from Reno's camp. 
 Every trooper felt that there were hordes of red men in 
 the surrounding foothills. Not a white man guessed their 
 numbers. The Indian scouts were puzzled by cross trails. 
 They hugged the vanguard and could not be pushed 
 ahead. The troopers were attentive and quiet. No jests 
 were exchanged that morning. The sun rose high and 
 hot. The wind blew strong and fitfully. No steady or 
 rapid firing was distinguishable from any direction. 
 Reno's division formed skirmish lines. No. 4 in each set 
 stayed back with the horses. Ragged volleys were poured 
 down upon them from rocks and woody places. Few of 
 the fours lived when the sun's rays were slanting that 
 afternoon. Camp was struck at sundown. No bacon 
 sputtered in the mess tins, and weary soldiers rolled them 
 selves in their blankets without a smoke that night. The 
 Red Cross men did not sleep. 
 
 No one believed the courier who rode into camp before 
 midnight, with the word that Custer and all his band had 
 been slain that day by the Sioux, and that their bodies 
 lay scattered about in the moonlight four miles away.
 
 Red Brennan of the Seventh. 101 
 
 Before daybreak Renews men were on the march. The 
 silence in front was deathly and ominous. Wary and 
 cautious was the advance. The weird, crooning mono 
 tone of the Indian death song was not heard, nor were 
 cross trails encountered this day. The turf was marked 
 with mute indications of a hasty flight. The scouts hugged 
 closely the forward fours. The silence frightened them. 
 An odor was in the air which they alone distinguished. 
 White men cannot use their noses like animals. 
 
 The body of a trooper, gashed, perforated and dismem 
 bered, was strewn across the line of march. Hard and 
 unsmiling were the faces of Reno's cavalrymen now. 
 Signals from high points brought back no answer from 
 Ouster's corps. The troops paused again to cover up red 
 stains upon the earth. The words of the courier were 
 now partially believed. Great and awful thoughts were 
 crawling into the soldiers' minds. Where was Yellow 
 Hair, the intrepid, the invincible? Where were the friends 
 of yesterday ? 
 
 More blood in the path. Tainted was the air that men 
 breathed and ghastly white their faces. 
 
 A low hill stretched before them. Upon its summit 
 shimmered the pitiless heat. Flies buzzed about the 
 sweating horses, and great, black birds made circling 
 shadows beyond the hill. 
 
 Soldiers tried not to breathe the sickening air, yet they 
 advanced. Horror and fascination enthralled them. 
 Countless red devils might be marshaling in the surround 
 ing hills, yet the most despicable of cowards would have
 
 102 Red Brennan of the Seventh. 
 
 pressed upward that day. Still persons claim to be above 
 that curiosity which is morbid. The vanguard rode upon 
 the summit of the hill and looked down. 
 
 For a moment all that could be heard was the droning 
 of the myriad insect wings. Then to the ears of the rear 
 troopers was borne the murmur of curses deep and dread 
 ful. 
 
 From every bush arrows had whizzed down upon that 
 plain. From behind every rock and tree a crouching 
 Sioux had glared through the smoke of powder. Squads 
 of painted, yelling, exultant fiends had ridden down every 
 passable place on the hills yesterday. 
 
 And when the braves had left no horse or horseman 
 standing, young bucks trampled the white faces into the 
 earth and fired into the prone bodies. And when their 
 voices were hoarse and broken, and their demon desires 
 satiated, the hideous, mumbling squaws, more inhuman 
 than any in venomous hate, had stripped the suits of army 
 blue from the boys no longer in Uncle Sam's service. 
 Then, in hellish ecstasy, they used their knives. 
 
 Meanwhile the braves wrapped up their dead in blankets 
 and tied them in the branches of larger trees. Not until 
 the sunset land was growing dim did the red men face 
 toward it and disappear. They were very happy. 
 
 Reno's cavalrymen looked down. Great, black birds 
 rose and hovered over the plain. The sky above the hills 
 was dotted with others coming. Dad Evans will never 
 forget that day. 
 
 Not a vestige of individuality remained with the dead
 
 Red Brennan of the Seventh. 103 
 
 upon the plain. There was not a scalp not a form left 
 intact, save two. So diabolical was the work that it 
 seemed as if the devil in a black humor had directed it. 
 Dad Evans told things that would not do here. 
 
 In the centre of the plain they found a prone body that 
 had not been stripped or mutilated. The broad yellow 
 stripe of a cavalry officer was upon the trousers. An of 
 ficer's blouse covered the face. The Sioux warriors had 
 crossed the sleeves as a sign that the body should be 
 spared. The blouse was lifted and then the men saw the 
 bold, lean face of their commanding officer. The cheek 
 was pressed down, and the long, light brown curls clus 
 tered about it. Not a hair was touched, not a weapon 
 taken. 
 
 The Sioux braves feared the living Yellow Hair. They 
 revered him dead. It was a moment of delicate mystery. 
 Thus it was that his own men found Custer, the soldier 
 from Michigan. And not long afterward a little Mich 
 igan town was shrouded in crepe. The black draperies 
 have been lifted these many years, but its sable shadow 
 still rests in the hearts of the people. 
 
 Not a scalp was left save two. There was another. 
 
 "Don't touch him !" It was a squaw's voice. She was 
 wounded, crazed, dying. She raised her body on one 
 hand and fought off Reno's cavalrymen. Below her was 
 another body with sleeves crossed. It was all that re 
 mained of Red Brennan, deserter, and the dying squaw, 
 Kate Poison- Water, was fighting for it. 
 
 Side by side almost lay the commanding officer and
 
 IO4 Red Brennan of the Seventh. 
 
 the man from the ranks, a deserter once. These alone 
 out of many troops had been untouched by the Sioux 
 squaws. 
 
 Kate Poison- Water slew the guard and released Rain- 
 in-the-Face, the soldiers say, so that the sub-chief might 
 have Red Brennan spared in the projected attack. None 
 but the Great Spirit, however, could have saved Red 
 Brennan that day. 
 
 Yes, the Sioux was a happy nation when they re 
 treated. Their craft was not forgotten and the trails di 
 verged. One was two miles wide. What squadron of 
 cavalry could follow such a trail ? 
 
 Rain-in-the-Face, sub-chief of the victorious Sioux, 
 lived to glower into the faces of distinguished Eastern 
 audiences. 
 
 And old Dad Evans, who helped to bury the dead 
 among feasting vultures on that hot June day, still sips 
 canteen beer and tells stories.
 
 A Soldier of Misfortune.
 
 A SOLDIER OF MISFORTUNE. 
 
 Nobody loved Duffie. Anyway not until he went to 
 Porto Rico. None of the boys cared a rap for him even 
 then. Yet Duffie was a good soldier a man who is al 
 ways sober enough to answer calls, keep his equipments 
 polished, and his face shaved is a good soldier. At 
 least from an officer's point of view, and that's what 
 counts. But like many another choice spirit, Private Duf 
 fie was totally devoid of those twin faculties, which show 
 off one's better side and make friends. And since this 
 trooper possessed the added misfortune of being ugly to 
 look upon, his fellow soldiers took no trouble to sound 
 him for a better side. 
 
 Duffie had never been able to say the proper thing at 
 the proper time, so he did what was next best kept his 
 mouth shut. This became a habit with him in early life. 
 Now a silent man is not wanted for a "bunkie" in Uncle 
 Sam's cavalry. 
 
 Duffie gambled also a soldierly trait, and one which 
 would hurt no man's reputation in his troop, but since he 
 won calmly, steadily and silently, he was not asked to sit 
 at every pay-day game. Next to Duffie's silence, his worst
 
 no A Soldier of Misfortune. 
 
 trait in the trooper's eyes was that he did not spend his 
 gains. 
 
 And the natural sequence of all these things was that 
 not one of his eighty-odd fellows shed tears when Duffle 
 left the troop with his final statements in his pocket, and 
 a record of thirteen years in the service thirteen honest, 
 faithful, clean years. It was not until Duffle and his 
 bundle were lost in the coffee shrubs which bordered the 
 trail down into Corizel that the troop clerk told one of the 
 sergeants that Duffle's final statements called for a cool 
 thousand, Americano Diner o. When the men heard this 
 they told each other that they were well rid of Duff, his 
 "system," his silence, and his "ugly phiz." 
 
 As a matter of fact, Duffle's gambling methods were as 
 honest as his clear, gray eyes. And if his other two five- 
 year enlistments had been looked up his old fellows 
 would have said that he quit their outfits with only a 
 month's pay in his clothes; and that he was as hopeless 
 a drunkard and as reckless a spender as any good trooper 
 is supposed to be. They would say, too, that he left few 
 friends and no debts behind. 
 
 Duffle, walking down the trail, communed with him 
 self and was not unhappy. On his discharge paper, after 
 the printed word "CHARACTER" his captain had written 
 "excellent," and the troop physician had scrawled the same 
 word after "PHYSICAL CONDITION WHEN DISCHARGED/' 
 By the paper we might learn also that his hair was red, 
 his eyes gray and his age thirty-five. And everybody
 
 A Soldier of Misfortune. in 
 
 knows that Duffie upon showing his discharge, could re- 
 enlist in any outfit in the service. 
 
 This wasn't his idea. He had money. He vowed that 
 he would touch no drink until he reached the States 
 hence he would have money then enough to be a civilian. 
 But there was a secret in the brain of the discharged 
 cavalryman that day a pleasant, thrilling secret, more 
 important by far than the finals which would be cashed in 
 San Juan, more important than the captain's estimate of 
 his character. It was the secret which creeps into the 
 brain and heart of every soldier some day; and many 
 are the army men who would have died in the Soldiers' 
 Home were it not for its spell. 
 
 Now any person who has been in Porto Rico will tell 
 you that the native senoritas have wonderful eyes. The 
 American soldier who did not become impressed with 
 this fact during his first hour on shore, was either on 
 sick report at the time or else he landed in the night. A 
 close observer will tell you also that the wonderful eyes 
 of the Porto Rican senoritas dwell lingeringly upon the 
 length and breadth and toughness of American manhood 
 clad in army blue. All of which couldn't be otherwise. 
 
 The point is that Senorita Euphrasie, the dark, delicate 
 and dreamy-eyed, should look into the plain face of 
 Trooper Duffle, and care to look again. This was strange, 
 certainly. Perhaps the Corizel maiden saw something in 
 those clear, gray eyes which no American woman, save 
 the mother of her boy, had ever seen; something which 
 no fellow-trooper cared to know about, since Duffie was
 
 ii2 A Soldier of Misfortune. 
 
 too clumsy of speech to speak what was in him. Gradu 
 ally in the cavalryman's brain the secret grew. It impart 
 ed a sensation, which the lonely trooper never dreamed 
 would come to him. For Duffie knew he was not hand 
 some to look upon. It made him feel less of a drunkard 
 and more of a man. It made him hate the service in time 
 of peace a woman's influence has done this ever since 
 armies have been. In short, this secret buoyed up to sur 
 face water all the brighter, better elements in Duffie's 
 nature. And Senorita Euphrasie saw the brighter side, 
 knew that it was for her and was a very happy little 
 maiden. 
 
 Meanwhile Duffie's halting tongue struggled with 
 Spanish expressions, but her eyes told Euphrasie more 
 which she wanted to know; and in her turn, Euphrasie 
 repeated English words from the cavalryman's lips 
 words which those lips had never uttered before. And 
 the day drew nearer which would end Duffie's "soldier 
 ing" forever. 
 
 The one desire of the discharged trooper as he descend 
 ed the trail into Corizel apart from the will and pleasure 
 of Senorita Euphrasie was to see once more his native 
 land. This is the heart's desire of every trooper and in 
 fantryman in Porto Rico to-day! That afternoon, when 
 for the first time in three years he was a free man, Duffie 
 told the Corizel maiden of the wonderful land over the 
 sea, of the great cities, and of the white, frozen showers 
 which fall in the Northland. He told her of his old 
 mother who would love her, even as she loved her son.
 
 A Soldier of Misfortune. 113 
 
 Poor Duffie did not know well of that which he spoke. 
 And Euphrasie believed his words. She would have fol 
 lowed him through the dreariest of the world's distances 
 to his home. 
 
 Duffie will never forget the enchantment of that night. 
 Faintly from the quarters up the trail was borne the bugle 
 call for retreat. The man heard the distant scream of 
 the trumpet, but he only held Euphrasie closer. It was a 
 weird sensation for the soldier-no-longer. The sergeant 
 would not call his name that night. Duffie's heart held 
 no regret it held nothing that moment but the image of 
 the woman into whose eyes he gazed, while the mount 
 ing moon scattered the twilight in the low southeast. How 
 happy would those two have been if the man felt not the 
 beckoning of his native shores, and the yearning of his 
 mother's heart! 
 
 The next day Euphrasie left Corizel and the orange- 
 perfumed slopes lingered one last moment to listen to 
 the song of the mountain river, then journeyed thither 
 toward San Juan el capital with her husband. 
 
 A white man cannot disregard social usages where 
 other white men are. No, not even if he is a self-support 
 ing institution. It matters not the slightest whether a 
 man cares more for a look from his wife than for a grasp 
 upon the throttle of the mammoth social engine. If Duffie 
 had known the woes of the man who dares transgress 
 upon unconventional boundaries the woes of even a poor 
 ex-soldier he could not have been driven from the isl-
 
 H4 A Soldier of Misfortune. 
 
 and where there are few white people, and therefore few 
 conventionalities. 
 
 It was hardly a question of color, for Euphrasie was 
 not dark. Indeed, had she possessed the power to sell the 
 richness and softness from her skin, she would have 
 realized enougfn to live luxuriously for life. But Eu 
 phrasie wore no hat, only a shawl. Her gowns were 
 very pretty for her own summer land, but they would 
 not have suited an American woman. She spoke little 
 English. But a thousand times worse than anything else 
 she was the wife of a common enlisted man! And 
 there were wives of commissioned officers on the trans 
 port! 
 
 Everything was done so quickly in San Juan. A ship 
 bound for the States was in the harbor. Before Duffle 
 had cashed his finals, the sailing flag was hoisted. He 
 had barely time to get his wife on board. He realized 
 vaguely that Euphrasie needed woolen clothing and much 
 of it, before leaving a tropical island for a land of winter. 
 But how was he, who knew nothing which pertained not 
 to an enlisted man's life, supposed to realize in a moment 
 that there are such things as officers' wives and conven 
 tionalities on a transport? 
 
 Euphrasie was a timid maiden. So many soldiers 
 frightened her, and, worse than that, she perceived that 
 her husband was uneasy, too. His knowledge of Spanish 
 fled from him. 
 
 And the American ladies up on the pure white bridge, 
 and on the saloon deck, where none but the shoulder-
 
 A Soldier of Misfortune. 115 
 
 strapped and their ladies walked these women turned 
 their eyes from the Porto Rican city, which was vanish 
 ing behind harbor mists, and they saw the timid native 
 maiden, shrinking close to the form of a big enlisted man, 
 whose face was not pleasant. 
 
 Then one of these American ladies voiced the senti 
 ments of the rest God forgive them and it was the 
 master of the ship who was forced to hear her say that 
 she would not eat at the same table with any native 
 maiden; that she thought it was an outrage for an en 
 listed man to dare bring such a woman on a ship with 
 American ladies ; that she for one would at least see that 
 such a woman staid in the part of the ship she deserved. 
 The captain of the ship, being a commissioned officer, the 
 same as this lady's husband well, what could he do but 
 admire Duffie's good taste and refuse him a state-room 
 for his wife? How could he furnish her meals the same 
 as saloon passengers ? 
 
 Far more than Euphrasie did the big ex-cavalryman, 
 the silent man, suffer, because the Corizel maiden had to 
 sleep down in the hammock-hold with the soldiers. Little, 
 indeed, did she mind eating army rations, for women in 
 her land eat little at best; but her husband's face grew 
 white when he thought of all these things, and there was 
 a nasty gleam in his gray eyes. 
 
 In a canvas hammock, down in the dirty hold of a 
 transport, surrounded by scores of men, rough and un 
 educated, lots of them yet Euphrasie, the wife, was just 
 as safe as she ever had been among her own native hills.
 
 Ti6 A Soldier of Misfortune. 
 
 Yes, they were rough and uneducated, lots of them, but 
 they were Americans and soldiers; and they had heard 
 what the women up on the bridge had told the master 
 of the ship. 
 
 In the forward hold the men cursed carelessly and 
 without restraint, cursed and gambled and sang soldier 
 songs ; but in the rear, where Euphrasie was, they walked 
 on tip-toe and talked in whispers while she slept. And the 
 ex-cavalryman who loved her, thanked his fellows one 
 and all with his eyes. The Porto Rican maiden was not 
 among gentlemen they were all upon the saloon deck 
 with their ladies. Euphrasie's companions were only a 
 lot of common men from the ranks. 
 
 ******** 
 
 Everybody knows what a winter gale off Hatteras is. 
 The most treacherous bit of sea water on the Atlantic lies 
 here. Vessels from tropical isles veer hundreds of miles 
 seaward to avoid the Northern Carolina gales, and those 
 who have lived long under a torrid sun shrink from the 
 first blast of winter. Up on the bridge and saloon decks 
 the American ladies, wrapped in furs, emerged from their 
 state-rooms and set their faces toward the icy winds. And 
 Euphrasie in her summer gowns shivered and coughed 
 down in the chilly hold. 
 
 Duffie would tell her that there was no winter in the 
 great Southwest where his home was. And the dark, 
 dreamy eyes of the Corizel maiden would grow wondrous 
 bright when she heard her husband tell of his old mother, 
 who would love her, and of the little store they would
 
 A Soldier of Misfortune. 117 
 
 start near some army post, and sell tobacco and cigarettes 
 and other things the soldiers liked. When no one was 
 looking Duffle would show his senora the great roll of 
 American money, with which he would buy her warm 
 clothing and lots of nice things in New York. There 
 would be no cold or suffering for Euphrasie after that ! 
 
 When the hammock shook with the maiden's coughing, 
 as the transport tumbled along the Northern Carolina 
 coast, Duffle would wrap his big, yellow-lined cavalry 
 overcoat more closely about her throat, and his face be 
 came more haggard and white, but there was naught but 
 tenderness in his eyes now. Meanwhile, the gale grew 
 noisy, and ice thickened on the hurricane deck. 
 
 Two days' run from New York, and there was a dark 
 flush upon Euphrasie's cheek. Her forehead was burning, 
 and the soldiers stepped softly in the hold. And in the 
 night the Porto Rican maiden clung fast to her husband's 
 hand, and murmured words about Corizel and love. There 
 was a reddish glow in her dark eyes, like a flame shining 
 through a black density of smoke. They were turned 
 immovably upon the white, horrified face of her husband, 
 and she spoke his name. 
 
 About the time the ice-crusted ship was sighted off 
 the Atlantic Highlands two fever convalescents died of 
 pneumonia in the forward hold died within sight of the 
 land of their soldier dreams. 
 
 And while the transport steamed around Sandy Hook 
 the hand of the Porto Rican maiden slipped from Duffle's 
 grasp.
 
 n8 A Soldier of Misfortune. 
 
 The commissioned officers stood by the vessel's side in 
 the pier and kept the soldiers back until the American 
 ladies had tripped down the gangway. And one of the 
 ladies saw two gray eyes riveted upon her that wild win 
 ter's day. She remembered those eyes and the hideous 
 pallor of the man's face for many long nights afterward, 
 which was well. 
 
 What Duffie did the next ten days any soldier will 
 guess. At the end of that time he sent what money there 
 was left to his old mother down in Texas. And not long 
 after that he set out for the other side of the world to 
 join his regiment in Manila. 
 
 Such is the story of a flower from a summer land a 
 flower which withered beneath the icy breath. And the 
 heart of Trooper Duffie, soldier of misfortune, withered 
 with it.
 
 Shadow and the Cherub.
 
 SHADOW AND THE CHERUB. 
 
 The first time I saw Shadow was the night the Fifth 
 pulled out for Porto Rico. Shadow was a dusky kid of 
 quality, and he now wears a cavalryman's blouse and a 
 shirt of army blue. How this came about involves the 
 prejudices of a nation. 
 
 Shadow was not old enough to be subservient. The 
 knowledge that he was black had never hurt him yet. 
 But his father was a son of slavery, and his father's 
 father, so in Shadow's nature there was mildness and 
 long-suffering, and in his back a bow to people with 
 white faces. It was a bow, not a cringe a pleasant sensa 
 tion of obeying, not fawning humility. 
 
 But cavalrymen from the land where cotton blooms, 
 and persimmon trees flourish in every strip of woodland, 
 make no distinction. And many are the cavalrymen in 
 Uncle Sam's service who hail from localities where 
 negroes are hired now, and hated. But there are others 
 who punched cattle and straddled cow-ponies west of the 
 Mississippi and not so far south as the Rio Grande ; and 
 others still who lived once where negroes are seldom
 
 124 Shadow and the Cherub. 
 
 seen, and are liked for their jollity and devil-take-care-of- 
 to-morrow dispositions. And these took notice of Shadow 
 in spite of black looks and murmurings. 
 
 There was a funny twinkle in his dark eyes and a won 
 dering pucker in his full red lips. Old Chicken, the far 
 rier, first took him under his wing. It was the night be 
 fore leaving the States, and the regiment had been paid 
 earlier in the day. 
 
 Now every officer knows that a common soldier works 
 with greatest dispatch and efficiency when broke. It was 
 a grand demonstration of mettle that the cavalrymen gave 
 that day. Each man assisted in pushing frightened and 
 fractious horses up a steep gangway, and in loading moun 
 tains of heavy luggage on the transports for many hours 
 and all under the strain of a cavalryman's thirst with 
 a month's pay in his pocket. 
 
 Everything was ready when night came, except the 
 blessed tide. It would be four hours at least, the sailors 
 said, before the troop-ship dare cross the bar. Had it not 
 been for this mysterious and accommodating element the 
 Fiftn Cavalry would have lugged their whole month's 
 pay about cheerlessly throughout a long voyage. This 
 would have been unprecedented. It would have been 
 positively uncanny. 
 
 "It's dangerous to let them go," one lieutenant said; 
 "some will never come back." 
 
 "Let them go," said an old captain, who had risen from 
 the ranks, and who was no stranger to pity.
 
 Shadow and the Cherub. 125 
 
 "You ought to know, captain, how duty looks and time 
 passes to a soldier on pay-day," the lieutenant replied 
 weakly. He was talking to his superior officer. 
 
 "Let them go," repeated the captain, and the boys 
 went to town with money intact and great responsibilities 
 tingling in their breasts. All came back save one, who 
 was not a drinking man, and who had lost a sweetheart 
 back in San Anton', but not in Porto Rico. 
 
 It was in those four hours that Old Chicken found 
 Shadow. The first time I saw him was a half hour be 
 fore the time of embarkation. He was sitting in the dark 
 ness on the lee side of the great ship. Above him flick 
 ered meaningless lights and a shadowy mystery of ropes 
 and rigging. Below him the chocolate-hued Savannah 
 playfully slapped the big piers and the transport's plated 
 sides. Beyond him lay the sea, trackless, dark and vast. 
 
 Two large bottles of something protruded from 
 Shadow's blouse. Smaller bottles of something protrud 
 ed from Shadow's many pockets. Hampers of other good 
 things surrounded him; and, very strange to tell, Wild 
 Bill, the most dissolute and prodigal of troop tom-cats, 
 purred cozily upon his lap. 
 
 But most inconceivable of all was the attitude of 
 Cherub, the untamable Cherub, the vicious and massive- 
 jawed bloodhound for several years a chattel of Troop 
 K. Cherub's hatred for civilians was depthless and 
 dreadful. 
 
 Then why should he put his great, ugly head upon 
 Shadow's lap and there rest so quietly and peaceably?
 
 126 Shadow and the Cherub. 
 
 "Yo an' me is dun 'guine to Porto Ric, an' pussie-tom 
 and Old Chick is dun 'guine. Doan' shake yo' big hade 
 dat-a-way. I is aguine cos Old Chick dun sade I could. 
 We alls 'guine to Porto Ric, and de horses." 
 
 Shadow's head was very close to Cherub's jaws while 
 he was muttering these words. Then he began to croon 
 a quaint melody which the Old Mammy days had left be 
 hind in his kinky head. Cherub yawned in lazy content 
 ment, Wild Bill purred hoarsely, and I watched, wonder 
 ing. 
 
 Meanwhile the cavalrymen returned with laughter and 
 great happiness. Then the big troop-ship cast her log and 
 veered seaward. There were shouts but no sentiment. 
 Good cavalrymen the ones who win chevrons in their 
 first enlistment have no sentiment. A recruit possessed 
 of sentiment will lose it in the first three months, or else 
 apply for his discharge. 
 
 There was much of this element in Shadow's nature. 
 The horsemen, with their spurs, six-shooters and sabers, 
 made a deep impression. A queer, dreamy look was in 
 his eyes as he gazed out to sea and hummed softly, while 
 a tiny gale from the tropics zipped merrily by. The little 
 dusky boy was glad that he met Old Chick, the farrier, 
 glad that he was with such "strong, big men" vaguely 
 glad that he lived. Cherub, the bloodhound, growled at 
 the wind and glared at the sea and kept close to Shadow's 
 side. Wild Bill cuddled closely. 
 
 "Here, nigger, take hold of this mop and scrub out.
 
 Shadow and the Cherub. 127 
 
 That's all you people are good for anyway. Grab a root, 
 and grab it quick." 
 
 This was only part of what the sergeant from the South 
 said the first morning out. The whole was more brutal. 
 The sergeant was sick from the sea and sick from the 
 night before on land. We, from the North, saw Shadow's 
 trouble and tried to put him right. But something went 
 wrong in the dusky boy's mind that morning which we 
 could not put right. 
 
 You have all read of transport horrors. Perhaps you 
 have heard, too, of the sufferings of the splendid troop 
 horses and about the troopers themselves on a voyage. 
 
 Where the air is scented with sage brush and the eyes 
 smart with alkali; from the blizzards of Dakota and the 
 sun-baked plains of Texas the cavalrymen come. They 
 are landsmen. They march through dust-clouds ancl race 
 through rainstorm, but they droop when on board a 
 rolling ship. Their bowed legs fit equally well to the back 
 of a mustang or a Wales, but they will not adjust them 
 selves to a swaying hurricane deck. 
 
 Twenty feet below the surface of the sea are the air 
 tight and cold storage compartments. Other compart 
 ments, where hundreds of hammocks are swung in tiers, 
 are above this. When the hatches are closed this second 
 deck is also air-tight. Here 600 cavalrymen sleep. A 
 sheet-iron flooring above them forms the bottom of the 
 stables, and the steel-shod hoofs of the troop horses make 
 a din for the ears of those below like that of many boiler
 
 128 Shadow and the Cherub. 
 
 factories. Another tier of horses, and then one sees the 
 daylight and feels the ocean breeze. 
 
 Ten hours in the black hole would kill horses and some 
 people of olden times, but it only gives headaches to 
 American cavalrymen. It was sad, though, to watch the 
 men trying to put nerve and strength in the horses they 
 loved the drooping, dying troop-horses. It was very 
 sad to see the animals hang their heads out into the 
 draughtless passageway, and distend wider their crimson 
 nostrils. Their eyes were filmy and opaque very un 
 natural and pitiful, and their lower lips hung low and 
 quivered on the fourth day out. 
 
 Then the hoisting-gear became very busy, and men 
 grew sick when they heard the rattle of loosening chains 
 and so many loud splashes from the sea below. Five 
 days out, and there was more room in the stables for the 
 suffocating: troop horses still on their feet. Their limbs 
 were swollen now and stiff. The air in the stables was 
 deathly and heavy. 
 
 "Another horse down !" cries the stable guard, and the 
 hoisting-gear creaks again. 
 
 A strange, ugly mood possessed Cherub, the blood 
 hound, these days. He refused food, and was often heard 
 growling ominously from dark places. He occasionally 
 walked the upper deck, but was a friend to no one except 
 Shadow. Long after taps, when all save ship lights were 
 out, and the cavalrymen swung and sweltered in their 
 hammocks, Cherub was heard growling and skulking 
 about in the darkness. And his eyes shone with a baleful
 
 Shadow and the Cherub. 129 
 
 glitter. Then Shadow would go to him, and for a time 
 Cherub would rest. 
 
 The dusky; boy was sad. The sentiment had been 
 torn from him and an ugly wound was left behind. For 
 the men from the North, Shadow would have been a 
 martyr. The others he feared and tried bravely to serve. 
 
 "Shadow's no good on dis ship," he said on the morn 
 ing of the fifth day. "We hated can't do right pussy's 
 tom's cross an' Cherub's crazy sick ought to be back 
 wiv' the niggers." 
 
 Many a sob with the preceding made it almost inco 
 herent. It was no morbid melancholy, but a helpless, 
 hopeless expression of grief. No man would have smiled 
 had he been present poor little heartbroken Shadow ! 
 
 Even as I was thinking of men, black and white, the 
 souls unsoiled, my ears were filled with the roar of a 
 brute. It came from the deck below. There was some 
 thing hideous and fear-inspiring about it. I never heard 
 such -a sound. Cherub never made such a sound before. 
 Yet I knew it came from his throat. 
 
 The cavalrymen lounging and laughing upon deck stood 
 erect now and felt for the six-shooters in their belts. But 
 the weapons were all stacked below in the hammock com 
 partment by special order. Again was heard the cry of 
 a tortured beast. Shadow moved toward the sound very 
 slowly. Soldiers and sailors were running and shouting 
 on the deck below. 
 
 "Cherub is mad ! Shoot the brute ! Look out up there !"
 
 130 Shadow and the Cherub. 
 
 All these words we heard. Then Cherub dashed up the 
 companionvvay, his chains dragging behind. His fangs 
 were horrible to see. 
 
 A sailor in his way was thrown over, and to-clay there 
 is an ugly scar on his throat. Others were bitten. Shadow 
 was speaking in a low voice we could not understand. 
 The bloodhound and the boy were close together. We, 
 who were watching, shuddered. Slowly, cautiously, a 
 dark hand moved out and grasped the chain. The red, 
 flashing orbs of the brute lowered from Shadow's gaze. 
 We hoped no more when the bloodhound growled. 
 
 Without haste, seemingly, the dark hand holding the 
 chain moved toward the halyards. The ringers worked 
 swiftly for a moment, but how long it seemed to us ! 
 
 Then like a flash Shadow was beyond the length of the 
 chain, and laughing like one whose nerve is gone. Cherub 
 beat his body upon the deck and upon the halyards. 
 
 We were in the tropics where there is no cure for 
 canine madness ; Cherub did not roar or suffer long, and 
 for him Shadow, who loved all things small and great, 
 wept long. 
 
 But out of that grief there came to the heart of the 
 little dusky boy a joy sweet and lasting, for somehow the 
 men from the South who stood upon the hurricane deck 
 that day forgot pride and prejudice. 
 
 And now the troop is scouring the mist-hung hills of 
 Porto Rico peering into caves, and searching lonely 
 highland shacks for Spaniards who were once soldiers 
 and now guerrillas.
 
 Shadow and the Cherub. 131 
 
 Shadow is with them, and there is not a horseman in 
 the troop who would not charge through leaden hail to 
 save him from harm. And only when the men talk of 
 Cherub, the vicious and massive-jawed, does the darkey 
 boy look away and seem unhappy.
 
 Back to San Anton'.
 
 BACK TO SAN ANTON'. 
 
 Nobody thought that old Geldez would remember the 
 thrashing Mulgowan gave him. Not a man in the troop 
 would have given old Geldez credit for fiendish contriv- 
 ings. It wasn't because he was a drunken wretch and a 
 beggar by nature that made the boys hate him. Old 
 Geldez was a greaser, which implies everything weakly, 
 malevolent and detestable, and it was said that he was in 
 the habit of beating the little maiden of dark eyes who 
 called him father. A civilian greaser was old Geldez 
 what could be more despised ? 
 
 Yet many a pay-day would have known no muscal, and 
 been correspondingly cheerless, had it not been for old 
 Geldez, who often weighted his boat down with Mexican 
 wines and paddled softly across the Rio Grande, with no 
 body watching but the moon, all of which is contrary to 
 the laws of a mighty nation. It is true that the troopers 
 paid many prices to the greaser, but muscal is cheap at 
 any cost on pay-days. 
 
 Now Mulgowan was a sergeant in rank, but at heart 
 he was never anything but a private and the prince of 
 good fellows. Because he could vault the highest horse 
 in the troop and make no specialty of it ; because he could
 
 136 Back to San Anton'. 
 
 fight like a demon and yet did not make it a pastime, and 
 because he was a wizard with a six-shooter and a whirl 
 wind with a saber, Mulgowan was a very popular cavalry 
 man. 
 
 So when Geldez swore gruffly at the little maiden of 
 dark eyes one pay-day, while the boys were drinking mus- 
 cal in his place, Mulgowan was only praised because he 
 kicked the greaser out of his own door. Indeed the boys 
 were so facetious about the affair that Mulgowan felt 
 called upon to crack a fresh bottle of wine. He filled all 
 the glasses himself and then toasted the maiden of dark 
 eyes with all the tenderness which much wine and natural 
 gentility could put into words. 
 
 About this time the ugly face of old Geldez peered 
 through the window. It was so ugly in its pallid rage that 
 Mulgowan's hand felt instinctively for the six-shooter in 
 his belt. It was so very ugly and white that the maiden 
 of dark eyes threw her bare, brown arms about Mul 
 gowan's neck and wept just as white women do. And 
 then Mulgowan became very red because he did not know 
 much about such proceedings, but he kissed the little Mex 
 ican maiden, after which another fellow cracked a bottle 
 of wine. Meanwhile old Geldez outside plotted dark 
 deviltry. 
 
 After that the greaser's girl belonged to Mulgowan 
 just the same as his horse. And Mulgowan's horse loved 
 him, but not in the same way as did the dark eyes of the 
 San Anton' valley. 
 
 Women are different creatures the night before a regi-
 
 Back to San Anton'. 137 
 
 ment pulls out. They tell you things that you never heard 
 from their lips before. They talk to you alone. They are 
 pretty in their gaiety, bewitching in their silence, quite 
 womanly in their tears, and adorable. The last night at 
 the San Anton' barracks was memorable. The regiment 
 was ready to laugh or cry. Promises were made. Mul- 
 gowan danced with dark eyes, and later they strolled out 
 into the moonlight together. And old Geldez watched 
 them and plotted still. 
 
 Historical novels have been written upon the reasons 
 why regiments were ordered out a short time ago. There 
 were few happier men than Mulgowan in the troop at 
 any time, but while we were pushing on to the front he 
 couldn't sleep for furious spirits. The "front" is any 
 place on the borderland of God's country and some other 
 place where something is expected to drop at any mo 
 ment. We arrived. Not many hours afterward Mul 
 gowan became a changed man and a spoiled trooper. 
 
 It happened in the morning just after the mail was 
 brought in. When one opens a package in a cavalry 
 camp he takes chances on being seen. One of the draw 
 backs of the service is that the state of blessed solitude is 
 unattainable. It was a small package such as jewels are 
 sent in. It was unregistered. A human finger, dry and 
 cold, was in the box. Mulgowan did not swear, which 
 was unnatural. The skin upon his face became colorless. 
 He dropped the thing. The trooper nearest looked at it 
 intently and then at his own hands. 
 
 "Left third finger," he remarked.
 
 138 Back to San Anton' 
 
 "Is it a woman's ?" Mulgowan asked in a stifled voice. 
 His face was turned away. 
 
 "Must belong to a woman or a kid," was the answer. 
 "Cheer up, Mul." 
 
 That evening after retreat we saw Mulgowan sitting 
 alone in the shadowy twilight. His eyes seemed to look 
 backward toward San Anton'. He did not even smoke. 
 We hated to say anything. After a while Mulgowan 
 walked along the picket line until he came to his own 
 horse. Then he stopped and whispered for a long time 
 close to the fancy, little gelding's ear, an action on his 
 part which made the youngster Yellow Hair very happy, 
 indeed. 
 
 And long after taps had sounded I rolled over on my 
 bunk and peered out from under the raised walls of the 
 tent. The moon was high and there were no shadows. 
 Mulgowan still stood on the picket line. His fingers of 
 one hand were tangled in the mane of Yellow Hair, and 
 his eyes were turned backward toward San Anton'. The 
 stable guard walked his post and whistled low. 
 
 Three days afterward another package was handed to 
 Mulgowan, and when it was opened we saw another third 
 finger belonging to a woman or a boy. It was the third 
 finger of a right hand this time, and it was dry and cold. 
 Mulgowan's face did not change, because it had been 
 haggard and white for three days. 
 
 What the youngster Yellow Hair was told that night 
 no one else ever knew. He looked very wise and thought 
 ful while his master stood by his head just before taps
 
 Back to San Anton'. 139 
 
 sounded. And after that, when all troopers slept, Mul- 
 gowan stole away. Yellow Hair never told that his mas 
 ter had gone back to the dark eyes of the San Anton* 
 valley. 
 
 After reveille roll-call the next morning the first ser 
 geant approached the troop commander, saluted and said : 
 
 "Sergeant Mulgowan missing, sir." 
 
 The troop commander strolled over to headquarters, 
 saluted several times, and reported to the officer of the 
 day: 
 
 "Sergeant Mulgowan missing, sir." 
 
 Among other things which telegraph operators pounded 
 out that same morning was, "Sergeant Mulgowan miss 
 ing." And the old greaser, Geldez, away back in San 
 Anton' heard the same words repeated, and his face be 
 came a dirty yellow hue, and people never saw him in the 
 San Anton' valley after that day. 
 
 A recruit in the troop, who was old. enough to know 
 better, spoke out loud and at length about time-of-war de 
 serters, and incidentally remarked that such did not de 
 serve a military funeral. We, who stood near, listened 
 until the youth had finished his observations, then we 
 applied our muscular selves toward making him regret 
 his words. The troop was broken up, for it loved Mul 
 gowan and was proud of him. Meanwhile the fancy, little 
 gelding Yellow Hair whinnied softly and often and pawed 
 the turf with his front hoofs. 
 
 The rest of the story, all except the ending, was told 
 me. They said that a man in civilian garb rushed into a
 
 140 Back to San Anton'. 
 
 San Anton' bar-room several nights after the Geldez place 
 had been closed. It was very late. They said that the 
 man was mad and that he drank, drank, until stupor came. 
 And when he could drink no more the man was heard to 
 mutter : 
 
 "Cover them up, my little Dark Eyes cover them up. 
 For God's sake, cover them up, I say !" 
 
 They all knew the dark eyes of the San Anton' valley 
 and they went at once to the place of old Geldez, the 
 greaser many of them. The moon whitened the sand 
 about, but all was dark inside dark and silent. It was a 
 low hut with four windows. The three in front were 
 tightly shuttered and ominous. The back window was 
 open, and the shutters were stretched apart. One of them 
 hung lightly on its hinges, and the night wind made it 
 sway and softly creak. 
 
 They entered, the fascination of terror was upon them. 
 A human voice would have made them turn and flee. 
 Had a cat purred they would have shrank back affrighted, 
 as if from an uncanny sound. Had it rubbed its furry 
 sides against them in the darkness they would have stood 
 fear-frozen, as if in the clutch of the devil. Curious 
 and uncertain things are those fibres we call nerves. 
 
 Truly, they seemed to crawl through the empty bar 
 room with its two tightly shuttered windows through 
 another room, where the third window was accounted for. 
 Then the leading man stepped upon the threshold of the 
 last room and looked. 
 
 Have you ever heard the scream of a frightened horse ?
 
 Back to San Anton'. 141 
 
 You will always remember the sound if you have. It is 
 horrible. It is like the sound which the leading man ut 
 tered when he looked into the last room of the Geldez 
 place that night. 
 
 The open shutter swayed in the wind and softly creaked. 
 A pallid moonbar came through the orifice and moved 
 backward and forward across the coverlet of the bed. 
 Something lay behind in the shadow something voice 
 less, yet possessed of gleaming eyes ; and even as the first 
 man looked two awful objects were stretched out toward 
 him. Then the shutter creaked again, and the pale moon 
 beam included the two dark things in its light and the 
 man screamed. Later, when they had gained their breath 
 and nerves back in the bar-room, the leader said : 
 
 "I saw them move out from the shadow where the eyes 
 were, and they looked like arms, but there were no hands 
 to them only stumps ugh." The m^n shuddered and 
 gulped down many more drinks. 
 
 When daylight came the mad drinker crept unsteadily 
 from the bar-room. It was not until daylight came that 
 the other men ventured back to the old Geldez place. 
 Still afraid, they entered again, and found that they had 
 fled from nothing but the little dark-eyed maiden. Her. 
 arms were buried beneath a coverlet and when it was 
 raised, they saw how she had suffered. The dark eyes 
 were closed now, and the arms were still. The men won 
 dered why old Geldez was not there. 
 
 Yellow Hair was very happy one morning, because 
 Mulgowan had been with him and petted him again and
 
 142 Back to San Anton'. 
 
 again. It was a different looking trooper who reported 
 for duty to the first sergeant that morning. Twelve 
 days had passed since Mulgowan lingered on the picket- 
 line, whispering to Yellow Hair and looking backward 
 toward San Anton'. In the orderly-room, where the troop 
 books were kept, a dirty word was written opposite his 
 name. In the little volume containing army regulations, 
 words are printed to this effect : 
 
 "Any soldier deserting from garrison or field will be 
 accorded such punishment as the court-martial may di 
 rect. In time of war this punishment shall be death." 
 
 Mulgowan had come back to the troop in the night. 
 Just after reveille he had reported to the first sergeant, 
 and the troop commander had placed him at once under 
 arrest. Mulgowan spoke no word to his old fellows. Oh, 
 how we wished we could help him. There was no joking 
 at mess that morning. 
 
 Anybody can tell you what happened after reveille and 
 before stables. A corporal and two privates of the main 
 guard were sent over from headquarters. The boys who 
 loved Mulgowan were out in the troop street, watching 
 while they placed him under arrest. Had they been any 
 thing but good soldiers, and had they been anywhere ex 
 cept in Uncle Sam's army, the arrest of Mulgowan would 
 never have taken place. 
 
 "Escort this prisoner to the guard-house," the troop 
 commander ordered. 
 
 Mulgowan stood at attention and spoke no word. 
 
 The two privates of the main guard brought their car-
 
 Back to San Anton'. 143 
 
 bines to the position of port arms, and stood five paces be 
 hind the prisoner. The corporal saluted the troop com 
 mander and said, "Forward, march." The corporal's 
 voice was husky. He was not pleased with his task. 
 
 Mulgowan seemed not to hear the command. It was 
 repeated. 
 
 "Wait a moment," the prisoner said. He stepped over 
 to the picket line, where Yellow Hair was tethered. The 
 two talked together for a moment. The guards watched. 
 
 Then Mulgowan was led away to court-martial. 
 
 And the fancy little gelding, Yellow Hair, whinnied 
 often in the days that followed and pawed the turf.
 
 The Voice in the Fourth Cell.
 
 THE VOICE IN THE FOURTH CELL 
 
 Back from the coast and high among the hills is the 
 little village of Manati hid away among the hills of white 
 rock on the island of Porto Rico. When the great guns 
 stormed and roared in the harbor of San Juan, fifty miles 
 away, only the faintest reverberations were borne back 
 to this tiny village. When the white Sibley tents of 
 Uncle Sam's soldiers dotted the rolling land outside the 
 town, naked children played in the streets and men and 
 women starved just the same in the prison. 
 
 There are thick mahogany bars on the fourth cell of 
 the Spanish prison at Manati. Look through them to 
 day and in the half-light you will see two very wonder 
 ful eyes. There are no such eyes back in the States. You 
 may find orbs like them among the fairest of Spain's fair 
 women, but few will there be so depthless, great and 
 dark. 
 
 They speak, laugh they charm you so that you can 
 see naught but them. You cannot tell whether it is the 
 expression of knavery or the spirituelle light which 
 charms you more. You pause before them. If any 
 Spanish comes to you that moment you will speak. Then 
 gradually in the dimness you will perceive the rest of 
 Juan Tosto's face.
 
 148 The Voice in the Fourth Cell. 
 
 It will please you. No countenance could be vicious 
 or ugly with such eyes. You will not wonder at the 
 sunken cheeks, or at the drawn, bloodless lips, for all 
 Spanish convicts slowly starve. Pass on, you must. 
 
 Then in a moment, you will hear strains of weird, 
 hushed melody. It is like the dream of a pure con 
 science, so sweet, so ethereal, so appealing; close your 
 eyes and you will see the great white moon, playing upon 
 the turrets of Spanish castles. You care not to under 
 stand the words so touching is the music from the cell 
 of Juan Tosta. 
 
 But we knew the Spanish singer, Silk Redmond and I, 
 before he was starving in the dark cell of Manati prison. 
 When his home was on the great White Cliffs, hanging 
 over the curling, limpid Rio Grande, we met him. There 
 is a Rio Grande in Porto Rico. It is distant from no 
 where on the island. Its water is the clearest in the 
 world like a mountain spring. 
 
 Years before Juan Tosta was a slave. 
 
 Because he was a Porto Rican those whose veins run 
 with pure Castilian blood, would have called Juan a mon 
 grel. Strange to an American are these people so mild 
 and harmless are they. The finer feelings of life are not 
 unknown to them. They live in a land the capabilities 
 of which are incalculable, yet they die in their youth 
 die not from disease, but in the slow agony of wasting 
 limbs, in the low fever of hunger unappeased. 
 
 Centuries of oppression have made them a timid peo 
 ple. The rich Spanish planter was their master once.
 
 The Voice in the Fourth Cell. 149 
 
 To-day they are trying to realize that Americans pay 
 wages for labor. 
 
 The last words of dying Spain were a declaration of 
 peace. American soldiers are quartered in old Spanish 
 garrisons, and American gunboats peer majestically into 
 what were once Spanish cities. Senoritas are singing 
 "After the Ball" in all Porto Rican towns. All things 
 have been remembered. 
 
 Yet detachments of Uncle Sam's horsemen are scour 
 ing the hills for dark little men with bare feet and hag 
 gard faces for men who have long known that war is no 
 more, and whose wives and children are passively starv 
 ing in the coast cities. 
 
 Do they hate the cavalrymen who are daily running 
 them down ? Yes, just as slaves of other days hated the 
 lash. Ah, but they hate the rich Spanish planter much 
 more, even as the slaves hated him who held the lash. 
 
 Why was it that skeleton companies of Americans 
 routed whole regiments of Spanish soldiers? Because 
 these dark little men with bare feet and haggard faces 
 were in the ranks. And why were they there? Because 
 they were nothing but poor Porto Rican mongrels, and 
 their masters, the full-blooded Castilians, drove them to 
 it. 
 
 And these same little men in those few months felt a 
 sensation which their fathers never knew. The Ameri 
 can feels it, trembles under it, glories in it. 
 
 It is the sensation of conquering fear. 
 
 They saw that the pale-faced Castilian was not king of
 
 150 The Voice in the Fourth Cell. 
 
 the world, and they quivered in the thrall of a might) 
 thought. When it was no longer a thought but a con 
 summated action, these dark little men were deserters, in 
 festing the great white cliffs. And the Porto Rican 
 women were awed by deeds of such daring, and at night, 
 behind bolted doors, they whispered words of praise for 
 such heroes. 
 
 And they also taught their naked babies to say, when 
 Uncle Sam's soldiers passed by : 
 
 "Mericano mucho wano!" 
 
 And so well did the tiny, dark-skinned youngsters learn 
 the lesson that in a few days the words grew to be a 
 meaningless, wearying sound to the boys from the States. 
 
 Meanwhile the deserters made midnight sallies upon 
 the plantations where they once slaved. Yes, and they 
 burned the haciendas. The very dignified name of "guer 
 rillas" became theirs, and the cavalrymen from the States 
 received orders to bring them in dead or alive. 
 
 And all these things resulted in Silk Redmond and I 
 meeting Juan Tosta, the sweet singer on the Great White 
 Cliffs. 
 
 "We don't want to cart around any prisoners," the ser 
 geant of the detachment said. "The San Juan prison is 
 crowded now. We want to sleep nights, instead of stand 
 ing guard. All I got to say is don't monkey with the 
 greasers." 
 
 The sergeant was an old man. He had soldiered in 
 Texas. We were tickled at the outlook. 
 
 A December night, yet you wanted no blankets. Four
 
 The Voice in the Fourth Cell. 151 
 
 men were already sleeping. The cook-fire was a mass of 
 whitened embers. The guard hummed softly and paced 
 about among the horses. Silk Redmond, finishing a 
 cigar, let his eyes wander high among the beautiful mys 
 teries of a tropical night. 
 
 When we had slept an hour the sky beyond an ad 
 jacent group of hills reddened into a vast lurid expanse. 
 The guard saw it, and in a few moments we all knew 
 that there was game in the vicinity and that it was very 
 much awake. 
 
 At dawn we pushed our horses up to the hot, smoking 
 ruins of a big hacienda. The Spanish owner said that 
 for two nights he had heard the songs of Black Stick up 
 in the cliffs Black Stick, the bold and bad Porto Rican, 
 the very worst guerrilla on the island. He did his work 
 well that night, however. 
 
 For ten days we searched every crag and abutment 
 along the high walls of the Rio Grande, from Manati to 
 Ciales. The songs of Black Stick were heard no more, 
 a circumstance which made us understand that the out 
 law used his eyes. Then even the small detachment was 
 divided. Silk Redmond and I stuck together. Black 
 Stick was making sleepless nights for the old cavalry 
 sergeant. 
 
 And we, why .we would have given up future hopes for 
 a shot at him. 
 
 Did you ever track a buck for a whole day and then 
 watch him leap out from your very shadow and disappear,
 
 152 The Voice in the Fourth Cell. 
 
 while you forgot that there were such things in creation 
 as carbines, cartridges and venison steaks ? 
 
 We were very weary, Silk Redmond and I. We were 
 blue, too, and foolish enough to let our minds wander 
 back to the States where our hearts were. We were too 
 weary to make a fire that night. Had we done so, we 
 would not have heard the soul-melting melody of the 
 Porto Rican bandit. A moment or two later, and we 
 would not have heard it, except as angel music in a 
 dream, for our eyes were weighted down with sleep. 
 
 We did not move. It was a soothing touch upon our 
 foreheads, like the pressure of a mother's hand. It 
 brushed away the calloused places in our souls and 
 changed us for one memorable moment from cavalrymen 
 into little children. It would have made us feel, had we 
 ever doubted, that there are raptures hidden away in 
 heaven. 
 
 The moon shone high upon the cliffs. The rocks stood 
 out in the pallid radiance. The Rio Grande twinkled 
 back at the stars above the gorge and hummed low of 
 peace and slumber. Down from the cliffs there came to 
 us a quaver of enchantment. Then the magic voice was 
 silent. It was : 
 
 "Like the last sweet note 
 From a wild bird's throat, 
 As off to the south he goes." 
 
 Black Stick was untamed still, but he was sad, too, 
 and very lonely. By his song we knew it.
 
 The Voice in the Fourth Cell. 153 
 
 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 :
 
 154 The Voice in the Fourth Cell. 
 
 "Ford the river with these horses, Darley. Take posi 
 tions over there, and don't move your eyes from the 
 cliff. Corporal Mack, take two men and circle to the left. 
 I'll go this way with Redmond and the kid. No non 
 sense, remember!" 
 
 "We'll have to get to him first if he lives," Redmond 
 whispered to me. And we raced ahead, climbing higher, 
 higher upon the rocks. 
 
 Even had I never heard the bewitching cadence of 
 Black Stick's voice on a moon-mellowed evening, no 
 white man could have leveled a carbine at those soft, lus 
 trous, Spanish eyes. And when Silk Redmond and I saw 
 them gleaming from a thicket, we stood erect and gently 
 beckoned for the dreaded outlaw to approach. 
 
 His knife was in one hand ; his hat in the other, and his 
 eyelids were stretched wide apart. There was a red light 
 in his great, dark eyes, like a distant forest fire shining 
 through a wall of night. It was the light of horror. His 
 dark skin was changed into the ashy gray of a raincloud. 
 Trembling he approached. 
 
 Thus was the taking of Black Stick, the terrible, on 
 the Great White Cliffs overlooking the Rio Grande. 
 
 Ah, but he was a sweet singer ! 
 
 The old cavalry sergeant was very happy when he saw 
 the Porto Rican creeping in front of us down the cliffs. 
 
 "Why didn't you wing the greaser?" he asked. 
 
 "He didn't give us a show," Redmond answered. 
 
 It takes a good man to be a soldier. Redmond and I 
 were only recruits. Moreover, we had little hope of ever
 
 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 El 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
 
 156 The Voice in the Fourth Cell. 
 
 cavalrymen took him from the Great White Cliffs above 
 the Rio Grande. He thinks we were good soldiers that 
 day. 
 
 And so does the old cavalry sergeant, even if we didn't 
 "wing the greaser."
 
 The Good Which Was in Him.
 
 THE GOOD WHICH WAS IN HIM. 
 
 No trooper said that Allen was not qualified to be troop- 
 clerk. He had formerly been a college student. He had 
 influential friends in Washington. Taps had just been 
 played over Cooper, the old clerk. And because the cap 
 tain picked out Allen to take his place, the boys were 
 angry. The clerkship is desirable in a cavalry regiment, 
 because it relieves a man from all calls and troop duty. 
 Allen might have been a college professor or the son of 
 the President, but among Uncle Sam's horsemen he was 
 only a recruit. And it was galling to see a recruit slip 
 out from his share of hard work. The boys got over it, 
 however, for the new clerk proved to be a good fellow. 
 
 As a cavalryman, Allen was athletic and satisfactory. 
 Some way, back in the States, he had never taken pains 
 to show people the good which was in him. As a matter 
 of fact, he was little heard from until the time when 
 Uncle Sam called for men to make soldiers out of. ... 
 There is a bunch of troopers down in Porto Rico to-day 
 who know that Allen once did a noble thing. 
 
 Ten days after he joined the troop another recruit came 
 down from Washington. He was a slender little chap,
 
 162 The Good Which Was in Him. 
 
 with big, pathetic eyes. Soon he became known as Kid, 
 except in roll-calls, when he answered to "Allen, Num 
 ber Two." The little fellow had nothing to say, but we 
 could all see that he wasn't cut out for a trooper. We 
 knew, too, that he was making a game fight against that 
 overpowering sickness which feeds upon the thoughts of 
 home. The time came when both of the Aliens were away 
 back in the mountains of Porto Rico, and, like every 
 other soldier on the island, they dreamed much of their 
 native land. But the Kid brooded, which was bad for 
 him. 
 
 Retreat was just over for the cavalry detachment in 
 Ciales. The troopers hung up their carbines and six- 
 shooters, removed their hot blouses, and many strolled 
 over to lounge in the plaza of the tiny town. Allen, the 
 troop-clerk, walked slowly and thoughtfully down to the 
 stables. His bay gelding, Rio Grande, whinnied softly 
 at his approach. The big cavalryman stroked the animal 
 and was silent. Perhaps it was because he was lonesome 
 and heart-hungry that he sought the gloomy stables. A 
 little way off the big river, after which the troop-horse 
 was named, plunged and boomed over the rocks. 
 
 The valleys were growing dim with twilight, but high 
 up on the Ciales hill, where the stables were, it was not 
 dark yet. Allen wondered why there had been no mail 
 steamer from the States in San Juan harbor for ten days. 
 His shapely gelding seemed to be thinking about some 
 thing, too. Perhaps the troop-horse was wondering why 
 there was so much rain up on the Porto Rican hills, or
 
 The Good Which Was in Him, 163 
 
 why the big soldier who petted him was so serious that 
 evening. Anyway, he playfully pushed off Allen's dusty 
 campaign hat with his silky nose, and afterward used 
 the same silky nose to find out what was in the pockets 
 of the big cavalryman's blue shirt. 
 
 Dark shadows crept higher and higher up the hills, and 
 the tropical stars grew steady and whitened. Allen won 
 dered if there would be a certain letter for him when the 
 steamer did come in a letter from an American girl 
 whom he had always thought much about, and whose 
 memory had become a great and dear thing to him since 
 he had been a cavalryman. Somehow, his thoughts did 
 not make him happy, but he whistled very cheerily to 
 help him forget. Rio Grande was playful. 
 
 Just then the troop-clerk saw the other Allen sitting 
 alone in the gloom at the far end of the stables. The lad 
 was staring away over the hills toward the Northland. 
 The big fellow approached and peered into the other's 
 face. He saw a strange expression there the same sort 
 of an expression which he had seen upon the face of 
 another recruit the day before a squad of men were sent 
 out to search for him. 
 
 '"'Are you sick, Kid?" the troop-clerk questioned ten 
 derly. He knew well why the silent lad was staring away 
 beyond the shadowy mountains. He knew the nature of 
 the sickness which was upon him how intense and un 
 reasoning were his longings, how dark and deep was his 
 suffering. The troop-clerk knew because he had felt and 
 suffered, too, years ago in the first college days. And the
 
 1 64 The Good Which Was in Him. 
 
 troop-clerk pitied the other Allen, with every bit of his 
 big, warm heart. Only two women knew the warmth of 
 that heart then, and one was the mother. 
 
 "Come on up to the quarters," he said, "where it's light 
 and the other fellows are. 'T won't do you any good to 
 be moping around here in the dark. I've got a good book 
 up in the orderly room. Come on up and get it come on, 
 Kid." 
 
 He caught the lad by the shoulder and persisted gently. 
 Rio Grande whinnied softly as the two passed. Their 
 arms were locked, and the big cavalryman was talking 
 in a low voice. The river boomed in the distance, and 
 the stable guard walked his post. 
 
 ******** 
 
 It was four days after that when the mail came in 
 from the States. A big bundle of business matter from 
 the army headquarters at San Juan and some Washington 
 dispatches were handed to Allen, but there was no letter 
 from the American girl. With an angry burning in his 
 throat and a heavy burden in his breast, the troop-clerk 
 sorted the pile of routine stuff. He glanced through one 
 of the Washington communications. 
 
 A moment afterward he was covered with a hot per 
 spiration. 
 
 Allen folded the dispatch, placed a horseshoe upon it, 
 and then stepped out in front of the quarters to cool off. 
 He heard the rain pounding upon the cliff a quarter of 
 a mile up the trail. The shower was coming closer, closer.
 
 The Good Which Was in Him. 165 
 
 Darkness closed in with the storm. The other Allen sat 
 silent and sad-eyed in the gloom. 
 
 "Maybe she thinks I'm not worth writing 
 to," the troop-clerk muttered unsteadily. The eyes of the 
 lad were strangely wide open. 
 
 "Because I'm only a common enlisted man, and because 
 her father is a Congressman." 
 
 This moment the troop-clerk looked again at the face 
 of the other Allen. The big cavalryman seemed to forget 
 his own troubles. The other was only a boy. A mother 
 away back in the Northland was yearning for this boy. 
 And his face which the troop-clerk saw in the gathering 
 of the storm and night well, it told of a heart which was 
 slowly breaking. 
 
 Two lips closed very tightly that moment. They were 
 the lips of the man who had been a college student once, 
 and whom many people back in the States thought would 
 never amount to much. He was the same big cavalry 
 man who had longed for a letter from an American girl, 
 and had received none. 
 
 Looking all the while at the lad, Allen stood very erect, 
 as soldiers are taught to do. Then he swallowed some 
 thing big and lumpy in his throat, after which he began 
 to whistle loudly. A gust of rain swept through the open 
 door of the quarters, and the sad-eyed soldier moved from 
 his seat and silently sank down upon his bunk. 
 
 A half-hour later the troop-clerk said to the top- 
 sergeant : 
 
 "An order came in to-night for the Kid's discharge.
 
 166 The Good Which Was in Him. 
 
 His descriptive list was not among the papers, but the 
 dates and place of enlistment are all right." 
 
 Allen spoke very quietly. He had been working over 
 the papers for many minutes. The first sergeant looked 
 up from a ten-day-old paper and remarked : 
 
 "I'm glad of it. Can't make a soldier out of a homesick 
 young lady. . . . The mud will be knee-deep down 
 at the stables in the morning by grooming time if this 
 infernal rain keeps up and this is the dry season." 
 
 The rain clouds rushed and clamored above the tiny 
 town. The trumpeter of the troop put his head out into 
 the storm, and his bugle screamed the last call a soldier 
 hears at night the weird, wailing taps. 
 
 The next forenoon "Allen, Number Two," with a big 
 canvas roll in his arms, started in an oxcart for Manati, 
 where he would connect by train with San Juan. He 
 was the happiest boy on the whole island of Porto Rico, 
 because he was going back to God's country and his 
 mother, and there was an honorable discharge in his 
 pocket. Just before he had left the quarters Allen, the 
 troop-clerk, had given him a sealed envelope, and said the 
 following in a dry whisper : 
 
 "Read this, old man, when you can't see San Juan any 
 longer from the deck of the transport not a minute 
 sooner. Understand? And write to me all all about 
 Washington, as soon as you can. . . . Well, adios, 
 Kid. Good luck to you." 
 
 The same afternoon another bunch of mail was brought 
 to the troop. There had been so much on the delayed
 
 The Good Which Was in Him. 167 
 
 transport that the clerks in San Juan could not sort it 
 all for the first day. One of the private letters which 
 Allen received contained the following paragraph : 
 
 "Oh, Jack, it's come! I vowed I wouldn't write you 
 again until papa told me your discharge was on the way. 
 Telegraph when you reach New York, and we'll all meet 
 you at the train. And, say, Jack, put on lots of warm 
 things on the transport, because lots of poor boys have 
 died of pneumonia from the sudden change of climate. 
 I can hardly realize that you are coming back." 
 
 Down at the lonely stables that night the shapely geld 
 ing, Rio Grande, looked very wise and thoughtful. A 
 certain big cavalryman stood at his head and said many 
 things in a choking whisper. The west was streaked 
 with dark red glory, but it was black and ominous beyond 
 the mountains in the northwest. The swollen river boomed 
 angrily down the trail. And the sentry walked his post 
 and occasionally kicked up straggling bunches of hay 
 closer to the picket line. 
 
 "So it was the little woman who got the discharge, and I 
 thought she was ashamed to write to me. . . . 
 Oh, well, the Kid is happy, anyway, and his mother will 
 soon be happy, too. ... I hope the little woman 
 won't be angry because I did it. The Kid would probably 
 be eating his heart out in the troop to-night if I had 
 received her letter the same time as the discharge. . . . 
 But I guess I can stick it out all right. I can stand it 
 all right, if she'll write to me." 
 
 The big cavalryman walked back to the quarters, whis-
 
 168 The Good Which Was in Him. 
 
 tling very loudly and trying to forget. And that night the 
 trooper who had once been a college student wrote a long 
 letter to the American maiden whose father was a Con 
 gressman. Long after taps had sounded and all other 
 soldiers save the sentries were asleep, there was still a 
 light in the orderly room, and Allen was still writing. 
 
 The city of San Juan looked vague and far-away be 
 hind the harbor mists. The white walls of Castle Morro 
 were indefinite in clouds of gray. And when Allen, 
 Number Two, could see the Porto Rican capital no longer, 
 he tore open the sealed letter which the troop-clerk had 
 given him. Some of it is here : 
 
 "I suppose you wondered how it all came about. We 
 knew how you felt, Kid. We could see that the life was 
 killing you, and, to be honest, I was afraid you might do 
 something to disgrace that town which we both love. 
 And then I would have had to put a dirty word across 
 your name in the troop-books. You couldn't have been 
 happy at home if you went that way. 
 
 "You see, I had some friends in Washington, who got 
 a discharge for me, but / mislaid the descriptive list, made 
 '17' out of the '7' in the dates, and the discharge was 
 yours. Of course, I couldn't have done it if I hadn't been 
 troop-clerk. 
 
 "There were reasons why I didn't care particularly 
 about going home, but I knew what you suffered every 
 day in the troop. Don't feel sorry over this, because I'm 
 tough and can stand 'soldiering' a little longer. Good- 
 by, Kid, and good luck."
 
 The Good Which Was in Him. 169 
 
 The great, silent hills back of old Morro seemed only 
 a deeper azure than the clouds now, but the eyes of "Allen, 
 Number Two," who was no longer a soldier, were too 
 filmy to take in their beauty. The transport steamed on, 
 on toward the Northland. 
 
 Every evening for almost a month the fancy bay geld 
 ing, Rio Grande, listened to a big cavalryman's confidings 
 and was petted. And no trooper knew the secrets which 
 Rio Grande was told. The troop-clerk attended to his 
 duties as a good cavalryman should. The great, white 
 cliffs were beaten with tropical showers, and the troopers 
 dreamed more and more of the Northland. And down 
 the trail from the stables the big river boomed and tum 
 bled over the rocks. 
 
 Allen was very busy when this letter came : 
 
 "So you thought I was ashamed to write to you? Ah, 
 Jack, you should have known me better than that. What 
 you did was hard for me, but it was harder for you. I 
 told everybody you were coming home. The mother of 
 the 'other Allen' thinks you are some sort of a soldier- 
 angel, Jack. . . . But I'll write to you even if you 
 have to stay on that horrid, rainy island for three years." 
 
 Allen was very busy when the above epistle came. He 
 was making out the final statements for all the war re 
 cruits in the troop, for the official order for their dis 
 charges had just been cabled to the island from Washing 
 ton. His own discharge was already made out, because 
 the name Allen stands among the first on the troop muster 
 roll.
 
 170 The Good Which Was in Him. 
 
 And down in the stables Rio Grande and the other troop- 
 horses pricked up their ears and whinnied softly when 
 they heard the happy shouts of the discharged cavalry 
 men up in the quarters. And the big river boomed might 
 ily and plunged over the rocks down the trail.
 
 "Suppose," he gasped. "I should grab that salver and dance around the 
 quarters with it."
 
 The Aberration of Private Brown.
 
 THE 
 
 ABERRATION OF PRIVATE BROWN. 
 
 Brown had a faculty of listening while others talked. 
 He was a big cavalryman, and, putting it with studied 
 mildness, he was not pleased with his job. Patriotism 
 was noble once about the time when the desks of liter 
 ary editors were deluged with spasms on the Maine blow 
 up and Brown had become a trooper ere his unhealthy 
 delirium had pined away. 
 
 Many troopers were weeded out by the flies and fever 
 of a Tampa summer camp, but Brown had been one of 
 the tanned and haggard cavalrymen, too leathery to get 
 a sick furlough, and who were among the first American 
 soldiers to view the tropical shore and the mist-hung 
 hills of Porto Rico from the dirty deck of a transport. 
 
 And Brown was very unhappy in that land of few 
 birds and fewer flowers. The troop headquarters was in 
 Ciales, away up among the Great White Cliffs. And this 
 night a bunch of cavalrymen sat in the plaza of the tiny 
 town, and talked lingeringly about God's country over in 
 the northwest. The hill breezes were fresh with a shower- 
 odor, and pungent with the perfume of great orange 
 groves, borne up from the valleys. Stars were mellowing
 
 176 The Aberration of Private Brown. 
 
 the tropical twilight above the cliffs. Brown was foolish 
 enough to let his thoughts wander back to his native land. 
 Very hurriedly, very carelessly, he had kissed a tall, dark- 
 eyed maiden on the spring night in the Northland, just 
 before he chased off to join his regiment. The memory 
 of that northern maiden had become a massive thing in 
 his brain during the last few months. Below him the Rio 
 Grande tumbled noisily across the Manati trail. Some 
 thing which an old cavalry sergeant was saying caught 
 Brown's ear this moment. 
 
 "... Pretty foxy recruit, he was, but dead sore 
 on the service. First thing we knew he was laid up with 
 a bad leg. The doctor was no chump, but he couldn't 
 do a thing for the rook leg was stiff and swollen. Doc- 
 got gray hairs over the case let the kid pound his bunk 
 for a few weeks, then give him a discharge for disability. 
 As soon as the kid got home he wrote back to his bunkie 
 something like this : 
 
 " 'Thread a horsehair on a fine needle and run it under 
 your kneecap. It won't bleed nor hurt much. Shave 
 off the ends of the hair close and go on sick report. The 
 doctor will do the rest. You can pull the hair out when 
 you're a man again but maybe you want to serve out 
 your three years. Say, my leg was in fine shape the day 
 after I limped out of headquarters with a pained look on 
 my face and a discharge in my clothes. Love to all the 
 boys.' " 
 
 Brown's face reflected the glow from the red embers 
 of his pipe that night as he lay upon his bunk. And I,
 
 The Aberration of Private Brown. 177 
 
 who was his bunkie, saw that face in the reflection and 
 wondered at the strange expression upon it. The wild- 
 ness of an idea in his brain caused it. And long after 
 taps had gone the red glow and the strange expression 
 was still upon his face; and from a formless throng of 
 thoughts in his brain there slowly developed a plan, de 
 fined, delicate and difficult. 
 
 To no man in the troop did Brown speak a word for 
 seven days. When one cavalryman made a remark to 
 this effect at the end of the time, every one thought of it. 
 I alone knew how poor a soldier and how royal a fellow 
 was Brown. Moreover, I was the only one who knew 
 about the maid back in the States. 
 
 At reveille roll-call one morning Brown was in ranks 
 but did not say "Here" when his name was called by the 
 top sergeant. There was a vacuum depicted upon his 
 face which showed rare art in its cultivation. 
 
 "Brown, when you come to," observed the top, "report 
 to the orderly room." 
 
 I never saw a man who could stare so picturesquely at 
 nothing and reflect it on his face like my bunkie could. 
 There were no active comments made in regard to 
 Brown's mental condition until the morning when he re 
 fused to get up for reveille. The first call had gone some 
 moments. The troopers were hurriedly dressing. There 
 was no movement in Brown's bunk. The sergeant of his 
 squad saw a pair of dull, expressionless eyes, which 
 drearily followed the movements of the flies on the wall. 
 The face of the man in the bunk was empty and smile-
 
 178 The Aberration of Private Brown. 
 
 less. I was sitting near by, looking pained, and my poor 
 friend was saying: 
 
 "My brother's wife will be here day after next. Got a 
 telephone this morning. She doesn't know I was all cut 
 up in the war (there, that telephone is ringing again). 
 She said, 'Brown, you're looking bad.' . . . Tell that 
 gentleman at the door that my life was despaired of last 
 night, but that I am now out of danger." 
 
 After the sergeant had gone to make the troop-com 
 mander acquainted with the affair, Brown whispered to 
 me: 
 
 "Say, if you think this is easy, just try it for awhile !" 
 
 That night the patient felt the necessity of becoming 
 more active in the capacity of a wild man. The burden 
 of his song and he hasn't a fortune in his voice was, 
 "O, beer in the little black bottle, black bottle." It de 
 veloped in those hours of night that I was the only person 
 who had the slightest control over Brown. It was a 
 touching proof of his friendship for me because I was re 
 leased from all calls and troop duty and turned into a sort 
 of keeper for my poor friend. 
 
 But the strain was telling sadly upon him. For some 
 unaccountable reason the troop commander had not yet 
 reported the matter to the physician, and Brown had only 
 been allowed the luxury of a lucid interval twice in four 
 days. When I was alone with him, he said : 
 
 "Here I am as nutty and as noisy as a whole fever ward 
 have to study all night to get my ravings down pat, and 
 the d doctor won't come around to pronounce on
 
 The Aberration of Private Brown. 179 
 
 'em. If I'd a'known this thing had to be kept up indefi 
 nitely, I'd a' deserted first. Say, it's no cinch to keep the 
 bees buzzin' in your bonnet." 
 
 He was looking at me pathetically. There was no 
 humor about Brown. 
 
 "I have to keep saying to myself," he went on, dismally. 
 "Brown, you're hivey, you're buzzy, you're supposed to 
 hear noises and look idiotic and, by heaven, the idea 
 grows on me ! Say, bunk, don't you think it would bring 
 the doctor around if I got er violent ?" 
 
 I felt that his suggestion was a good one, but in the 
 capacity of a keeper, I recommended that it be a mild 
 sort of violence. 
 
 "Oh, I'll not bruise you up, except when the others are 
 looking," he said seriously. 
 
 And he got violent. It was that unreasoning, oh-if-I- 
 could-only-die-give-me-a-knife sort of violence. He 
 would look at me as if to say, "Don't you dare give me a 
 knife." Still the doctor did not appear. After two hours 
 of splendid effort, Brown was hoarse and fagged out. 
 
 "Suppose," he gasped, "I should grab that saber and 
 dance around the quarters with it?" He was drenched 
 with perspiration. 
 
 "You'd get shot promptly," I observed. "Here 
 comes somebody ! Get nutty, Brown, it's the doctor !" 
 
 I couldn't describe that interview. Brown spread him 
 self. He was a poetic dreamer a maudlin maniac per 
 fect. The doctor departed with no thought but pity in 
 his mind supreme evidence that there was no humor in
 
 i8o The Aberration of Private Brown. 
 
 Brown. A couple of hours afterward the top sergeant 
 called me into the orderly room and said many surpris 
 ing things. 
 
 "Well, what do you know?" asked Brown in a low 
 voice. He was sitting up in his bunk, smoking cheer 
 fully. The ordeal of the doctor was over. His pros 
 pects were only cheerful ones now. As the whole troop 
 was out on target practice, Brown was having a lucid in 
 terval. The enjoyment of it shone upon his face. I 
 hated to spoil it, but I might not have so good a chance 
 again. 
 
 "The doctor says you've got 'em, all right." 
 
 "Did he say there were any special or interesting feat 
 ures to my my derangement ?" he questioned facetiously. 
 
 "And they're going to send you back to the States," I 
 resumed. 
 
 "I guess I'm pretty bad actoring. I guess I won't do." 
 Brown was tickled. Oh, what a shame it was to have to 
 tell him ! The troubled look on my face made him say : 
 
 "Devilish sorry, bunkie, you can't go along. Honest, 
 you'll never know how much I think of you for the way 
 you helped me out. We were always solid, though, be 
 fore before I was taken. Why, confound it all, the only 
 thing I regret is leaving you in this dam' country !" 
 
 It was positively pitiful. 
 
 "Don't worry about that, old man," I said, "I'm going 
 with you." 
 
 Brown jumped at my hand and declared with a
 
 The Aberration of Private Brown. 181 
 
 throaty quaver, "By Jove ! if you'll desert, I'm with you, 
 body and soul!" 
 
 "Don't boil over so loud, Brown," I said quietly. 
 "You've got your own little game to play besides, when 
 I quit this man's service, I'm not going to have a French 
 leave to look back on." 
 
 Brown was looking more mystified every minute. 
 
 "Moreover," I went on, slowly, "you don't think they're 
 going to let a wild man run around loose on a transport, 
 do you ? Why, it would be a criminal imposition. You're 
 liable to hurt somebody. You'll be under a strong guard 
 all the way home. Corp. Kennedy and I are appointed 
 your keepers." 
 
 As I have said some half dozen times before, there was 
 no humor in Brown. The excruciating refinement of my 
 pleasantries were lost on him. In fact, Brown was dazed 
 and limp. His pipe dropped to the floor. 
 
 "I never thought of that !" he gasped. 
 
 "The captain has written to your parents concerning 
 your deplorable absence of mind, but we can " 
 
 "Wha-at?" roared Brown. He sat up erect, wild-eyed. 
 And I had been warned to spare him from all excite 
 ment. 
 
 "But you can write them that your mind is only tem 
 porarily webby, and and I'll sign the statement." 
 
 Brown looked at me with pitying scorn. 
 
 "Yes, and the folks will say the saddest thing about 
 it all is, the poor boy believes he is perfectly sane. And
 
 182 The Aberration of Private Brown. 
 
 I see a pathetic finish for Brown when the maid hears 
 about it oh !" 
 
 "Get leary, old man," I whispered, excitedly, at this 
 moment, "the boys are coming back." 
 
 Brown's derangement assumed a suicidal mania at 
 once. Corp. Kennedy was exhausted in the course of an 
 hour through his efforts to keep the patient from doing 
 himself bodily harm. 
 
 Now, the corporal was a conscientious man. It was 
 this trait, chiefly, which caused the troop commander to 
 put him in charge of Brown, the much deplored. It 
 would be a long story, indeed, to relate how the Porto 
 Rican children pointed to my poor friend, and then 
 touched their own foreheads, whispering to each other : 
 
 "Loco Americano soldato, loco." 
 
 It would be a long, sad story to tell how poor Brown 
 was confined in the rear smoking-room of the transport, 
 and how Corp. Kennedy insisted that either he or I must 
 be awake with the patient all the time. It was a burden 
 of peculiar and crushing weight for Brown to bear, when 
 the sick and discharged soldiers going back to the States 
 would peer through the loopholes of the smoking-room 
 and make remarks such as these : 
 
 "Why, he washes his face all right," or "It's a wonder 
 they don't keep him in a straitjacket," or "He's a savage- 
 looking lunatic," and others. 
 
 The conscientious manner, too, in which Corp. Ken 
 nedy did his duty, had an oppressive and unpacifiying ef 
 fect upon Brown, whose violent intervals occurred only
 
 The Aberration of Private Brown. 183 
 
 when the corporal was on guard. Violence seemed to 
 weary Brown on the transport, and he did not persist in 
 it, except when it was absolutely indispensable. At such 
 times the loopholes of the smoking-room would be 
 crowded with interested faces. 
 
 While the big transport was being shoved and locked in 
 pier 22, New York harbor, Kennedy was the busiest man 
 on the ship. A good soldier was Kennedy, and before 
 meeting his superiors at the army building he shaved and 
 donned his finest. I was told to keep Brown under heavy 
 guard until he returned. The corporal said he would 
 send a telegram to the patient's mother. 
 
 Passing over the manner in which the patient's dis 
 charge was obtained, only one more scene is necessary. 
 Brown braced himself for a last delirium. The corporal 
 must have no suspicion, at least while he was in the States. 
 
 "Allow me to wholly manage the matter," Kennedy 
 whispered to me, as the train rolled into Brown's native 
 burg. Our patient appeared placid. By the expression 
 upon his countenance one would imagine that he held 
 both of his keepers in serene disdain. 
 
 And a moment afterward Brown was in the arms of a 
 weeping mother. He talked irrelevantly; he smiled a 
 debilitated smile he was the Brown of illusions because 
 Corp. Kennedy was there. It was the bravest effort of 
 his life. 
 
 And a tall maiden with eyes dark and handsome, yet, 
 oh, so sad was also there ! Brown appeared not to see 
 her.
 
 184 The Aberration of Private Brown. 
 
 "It is with much sorrow, madam," Kennedy began. 
 His words were studied. I could hear no more. Some 
 how the face of that mother and the eyes of that tall maid 
 en made me feel giddy. 
 
 "Excuse me, miss," I began, "but I am Brown's bunkie, 
 and he was my best friend down there in Porto Ric " 
 
 I had planned to explain many things before the secret, 
 but the maiden's eyes told me that her heart was breaking. 
 She knew and felt the truth an instant later and her dark 
 eyes were sad no more. 
 
 "The corporal knows nothing," I concluded. "I will 
 get him away, then you tell the mother. Say to Brown 
 that I will see him to-night at 9. It was you, miss, that 
 sickened the boy of the service. The corporal will not be 
 with me to-night." 
 
 And the time came when I had to hasten away from 
 Brown's mother and Brown's sweetheart and Brown, be 
 cause if I had not they would have seen something in my 
 eyes something that would not have looked well in the 
 eyes of a big trooper. 
 
 And on the transport Corp. Kennedy pleased himself 
 with the thought of a difficult duty well done, and I 
 well, I smoked and dreamed and missed my old bunkie as 
 we neared the tropical shores and the mist-hung hills.
 
 The Last Cell to the Right,
 
 \
 
 THE LAST CELL TO THE RIGHT. 
 
 Nobody knew the real reason why Stanley was so hag 
 gard and white, when he came out from the Spanish 
 prison at Bayamon. He had served five days for missing 
 retreat. He certainly was not starved, because they fed 
 him as usual from troop rations. Yet Stanley was a dif 
 ferent cavalryman when he returned for duty. 
 
 Now, the best of troopers have done time in the guard 
 house. Some captains use the old Spanish prisons of 
 Porto Rico for guard-houses these days. There is one 
 in Manati, a high interior town, sixty miles from San 
 Juan. I had ten days against me when I was put in there. 
 Why? Well, that story has already been told. At any 
 rate, I only served seven. The other three days and many 
 more were in the hospital. It was what I saw which 
 shriveled up my nerve. 
 
 When the realization came to me that it was a physical 
 impossibility to dream away the whole ten days, I looked 
 about. The aspect was not an inspiration. I sat in a 
 small, stone-paved plaza, surrounded by cells, dark, dirty 
 and depressing. There was a well in the centre of the 
 prison yard, and when one walked across the flagging,
 
 190 The Last Cell to the Right. 
 
 his footsteps sounded with a cavernous reverberation in 
 the black water chamber below. The entrance to the plaza 
 was a big iron gate which was open in the daytime and 
 guarded by a Spanish policeman. At sunset the prisoners 
 were locked in the cells, and the plaza was left untenanted 
 save by stray ponies and pallid moon bars. It was in 
 one of those cells that Juan Tosta, the sweet singer of 
 the Great White Cliffs, sang mournful melodies and sick 
 ened Juan Tosta, once the dreadeJ brigand Black Stick. 
 Every one of those cells has been the abode of living 
 death. Men and women and babies have suffered there 
 in ways hardly conceivable to white people. Tad was born 
 in that last cell to the right, where the stocks are. Tad 
 studied me from head to foot when I first became his 
 fellow-convict. 
 
 He had the eyes of the wizened woman who crouched 
 at the door of the last cell. Three years before, without 
 a cry or sound, Tad had filled his lungs for the first time 
 filled them with the foul air of a prison. An old con 
 vict woman told me this. His arms were like any other 
 baby boy's, but if there was ever a voice in his throat 
 it had not yet been used. His head held some kind of a 
 brain. You could see that by his eyes, but Tad never 
 learned to smile. 
 
 A garment hung about the brown baby, and about the 
 garment hung the same odor which reached my nostrils, 
 when I ventured too close to the woman who sat at the 
 entrance of the last cell sat almost hidden behind her 
 gaunt knees. Her lips, her breastless figure never moved,
 
 The Last Cell to the Right. 191 
 
 but everywhere her eyes followed the baby. They were 
 filled with seeming- consciousness of that crime which 
 gave him life in a prison cell. They were bright with the 
 staring brightness of fever. Had they shone from a skull 
 wrapped in brown paper they would not have made you 
 shudder more. The father of the infant was never seen, 
 but day and night his moans were heard in the plaza. 
 
 There are men and women in Porto Rican prisons who 
 have committed no crime. When families can furnish no 
 home for themselves the province gives them a cell. At 
 1 1 o'clock each day the province also gives them a cupful 
 of clay-colored soup, the primary mystery of which no 
 soldier has yet solved. The province does not care if its 
 paupers obtain other articles of food. They are welcome 
 to anything which they can beg on the outside. But when 
 the life spark has become gray and chilled, as in the case 
 of Tad's mother and father so depleted that they crawl 
 with groans and great difficulty then they have nothing 
 but clay-colored soup to make their dying longer. In 
 deed, some paupers have been dying for years upon it. 
 This is a matter of no consequence to the province. 
 American paupers and soldiers have an enlightened habit 
 of eating three times a day. They are unlike the Porto 
 Rican in this respect. 
 
 One's bones need little food. When all one's muscles 
 are attenuated and dried into stiff, brown cords from eat 
 ing clay-colored soup, then one's stomach ceases its pain 
 ful gnawings at a vacuum. Tad's mother was like this. 
 His father was not yet in that condition. You could tell
 
 192 The Last Cell to the Right. 
 
 that by his moans. I observed all these things during the 
 first day. It tended to create within me an aversion for 
 government straits. 
 
 A woman walked slowly through the iron gate at the 
 prison entrance. She was smileless, hungry-eyed and 
 silent. A large tin can was balanced upon her head. 
 Her fleshless figure was marked with none of the curves 
 of a woman. Her feet were bare; her movements slow 
 and painful. Tad approached her. From a pocket in her 
 dress the woman produced a green orange natives eat 
 oranges while they are green in Porto Rico. Still silent 
 and smileless she handed it to Tad. 
 
 Over by the entrance to the last cell, the mother 
 crouched and stared. There was madness in her eyes, 
 but she did not move. The man moaned inside. At the 
 well the other woman slowly and painfully filled the can. 
 The descending chain made a weird, cavernous rumble, 
 as it beat against the slimy stone wall of the black water 
 vault. Kneeling upon the flaggings, she placed the can 
 upon her head and was gone. Tad poked his hand through 
 the rind of the orange and crept toward his mother. Her 
 eyes stared at him with an intensity I shall never forget. 
 I see those eyes to this day. They seemed to bring the 
 child to her. Suddenly her black skeleton hands shot for 
 ward toward the orange, but Tad eluded her. Still she 
 crouched motionless, but her mad eyes followed every 
 movement of the child. 
 
 "Cannot these people speak ?" I almost cried. My terror 
 was unaccountable. You will see life rank and naked in
 
 The Last Cell to the Right. 193 
 
 a Porto Rican prison. It is bared of all tinsel wrapping. 
 You will see how the slow suffering of hunger unappeased 
 depraves the human mind how one wolfish thought 
 creeps into it and stays. You will shudder in horror at 
 the sight. 
 
 At sunset the Spanish policeman locked my cell and 
 the others all save the last one to the right. The woman 
 was still huddled at the entrance, while the twilight was 
 deepening and the man moaned inside. I saw no more 
 of Tad that night. 
 
 Did you ever hear a cat step on dry, brittle leaves? 
 It is just such a sound as this which numerous cock 
 roaches make when they crawl across a stone floor. It 
 will keep you awake. If you are alone it will make you 
 sit erect, and things will become distorted in your mind. 
 Your eyelids will stretch wide apart. The darkness will 
 seem shadowy. There is always darkness where cock 
 roaches are. The shrill, snarling "peak, peak," of raven 
 ous rats can be borne, but the clicking rattle of cock 
 roach hordes is maddening. Behind shut lids you will 
 see black spiders dangling before your face. A strong 
 pipe will sooth you some. 
 
 I was glad when the ashy moonbeams darkened in the 
 plaza and the dawn settled down. The trooper who 
 brought breakfast over from the quarters said my face 
 was white. I could well believe it. As I lifted a can of 
 coffee my hand trembled. The sight of Tad sickened 
 me. I placed the tin plate of bacon and potatoes upon 
 the flagging and kicked it toward him. No sound reached
 
 194 The Last Cell to the Right. 
 
 me in the cell, where I disappeared for a moment. But 
 when I returned the plate was empty. Tad held a potato 
 in his two brown hands, and it struck me that he looked 
 significantly across the plaza at two convict women. His 
 mother's mad eyes were riveted upon him. The man 
 suffered inside. 
 
 Then the fleshless form of the water-woman swung 
 slowly in through the iron gate. She filled the big jar 
 and was gone silent and smileless as a spectre. My 
 nerves were twitching my head ached. It seemed as if 
 I were becoming dumb and inhuman like these natives. 
 Night must come again. The thought haunted me with 
 shuddering dread. I dared not tell any soldier what I 
 suffered lest he should laugh, having neither seen nor felt 
 what I had. The sameness of it all, the silent suffering 
 of the woman, the moanings of the man from the dark 
 ness, the filth, the vermin all tortured me. And every 
 hour of the growing day was a ruthless warning. 
 
 In the cavalry service men from the ranks have to bury 
 the dead horses and mules. I performed a ceremony once 
 in a hot country over the remains of a government mule, 
 four days gone from the glanders. I did not volunteer 
 for this duty. It was thrust upon me. I remembered that 
 task the second morning in Manati prison, when I admin 
 istered unto my little fellow-convict a scrubbing down 
 with government bouquet. 
 
 This was necessary. Not so much for the furtherance 
 of Tad's comfort as for my own. He was hourly de 
 creasing the interval between us. He seemed to like the
 
 The Last Cell to the Right. 195 
 
 American soldier. He was mightily attached to the white 
 potatoes of the American soldier. In order that I might 
 be comfortably chummy with the brown baby the duty 
 devolved upon me to give him a thorough grooming. 
 
 First I cut down an army undershirt into a sort of ulster 
 for my diminutive friend. He watched me soberly. He 
 still held part of the potato in his brown hands. His 
 face was smeared with it, the result of a peculiar process 
 of absorption. I then rolled up my sleeves, put a heavy 
 charge into my pipe, and recklessly cut off Tad's garment, 
 which was so crowded with associations. 
 
 Tad tolerated the idea. The soldier who gave him big, 
 white potatoes was entitled to some consideration. I had 
 often wondered why his slate-colored hair grew in 
 patches. I ascertained the reason. It must be imagined. 
 With a box of matches I succeeded in changing his for 
 mer garment into ashes. Tad was finishing the potato, 
 while I sweated for several reasons, the heat included. 
 With the most trying part of the task over I turned to the 
 soap and the brown baby. 
 
 Such a shock I received that moment can never be ade 
 quately expressed. From motives of charity and others 
 I had undertaken to scrub the child down. Well, all I 
 can say is that I did it very hurriedly and with averted 
 face. As a matter of fact, I beckoned to one of the con 
 vict women and made her finish the job. I gave direc 
 tions at a modest distance. Tad was allowed to dry in 
 the sun. SHE was as shiny and rosy after the operation 
 as only Porto Rican babies are. The mother, crouching
 
 196 The Last Cell to the Right. 
 
 at the entrance of the last cell to the right, viewed passing 
 events with eyes that silently raved. And the water- 
 woman strode silently in and was gone with her burden. 
 
 The little girl baby was my comrade after that. She 
 forgave the liberties I had so unintentionally taken. She 
 allowed me to trim her finger nails. Baby hands, even if 
 they are brown, are cute things and well worth studying. 
 All my efforts failed to bring forth from her a word, a 
 smile or a cry. 
 
 Dinner was brought over, and we sat down upon the 
 curbing of the well, Tad and I. The baby thrust her 
 fingers into the mess tin and drew forth a potato. I drank 
 coffee my stomach revolted at more. Suddenly some 
 thing crushed its way into my nostrils. Violently sick 
 ened, I looked about. The mother of the baby was upon 
 me. She had crawled from the cell door to my feet. 
 I placed the mess tin upon the flagging and fled to the far 
 end of the plaza. Tad sat on the well curb, busy with 
 the potato. The man in the cell moaned louder, and 
 drops of water from the brimming bucket fell into the 
 black tomb with a cadence deep and dreadful. 
 
 The bright day waned. The gloom in the cells deep 
 ened. The gaunt, smileless water-woman came no more. 
 Over in the troop quarters the first call for retreat sound 
 ed. The Spanish policeman stood at the door of my cell. 
 He smiled and beckoned. God only knows what I would 
 have given to answer retreat instead. I tried to smile, 
 but the impulse was strong- within me to strike him. The
 
 The Last Cell to the Right. 197 
 
 woman at the last cell moved her horrid eyes toward me 
 as I entered. 
 
 And so five days passed five days in which I became 
 aged and unmanned five days in which I atoned for all 
 my sins, past and to be. And all the while Tad became 
 more and more like a child which is fed, and tbe white 
 army shirt which she wore for a gown grew darker, like 
 the one which was ashes. And all the while the fleshless 
 water-woman swung in through the iron gate and car 
 ried her burden away. And the man was never silent, 
 and the mad-eyed mother changed not. 
 
 The sixth evening I clung to the trooper who brought 
 supper to me. I spoke no words only clung to him. 
 Fiercer than ever the temptation besought me to strike 
 the jailer down as he smiled and beckoned after the call 
 for retreat had sounded. I tried to sing, but my voice 
 was hoarse and broken. I could not smoke, for I had 
 not eaten. The darkness was moving with shadows. 
 
 I cannot tell the time it all happened. It is horrid for 
 me to think of it now. There was the scream of a child. 
 I never heard the voice before, but it was from Tad's 
 throat ! An instant later the black tomb below the flagging 
 was filled with cries but they did not last. I sprang to 
 the bars of my cell ere the sounds had ceased to vibrate 
 in the dark chamber. 
 
 And in the white moonbeams of the plaza I saw the 
 mother of the baby girl crawling slowly from the well 
 curb toward the entrance of the last cell to the right. 
 
 And that moment as I looked something snapped in my
 
 198 The Last Cell to the Right. 
 
 brain. During the many days which followed in the hos 
 pital I saw the gaunt, smileless woman filling her can at 
 the well. And often the black tomb below her would 
 vibrate with wailing echoes. 
 
 There is a small room in the troop headquarters now at 
 Manati which the captain ordered to be set apart for 
 military prisoners.
 
 The Fever's Fifth Man.
 
 THE FEVER'S FIFTH MAN. 
 
 Fogarty was the heaviest and most depraved man in the 
 troop. Moreover, he had the reddest face I ever saw with 
 one exception a man connected with political adjust 
 ments back in my native burg. Maybe I wrong Fogarty. 
 It depends upon the point of view from which one scans 
 depravity. Briefly, his faults were these : 
 
 He terrorized recruits. Following each pay-day, he 
 flirted with serpentine combinations until broke. He was 
 utterly devoid of reverence or moral conception. He 
 cursed incessantly, executing weird flourishes and intro 
 ducing innovations of the most nerve-shriveling nature. 
 Scientists would have called him a study of degeneracy. 
 Cavalrymen deemed him only superficially depraved be 
 cause he threw away money and loved his horse. Mint 
 Julep was the horse's name. 
 
 Now, I was a recruit and in Fogarty's squad. No man 
 or boy is a rational being during his first month 
 in the cavalry service. Veterans say their marked suc 
 cess in life is due to it or their failure. A recruit has 
 much to learn, but first of all he must overcome the 
 if-mama-could-only-see-me-now expression his face is
 
 204 The Fever's Fifth Man. 
 
 prone to assume. He learns that it is unprofitable to 
 expatiate upon the rich appointments of his residence far 
 away, and upon the princely salary he threw up. He 
 learns to grin while his trousers are sticking to his legs, 
 because they are chafed and bloody from bareback riding 
 in the bull-ring. He learns that the U. S. commissariat 
 does not supply pie", silken hose or scented pillows. He 
 learns the peculiar devilishness of Southern army camps in 
 sultry weather. He learns to eat flies and other strange 
 things and to eat them in vicious sunshine. He learns 
 what a terror the rainy season is for one who can't get 
 out of it for several reasons. He learns to chew holes 
 in his tongue when a superior officer calls him a dis 
 grace to his country and other expressive things. He 
 learns how insignificant it is possible for a human atom 
 to be. He learns to laugh at the whole business and write 
 home how strong and happy he is. 
 
 Some recruits never get rational. They take things 
 seriously. They mutter "God help me," and bad things 
 about wars and armies. 
 
 I enlisted about the time poems on the Maine became 
 unpopular. Fogarty applied a system of ghoulish torture 
 to make me miserable. I concluded that he was a cun 
 ningly-constructed object for my hatred, and that his heart 
 was packed in ice. What I concluded about army life in 
 general I kept to myself, thereby scoring a hit. 
 
 One evening I won a foot-race and found myself a 
 friend of Fogarty's. Old soldiers are fond of physical 
 demonstrations. He was in my set of fours in troop drill
 
 The Fever's Fifth Man. 205 
 
 the next morning. Naturally, my horse had it in for me, 
 because I was only a tilty, trembly recruit, and the bridle 
 did not fit. Several officers had already directed stereo 
 typed call-downs at me. The troop halted for a moment 
 while horsemen formed on our right. We stood at at 
 tention very properly all except Fogarty. To my be 
 wilderment he slipped down from his mount, deftly and 
 quickly tightened my bridle on both sides of the curb, 
 and stepped over his horse again, whispering: 
 
 "Give me a chew tobacco, Kid." 
 
 He had risked reprimand to do me a good turn, and 
 the ice packing which I pictured about his heart oozed 
 out of my mind forever. 
 
 We were on the skirmish line together, crawling up the 
 drenched hill in front of Santiag', Fogarty and I. We 
 beard the droning death-whistle which is thrown from 
 Mauser barrels, and saw the punctures which the whis 
 tling things made in roots and sand and in soldiers. We 
 turned our faces up when it rained, and gaped like lizards 
 do. We tried to cough out sand which caked in our 
 throats. We propped up our heads with empty can 
 teens when neck muscles collapsed. We burned our hands 
 on the barrels of our own carbines. Cartridge-belts burned 
 our waists. We did not mind any of these things. 
 
 We knew nothing felt nothing but the heat. It was 
 the sunshine that we cursed at huskily the terrible sun 
 of Cuba. It put a throbbing weight in our heads. It 
 made us laugh. It bound our limbs. It mixed the stifling 
 smoke of powder with the steaming, choking stench of the
 
 206 The Fever's Fifth Man. 
 
 ground. That stench, which the sun made, is fever. It 
 filled our stomachs, our lungs and our brains. 
 
 When the command "Rest" was heard along the firing 
 line, I used Fogarty's mess plate to pile up the sand in 
 front of me. Mine was thrown away. And when it was 
 night I smoked half of Fogarty's last pipeful, and after 
 that I rolled over on to half of Fogarty's blanket. Mine 
 was thrown away. 
 
 "Thank God, we didn't get punctured this day," I mut 
 tered. It was night, and silent about. The Red Cross 
 men were busy. 
 
 "I'm too tired to give a dam, Kid," said Fogarty. 
 
 A couple of days later I awoke in the morning feeling 
 stiff and tired. We were encamped about the city. At 
 noon my face burned and I did not answer mess call. 
 I wanted to sleep. At 4 o'clock Fogarty felt my cheeks. 
 
 "I'll tell the top-sergeant to let you pound the bunk 
 awhile longer," he said. 
 
 The next day I was in the hospital, feeling hot and 
 thirsty and hungry, all at once. The air in the hospital 
 tent was full of groans and the odor of drugs. It was 
 also stifling. The boys about me had felt the weight of 
 a locomotive concentrated into a Mauser rifle ball. To 
 me Fogarty said : 
 
 "Kid, you've got the fever." 
 
 After that I didn't see him for six weeks, because I 
 was sent back to the States on a hospital transport. I 
 had reached the furlough stage, which means that delirium 
 was over, and that my fever had flickered out, leaving
 
 The Fever's Fiftli Man. 207 
 
 only half of me and a disreputable appetite when Fo 
 garty came. I had no clothes to go on furlough with 
 nothing but a tattered shirt and a debilitated pair of cav 
 alry trousers ; and the worst of it was I could not get any. 
 
 It is not hard for me to recall the events of that night 
 when Fogarty came. I was watching the Red Cross men 
 unload a hospital train. A procession of stretchers was 
 passing from the cars to the fever-tents. Some of the sick 
 men had been forced to walk. Had I not seen others 
 staggering through the twilight, I would have said that 
 Fogarty was drunk again. He dragged a huge blanket 
 roll. 
 
 "Kid, where's the rest of you?" he questioned weakly. 
 
 I really embraced him that night Fogarty, the pro 
 fane, the red-faced. And when he told me that he had 
 brought along a bundle of my clothes from camp, I could 
 not speak, for my voice-cords were numb. I only whim 
 pered. Fever leaves one childish-weak, you know. 
 
 Fogarty had lugged along my things with his own 
 and he a sick man. He had remembered me after six 
 weeks remembered me, who was only a recruit. I tell 
 you, gentlemen, there are men in Uncle Sam's cavalry. 
 
 That night Fogarty stretched his great body out on a 
 mattress a real one for the first time in two months. 
 His feet protruded through the iron rods at the lower 
 end of the bedstead. 
 
 "Are those women going to be here ?" He pointed to a 
 couple of nurses. I nodded. 
 
 "Why, it's a cinch to have the fevers here, ain't it, Kid ?"
 
 208 The Fever's Fifth Mail. 
 
 His tongue was dry like it was on the Cuban hills that 
 day. A beam of the low, white moon looked in through 
 the flap of the tent and rested on Fogarty's hands. It 
 made them seem pallid, but his face was very hot and red. 
 
 An ugly fever is typhoid. It chars one's brain and 
 body with slow flame. It stretches the eyelids wide apart. 
 In the middle of the day it glows to a white heat. It turns 
 one into a helpless animal, that feels only an incurable 
 thirst and a craving stomach an animal that moans for 
 ice water when the nurse is busy wrapping up a dead man 
 in the next cot a staring-eyed animal that knows there 
 are such things as home and friends and death, but cares 
 not. Listlessly he watches a companion fall into that 
 chilled sleep. 
 
 Typhoid plays with four men and gets earnest with the 
 fifth fatally earnest. The moon was high when I left 
 Fogarty that night. 
 
 A couple of weeks later he looked at me hard one morn 
 ing. It was going badly with him. 
 
 "Why in the devil don't you go home?" he asked ten- 
 .lerly. It wasn't like the old Fogarty's voice. 
 
 "Haven't got a furlough yet," I said, lying. The papers 
 vvere eight days old already. "Haven't got a hat, either," 
 I continued. I had been wearing Fogarty's. Mine was 
 lost. 
 
 "Take care of this 'dough' for me, will you, Kid? I 
 didn't have time to blow a dam red. It gets my nerve 
 with this thirst."
 
 The Fever's Fifth Man. 209 
 
 He gave me his last month's pay. Fogarty was getting 
 hot, and the nurse pushed me away. 
 
 "Keep the hat you got on, Kid." 
 
 I could barely hear his voice. His face was not very 
 red now. How I wished he could see the pain inside 
 of me for him. "Keep the hat you got on, Kid. I'll get 
 another if I don't croak.'" 
 
 The doctor hung around Fogarty 's cot the next night. 
 The nurse had drawn a chair close to him. I held a lan 
 tern near. The rain clouds were venting themselves out 
 side. 
 
 ''Watch out for Mint Julep, Kid," mumbled poor Fo 
 garty. He was not looking at me. His eyes stared at the 
 sleeping flies on top of the tent. His eyelids were far 
 apart. 
 
 "They'll be good friends Julep and the Kid both 
 dam good fellows. . . . Nope not drinking a thing 
 sworn off ask the Kid. Oh, I forgot ; the Kid's gone 
 home to his mother got sick, you know nice little chap, 
 the Kid make a good soldier. Gone home way up 
 North to his mother." 
 
 The nurse fanned him. His eyes still stared at the 
 sleeping flies. The nurse knew then that Fogarty was 
 picked out for a fifth man. Silently she fanned him and 
 watched. 
 
 Not long after that Fogarty was mustered out of the 
 service. 
 
 And all this is to show how I peered under the veneer, 
 which environment made, and saw a great, warm heart.
 
 The Story of a Cavalry Horse,
 
 THE STORY OF A CAVALRY HORSE. 
 
 There was something of pathos in the high, clear 
 whinny which was borne across the meadows one sum 
 mer morning of years ago. A fancy black three-year-old, 
 trotting behind a shiny buckboard, picked up his ears 
 and answered his mother in the only way he knew. The 
 big man in the buckboard was a professional horse-buyer 
 for Uncle Sam's cavalry. 
 
 "Scream again, my young beauty, while you've got the 
 chance," the man said. "You'll soon be far away from 
 these meadows and the old lady over yonder who calls to 
 you." 
 
 The horse buyer looked back at the shapely gelding. 
 His experienced eye took in the wide-distended nostrils 
 with their crimson lining; the large, intelligent eyes as 
 dark and deep as a starless ocean. The man in the buck- 
 board saw again the easy grace of the colt's stride, the 
 power and elegance of his flat, thin limbs, the arched 
 beauty of his glossy neck and he chuckled at his bar 
 gain. Faint and far-away was heard the neigh of the 
 mother back in the meadows. The colt plunged a little, 
 whinnied nervously, and trotted on.
 
 214 The Story of a Cavalry Horse. 
 
 There are two kinds of recruits in the cavalry service 
 the horses and men. Both must be instructed in the pri 
 mary mysteries of drills and bugle-calls. Both suffer 
 during the first days, but gradually the unvarying system 
 becomes grafted into the very nature of the trooper and 
 his mount. They need only to be parted from the life for 
 a little while to learn how dearly they love it. Here is the 
 story of a wild, irresponsible colt, whose brain was full of 
 mother and meadow memories, and who became Sheri 
 dan, the pride of a Black Horse troop. In many ways it 
 is the story of any cavalry horse. 
 
 Long after he became the joy of his master and the 
 envy of every other cavalryman, Sheridan still remem 
 bered those dark, awful days in the corral. Every good 
 trooper knows that a horse can suffer mentally, and that 
 a colt is like a child, inasmuch as he does not forget his 
 mother and his first associations in a day. And when a 
 big cavalryman is seen to pet and cheer a lonely, tremb 
 ling stranger on the picket line, you can usually judge 
 that he is a good soldier and a man with a human heart. 
 
 There were many nervous youngsters in the corral 
 where the black three-year-old was turned loose. Many 
 of them snorted wildly and stood at bay when a man 
 approached. The pretty gelding with soft, jetty eyes 
 the little heart-hungry three-year-old was soon to learn 
 what made the other horses so wicked and fearful. 
 
 There was the curling swish of a lariat, a sickening jar 
 from the taut rope then the black gelding fell heavily to 
 the turf. One horseman sat upon the trembling animal's
 
 The Story of a Cavalry Horse. 215 
 
 head, and another pressed a biting, burning steel into the 
 glossy softness of his shoulder. For an eternity it seemed 
 to sizzle into the writhing flesh ; then again the red iron 
 was pressed against the tenderest skin under the mane. 
 After that there was weakness and nausea and the wounds 
 gradually healed into the mark by which every cavalry 
 horse can be distinguished. "U. S." is what the letters 
 read. 
 
 Then followed the week's ride to the regiment that 
 stifling ride in a freight car packed flank to flank so that 
 there would be no injury from the jolting of the train. 
 Oh, how the unhealed shoulders rubbed and burned! 
 The black gelding's limbs stung with weariness ; his 
 tongue was shrunken and dried from thirst, his whole 
 body craved for hay and grain. The tightening lariat, 
 the burning steel, the killing ride all helped to create 
 in the brute mind a lasting horror toward human kind 
 and wicked thoughts. Is it any wonder that some troop- 
 horses are painfully slow in giving their trust to the cav 
 alryman who grooms and cares for them? 
 
 But the glossy three-year-old was not ruined by the 
 suffering of those first days. Perhaps it was a perfect 
 balance of mind, which the old lady back in the meadows 
 had given him, which caused the black recruit to suffer 
 and be gentle still. There was wonderment and fear in 
 those great, dark eyes, but no sullen hatred lurked there. 
 The shapely youngster staggered out into the clear day 
 light, trembling for the events which another day might 
 bring, yet hoping for brighter things. A detachment of
 
 216 The Story of a Cavalry Horse. 
 
 boys in blue led him away to the Black Horse troop, and 
 his Jife in the cavalry service began with a deep, delicious 
 drink at the watering-trough and a nosebag full of fresh 
 grain. 
 
 Old cavalrymen are not always charitable to a recruit. 
 Old cavalry horses are never hospitable to a stranger on 
 the picket line. If placed at a distance, he is only re 
 garded with distrust ; if placed within reach of the heels of 
 the veteran chargers well, the stranger will kick back if 
 he is spunky enough. Friendships are mighty on a 
 picket line, but they are not molded in a day. 
 
 "Ah, you're a trim little black baby," said a tall trooper 
 close to the ear of the dark stranger the first night. His 
 words made the colt very happy. The cavalryman gently 
 slapped the glossy breast. "There is blood in your veins, 
 my little man ; and your eyes are as black and bright as 
 a squaw maiden's. Why, your chest sticks out like a 
 game chicken's! Quit breathing on my neck, young 
 ster. Don't you know that isn't polite? 
 
 "By jove, I like you, little black man! Do you sup 
 pose you're heavy enough to dance around the parade- 
 ground with a big fellow like me on your back ? If you 
 were mine, I'd have your black sides shining like a piece 
 of oiled silk in ten days. Whoever taught you to go nos 
 ing about a fellow's neck and ears? I suppose they 
 treated you pretty rough up there in the corral, but you 
 didn't lose your nerve, did you, kid? Why, you're as 
 gentle as a young girl with her big sister's first baby!
 
 The Story of a Cavalry Horse. 217 
 
 Guess we could serve out an enlistment pretty well to 
 gether." 
 
 It all came about that the new gelding was issued to the 
 tall trooper, and after that he was known as Sheridan in 
 the Black Horse troop. The first thing which any cav 
 alry horse learns is that a certain bugle-call sounds at 
 headquarters twice a day, and that it causes every cavalry 
 man to run for a filled nosebag. Then an officer shouts : 
 
 "Feed," after which the filled nosebag is strapped in the 
 proper place. Sheridan learned to whinny expectantly 
 with the others, when the feed-call sounded. But all the 
 calls and army movements were a perfect chaos in the 
 black recruit's brain at first. He wondered why he was 
 left behind in the morning when all other horses, save 
 sick ones, were saddled, formed into platoons and ridden 
 away. Sheridan tried hard to stand quietly when the 
 regulation saddle was first cinshed about him by the tall 
 trooper. He tried very hard to do the right thing and 
 keep his four feet near the turf, when the man mounted. 
 But there was spirit in the black recruit. He would be 
 come nervous, in spite of the reassuring whispers of the 
 big cavalryman, and he would plunge and fret when he 
 did not understand. 
 
 Gradually, however, Sheridan learned to feel the 
 thoughts of his gentle, patient rider. He learned to 
 wheel at the touch of a spurless heel. He learned to an 
 swer the weight of a -bridle-rein upon his neck, and from 
 the indefinable sameness of the many bugle commands, 
 there emerged familiar notes to the ears of the black
 
 218 The Story of a Cavalry Horse. 
 
 gelding. Like every other troop-horse, Sheridan's 
 nerves thrilled when the "dash" music burst with a scream 
 from the trumpet. 
 
 "Trot," calls the troop commander. The bugle re 
 peats it. A hundred dusty campaign hats are jerked 
 roughly downward. A hundred horses feel a tightening 
 bit. "Sherry" rears a little, but does not mar the beauty 
 of the line. 
 
 "Gallop," the bugle plays. The horses plunge high in 
 the ecstacy of anticipation. There is fiery crimson in 
 every wide-stretched nostril. Every trooper's face is 
 covered with dust and moisture. Every trooper's jaws 
 are shut like a vise, and every bridle-arm is as stiff as 
 steel. 
 
 "Draw! Saber!" Listen to the rattle of a hundred 
 lightened sheaths. Watch the sweep of a hundred flash 
 ing blades. The sun is playing with the sabers. The 
 points are held forward, shoulder high and horizontal. 
 
 "Charge !" Like an engine answers to an open throt 
 tle, the horses settle down. Flank to flank they leap for 
 ward. Madly the men yell. Stirrup touches stirrup. A 
 dust cloud follows. 
 
 "As fast as the slowest horse," the officers have often 
 warned. 
 
 There is no slowest horse ! It is a race a wild, strain 
 ing, exhilarating race. The horses bound low. The men 
 feel under them a moveless saddle. Not a head mars the 
 symmetry of the line. It is beautiful, with an awful 
 beauty this American cavalry dash !
 
 The Story of a Cavalry Horse. 219 
 
 Sheridan trembled for hours after it, even while the tall 
 trooper caressed him. 
 
 "Why, Sherry, your gait is a lullaby," the big cavalry 
 man would say. "You dash like a shooting star. You're 
 a born soldier, bright eyes, and the best horse in the 
 troop. . . . No, I haven't any sugar stowed away in 
 that shirt pocket, so you needn't nose for it. Maybe I 
 didn't know a good thing when I picked you out. What 
 have I ever done that you should knock my hat off with 
 your nose. Ah, you're a playful little darkey-joker !" 
 
 At the watering-trough Sheridan touched noses with 
 Poncho and made friends. Another day he walked close 
 to the heels of Rio Grande, a long, black-bodied charger, 
 and the latter did not even lower his ears. Again he was 
 tethered next to Cherokee on the picket line, and the two 
 became chummy. The black gelding was a troop-horse 
 now ; "one of the fanciest," who knew no life nor desired 
 to know no other than that of the cavalry. The whinny 
 which floated over the meadows that summer morning 
 long ago was only a misty memory. And all the while 
 there grew in the mind of the beautiful black a deeper, 
 truer affection for the tall trooper who groomed and 
 petted him. 
 
 But men come and go in every cavalry outfit the 
 horses seldom change. Old soldiers finish their terms of 
 enlistment, recruits come in. Sheridan, every inch for 
 the cavalry, lost his old master whom he loved. He was 
 sought after by each man in the troop and he tried 
 bravely and sorrowfully to become attached to his new
 
 22O The Story of a Cavalry Horse. 
 
 owner. ... At times one of his old friends would 
 be missed from the picket line and never seen again. Was 
 there to be an end to this breezy, beautiful life? 
 
 The sun of a Tampa summer faded the black gloss from 
 Sheridan's back, and every other animal in the Black- 
 Horse troop was hued like the shoulders of a preacher 3 
 old coat when that summer was ended. But Sherry was 
 mighty still. Not one of the six hundred horses with 
 stood better the horrors of the transport during an eleven 
 days' trip from the States to Ponce, Porto Rico. Where 
 the lower tier of horses were kept, the air was heavy with 
 death. The cavalrymen, half mad through weariness, 
 threw pails of salt water upon the drooping horses. The 
 eyes of the animals were filmy and half closed. Many 
 sank and moved not again until the hoisting gear raised 
 them up through the hatches, suspended them over the 
 vessel's side, and the rope was severed. And the cavalry 
 men, who loved their horses, watched them silently as 
 they dropped into the tropical sea. Troopers can live 
 through such a trip, and feel only achings in the head ; 
 but no horse has the vitality of his rider. 
 
 And Sheridan, no longer a four-year-old, climbed the 
 muddy hills of Porto Rico's interior, as strong of wind 
 and sure of foot as any native pony. Other horses choked 
 and died of pneumonia, caused by the endless rain, but 
 Sherry stood upon his feet in the daytime and whinnied 
 when the feed-call sounded. Sherry did not know that 
 his best days were spent. 
 
 At last there came a morning when many new horses
 
 The Story of a Cavalry Horse. 221 
 
 were brought to the troop headquarters. Something 
 pained pitilessly in the brain of the splendid old charger 
 when he saw his master studying and stroking the limbs 
 of those recruits. After that Sherry had no master. For 
 a little while he was used for recruits to practice upon. 
 
 "Old Sherry wouldn't hurt a baby," the first sergeant 
 would say to the embryo cavalryman. There were no 
 more pettings ; no more sugar during those last days in 
 Porto Rico, but deep down in the heart of the old black 
 gelding there was a hurting wound. The soft dark eyes 
 were wise and mild still, but at times they would seem to 
 fill with shame and sadness. 
 
 Sheridan could not keep back the weight which the 
 years brought, nor the stiffness which came from the 
 muddy Porto Rican hills. He thought more during those 
 long, rainy days of the mother who had called to him 
 from the far-away meadows. He longed for the first 
 trooper who had so patiently taught him to be a good 
 cavalry horse. Old Sherry drowsed and dreamed of the 
 campaigns when he was the pride of the Black Horse 
 troop poor old Sherry. 
 
 Then there came a sad, prophetic day. He learned 
 then what had become of his old friends, Buster, Chero 
 kee, Rio Grande, Poncho and Mint Julep. 
 
 Again there was the crushing weight of the tightened 
 lariat, the red iron and the nausea. "I. C." were the let 
 ters which slowly healed upon the shoulder of the old 
 troop-horse now. "Inspected and Condemned," is what 
 the letters mean. Back to the hated civilian the veteran
 
 222 The Story of a Cavalry Horse. 
 
 of the Black Horse troop must go. Sheridan was auc 
 tioned off for "what he would bring." Oh, the shame of 
 it! 
 
 No cavalry horses are ever brought back from Porto 
 Rico. A rich Spanish planter led the old black away 
 from the life he loved. Over the muddy hills was borne 
 the bugle call for feeding. Sheridan raised his head, 
 whinnied and looked back. The Spaniard pulled at the 
 halter, and the old troop-horse no longer obeyed as 
 he had always done. 
 
 There were only a few days more. The morning 
 dawned when Sherry did not regain his feet. His soft, 
 dark eyes seemed to linger upon other scenes. There 
 was something unreadable in their misty depths. His old 
 friends, the life and the trooper whom he had loved all 
 were gone. He would not touch grain. Even the 
 strength of the mighty Sheridan had left him. No cav 
 alryman stood by to hold that drooping head and to 
 cheer that breaking heart. . . . There was nothing 
 left but the ghost of the old black charger a ghost with 
 a broken heart. 
 
 But in the regulations it reads that old cavalry horse 
 must be condemned and sold "for what they will bring."
 
 A Soldier and a Man.
 
 A SOLDIER AND A MAN 
 
 A certain trooper riding through the poverty district 
 of Ciales with a main guard detail, glanced at a native 
 senorita whose features were pretty. Since the senorita 
 glanced back, the trooper smiled, as any other American 
 soldier would have done. It was only the smile of a 
 second on the part of the soldier, because there was some 
 thing about the face of the red maiden which was like 
 the scratch of a pin upon the naked nerve. The next 
 day when the main guard was relieved, if you had ques 
 tioned the cavalryman concerning the circumstance, he 
 would have remembered it with difficulty, because it made 
 no impression. 
 
 But the red maiden did not forget. At the moment, 
 the smile of the soldier was a thrill to her, and in the 
 night it became a dream, and the next day it was a mem 
 ory restless, imperious, passionate. 
 
 Her name was Eulalie. If she ever had another, she 
 did not remember it any more than she remembered who 
 her father and her mother were. Nor would she have 
 cared had not the other senoritas in the poverty district 
 reminded her day after day that her family was a name 
 less thing. Because the other senoritas were at least posi-
 
 228 A Soldier and a Man. 
 
 tive on the point of their mothers, they delighted in 
 nursing the torrid venom which was in Eulalie's nature, 
 through their indelicate suggestions. 
 
 There was another thing, however, which hurt her far 
 more cruelly than the biting words of her little red sister 
 maidens. It was the same thing which jarred upon the 
 nerves of the trooper, who rode by with the main guard. 
 And since the American cavalrymen had been quartered 
 in the old Spanish barracks at Ciales, where Eulalie 
 lived, she had truly learned the horrid pain which was 
 her misfortune. 
 
 There is majesty and ardor and romance in the dark 
 Spanish eyes of the Porto Rican senoritas, but their teeth 
 are imperfect, and this is because the rain-showered hills 
 of their native land are full of sugar and acid. The 
 sweetness is drawn up in the stalk of the cane and in the 
 shaft of the cocoa-palm, and the acid is absorbed by the 
 orange and lemon trees. The combination has spoiled 
 the smile of many a red maiden, and caused tooth-ache 
 remedies to rank next in importance to quinine in the 
 chests of the regimental surgeon-major. 
 
 When Eulalie was a very little girl there had come 
 to her a deeper affliction. She remembered very little 
 about it now hardly anything except that a dark-faced 
 fellow had struck her, and then kicked her afterward, 
 because the hand wbich he had used was bleeding. After 
 that there was a dark hole, where Eulalie's two front 
 teeth should have been. Perhaps the little red maiden 
 would never have cared had not the American cavalry-
 
 A Soldier and a Man. 229 
 
 men come to live in the old Spanish garrison, which was 
 only a little way from the poverty district where Eulalie 
 slept at night. 
 
 In truth, she might have married Manrique Robles, 
 the ox-driver, and lived in a little shack on the Manati 
 trail, but there was much of garlic about Manrique, and 
 much of ill-temper, as the scarred flanks of his steers 
 would testify. Besides, she had seen the big, white 
 cavalrymen who came from the Northland, and she hated 
 Manrique when she noticed how polite he was to them. 
 Besides, some of her red sister maidens had barkened 
 unto the strange language of these white horsemen, and 
 was it not whispered that the same maidens had parted 
 their lips for the kisses of the men who spoke this lan 
 guage ? 
 
 Indeed, she would not marry Manrique, for he was 
 very ugly and very black; and when the Manati fords 
 were high and impassable so that he could not go down 
 the trail with his ox-cart, there was always blended with 
 the garlic about him the odor of white rum, and then 
 Manrique was uglier than ever. 
 
 But would the big cavalrymen ever smile upon her? 
 Would she not become; if she refused to marry Man 
 rique would she not become like Mad Marie who slept 
 in the jail, and all day long staggered about the streets, 
 lugging a half-dead baby, and begging for centavos with 
 which to buy more rum begging forever? Would the 
 big cavalrymen ever smile at her, when she was so ugly 
 to look upon? Would not the other senoritas tell the
 
 230 A Soldier and a Man. 
 
 white soldiers that she was nameless? Oh, why was she 
 born so? Why did her sister maidens persecute her so? 
 
 "Ave Marie!" Eulalie would mutter despairingly when 
 her mind burned with all these thoughts. Even if she 
 did not know her mother, there was hunger in her heart 
 just the same. Even if she was without two front teeth, 
 there was ardor in her soul just the same. Yes, and there 
 was a rare softness in her cheeks, and little beauty tints 
 that were as faint as they were wonderful. And there 
 was a thrilling sadness in her great, dark, Spanish eyes, 
 and long lashes shaded these tropical gems lest they 
 should shine too brightly. And her hair Eulalie's hair 
 ah, it was as dusky as the night in a rayless Rio Grande 
 gorge, and it was as soft as ah, but there was nothing 
 so soft as Eulalie's hair ! 
 
 But Eulalie knew only that she was nameless, and that 
 she was ugly when her red lips were parted, for the 
 other senoritas did not tell her more than this. And 
 after the big, white cavalrymen came, every day she 
 cared less for Manrique, and every day she hated herself 
 more, because the soldiers laughed and made love to the 
 other senoritas, but did not come near her. When the 
 moon-beams whitened the hard clay of the plaza, the 
 soldiers strolled up and down, and in low tones they 
 repeated all the Spanish words they knew into the ears 
 of the other little red maidens; but Eulalie was alone, 
 except for when Manrique was very persistent. 
 
 And at last the great day came, when the trooper rode 
 through the poverty district with the main guard detail
 
 A Soldier and a Man. 231 
 
 and smiled for a single, memorable, rapturous second 
 and was gone. 
 
 Trooper Arden was respected, if not understood. And 
 let it be known that a private soldier is not respected 
 by his fellows without reason. Trooper Arden won the 
 regard of the other troopers in seven minutes, on the 
 hurricane deck of a transport, the second day out from 
 Savannah. 
 
 When one writes that Corporal Carey was a good sol 
 dier, it does not necessarily imply that he was a good 
 fellow; but nobody ever said that the corporal wasn't 
 game to the backbone. Anyway, the corporal was Irish 
 and proud of the force in his fists. In fact, the whole 
 troop was proud of Carey, just the same as it would 
 be proud of owning the fastest horse in a regiment. 
 Trooper Arden sacrificed Corporal Carey, and thereby 
 attained the respect of his fellows. It was legitimate, 
 and this way: 
 
 "Oi could lave you fur dead in tirty seconds," said 
 the corporal, on the hurricane deck, and the crowd 
 lounged closer. 
 
 "If I should fight you," Arden replied quietly, "I would 
 be court-martialed for hitting an officer." 
 
 "The nerve av him !" jeered the corporal. "If Oi win, 
 Oi'm an officer if Oi lose, Oi'm a man, and a scrubby 
 little wart at that." 
 
 "Then I'll fight you," said Arden wearily, tossing away 
 a cigarette.
 
 232 A Soldier and a Man. 
 
 In the forward hold of the transport, a temporary 
 hospital had been fitted up. Corporal Carey dragged 
 himself thither twice daily during the remainder of the 
 voyage. And so it was that one soldier gained respect 
 for himself. 
 
 But Trooper Arden was not understood. He ate less, 
 slept less, and talked less than any other man in the 
 troop. Six out of every eleven regular soldiers smoke 
 cigarettes. Arden smoked more than any two men in 
 the outfit. For supper he would invariably draw double 
 rations of coffee. When taps sounded and the lights 
 were ordered out, the cups untouched might be seen on 
 the box beside his bunk. At reveille in the morning the 
 cups were still there, but they were empty. If you were 
 in the same squad with Arden, and you happened to wake 
 up in the middle of the night, you would be apt to see 
 the face of the trooper glowing behind a cigarette. He 
 never seemed tired, never missed a call, never complained, 
 never swore all of which was unsoldierly. 
 
 He was lean, dark, and without fear. By his face you 
 would not know whether he had been a preacher or a 
 gambler before his enlistment. He was nervous, but not 
 irritable ; reserved, but not impolite ; educated, but a good 
 fellow still. On pay-days he gambled. He lost cheer 
 fully, but seldom. He won carelessly. He drank, but 
 you would never know it unless you happened to see 
 him. Arden was a mystery a mystery with a grudge 
 against himself. Perhaps it was his other life that made 
 him so.
 
 A Soldier and a Man. 233 
 
 It was Trooper Arden who smiled at Eulalie and 
 turned his head away so quickly, while riding with the 
 main guard that morning. In an hour later he had for 
 gotten. His horse was Palto, the unkillable, whose tem 
 per was as rocky as his sinews were tough Palto, the 
 six-year-old, who alone kept his appetite during the 
 eleven-day transport horror, and who kicked out of pure 
 joy every time a nose-bag was strapped over his white 
 face. Palto had a habit of kicking promiscuously, any 
 way. He also bit with abandon, but he was solid with 
 Trooper Arden. 
 
 Only one thing beside the trooper's smile did Eulalie, 
 the little red maiden, remember the next day; and, 
 strangely enough, this one thing was that the horse 
 which her soldier had ridden was possessed of a white 
 face. 
 
 And that evening just after retreat, Arden walked 
 down to the stables just to be alone, and in the twilight 
 he saw queer things. 
 
 It was quite dark under the canvas of the stables, and 
 as Arden strolled nearer, he heard sounds soft and low 
 the sound of words which were strangely sweet. The 
 trooper paused and watched, rolling a cigarette mean 
 while. The troop horses were grinding at their oats 
 and snorting the dust of the dry hay from their nostrils. 
 . . . Surely, here was something wonderful ! Was 
 there not some one standing close to the white face of 
 Palto, the unkillable? 
 
 Yes, and it was a girlish form, and her head was snug-
 
 234 A Soldier and a Man. 
 
 gled closely into the mane of Palto, the white-faced. 
 And, Carainba! The brute Palto was as gentle as the 
 girl herself ! Trooper Arden crept closer. The cigarette 
 remained nnlit in his lips. Far up the trail the great 
 white cliffs were monstrous gray and gloomy, standing 
 out against the purple of evening. Beyond the stars were 
 growing and whitening. A bunch of cavalrymen in the 
 plaza were singing a song of the Northland. 
 
 "Buenos nochas, senorita," Trooper Arden said softly. 
 He looked like a different fellow when he smiled as he 
 did that moment. 
 
 Eulalie turned. The cavalryman could not see the ter 
 ror that was in her great, dark eyes. Slowly he ap 
 proached and placed his hand gently upon her arm. With 
 the other he rubbed the forehead of Palto, the unkillable, 
 talking softly all the while. And gradually there crept 
 into the soul of the little red maiden a joy which was 
 great and new. There was no need to fear, for had not 
 the big soldier smiled? After a little while Eulalie 
 pressed her lips to the soft muzzle of the troop horse; 
 and strangely enough Palto, of reputations numerously 
 bad, seemed to like it. 
 
 And Trooper Arden smiled again, and walked out to 
 ward the forage-tent, while Eulalie followed. Standing 
 there in the fading twilight, an impulse came to the sol 
 dier an impulse which he had long thought was dead 
 within him. He kissed the little red maiden. 
 
 There was something about that kiss which made the 
 trooper reflect. Perhaps his thoughts concerned some
 
 A Soldier and a Man. 235 
 
 other woman whom he knew before he became an atom 
 in the great blue mass of Uncle Sam's horsemen. Per 
 haps but that would be irrelevant! In a moment more 
 he was the man with a grudge against himself, and he 
 uttered this exclamation: 
 
 "Ba-ah!" 
 
 Eulalie shuddered slightly, though she did not under 
 stand. Arden grasped her arm softly as if in apology, 
 and the two walked out of the corral toward the trail. 
 As they passed a clump of low palms, a native emerged. 
 Unconsciously Eulalie shrank closer to the soldier. A 
 second afterward she turned and saw a look upon the 
 native's face which caused her to shudder again. And 
 this time she understood. The native was Manrique, the 
 ox-driver, and he had bowed with abject courtesy to the 
 soldier. 
 
 A little later Trooper Arden sank down upon his bunk 
 to smoke and think, and Eulalie hastened away toward 
 the poverty district, where her home was. Ah, but she 
 was a very happy little red maiden that hour! The sol 
 diers were still lounging and humming in the plaza, for 
 taps had not yet sounded. Mad Marie, who begged eter 
 nally for the centavos, had attained a state of melancholy 
 inebriation by this time, and was howling in a maudlin 
 monotone in front of the quarters. A couple of native 
 policemen dragged her into the jail, which was also a 
 poor-house, and the soldiers, watching, laughed among 
 themselves. Her child was silent in the woman's arms. 
 
 After taps sounded one might have seen Manrique, the
 
 236 A Soldier and a Man. 
 
 ox-driver, drinking white rum in the cafe. His face was 
 not pleasant to look upon. And when the cafe was closed 
 and he could stay no longer, Manrique staggered over to 
 the poverty district of the town and paused in front of 
 one of the shacks. Loudly he kicked the bolted door. 
 There was no reply, and he kicked again and a third time. 
 Then he staggered away toward his own shack on the 
 Manati trail. And as he went, Manrique cursed in a 
 strange tongue. 
 
 Everywhere about him was the black shade of a moon 
 less tropical night, and everywhere above him was the 
 white glory of the tropical stars. 
 
 ******** 
 
 "What in the devil do you call that beast Talto' 
 for?" whispered a trooper standing next to Arden at 
 grooming-time the next morning. 
 
 Any soldier knows that no talking is allowed at groom 
 ing. That is why the man next to Arden whispered his 
 question. Palto, the unkillable, had just damaged the 
 hide of the troop horse nearest. At regular intervals the 
 white-faced was facetious, and he invariably vented it 
 in this manner on any live thing which happened to 
 be near, so long as it was not Trooper Arden. The latter 
 eyed the other soldier curiously for a second, and then an 
 swered the question in this manner: 
 
 "A woman I used to know back in the States had a 
 habit of calling her dog Talto.' " 
 
 The soldier who asked the question grinned forbear-
 
 A Soldier and a Man. 237 
 
 ingly, said nothing further, and arrived at this conclu 
 sion: 
 
 "Arden is a soldier because some white woman threw 
 him down. He is eating his heart out because he landed 
 hard and cannot forget." 
 
 The conjecture was a safe one, but the soldier did not 
 guess that the dog which the woman had called "Palto" 
 and the trooper who smoked cigarettes and drank black 
 coffee while other troopers slept, were both embodied in 
 the one being, who was scrubbing the mud of Porto 
 Rican hills from the hocks of the white-faced. 
 
 "Cease grooming!" shouted the top-sergeant. The 
 features of Trooper Arden were a study of grimness as 
 he walked up the trail toward the quarters. That even 
 ing Arden smiled for the first time in twenty-four hours 
 when he saw Eulalie cuddling cosily into the mane of his 
 very bad and very bossy troop horse. The unkillable 
 revealed a forbearance which was startling and unutter 
 able. A half hour later when the man and the maiden 
 walked out of the corral toward the trail, Palto whinnied 
 a farewell like the soldier and gentleman he was. 
 
 "Adios," smiled back the little red maiden, but Palto 
 did not notice since he had just unjointed several lengths 
 of aft quarters, and landed a scientific double hook 
 against the high-sounding ribs of his neighbor. The sole 
 offence of the neighbor was that he came within reach. 
 Palto always insisted upon having an ample share of the 
 picket line. 
 
 No Spanish words were spoken as the two walked
 
 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-
 
 A Soldier and a Man. 239 
 
 can would have done. And Eulalie, in the greatness of 
 her joy, smiled; but it was so dark that the cavalryman 
 did not see what caused him to turn his eyes away so 
 quickly as he rode with the main guard detail that first 
 day. 
 
 Manrique, the ox-driver, skulked in the darkness and 
 brooded, and Mad Marie was noisy up by the quarters. 
 
 After taps sounded, Trooper Arden was alone with his 
 black coffee, his cigarettes and his thoughts. It was 
 late that night before Manrique shuffled into his shack 
 on the Manati trail, and the next day his steers suffered. 
 
 In the evenings which followed, Palto, the unkillable, 
 welcomed his master and the maiden down at the stables ; 
 and often in dark places the soldier saw a native follow 
 ing him strangely. The face of the native was sinister, 
 even when he saluted abjectly, but Arden did not care 
 to understand. 
 
 One day when he was doing a guard in the poverty dis 
 trict, Eulalie watched him shyly frcm the door-way of her 
 shack. A group of senoritas strolling up and down in 
 the sunshine paused to remind Eulalie that her family 
 was nameless. The trooper pacing his post understood 
 the Spanish words which were repeated by the senoritas, 
 and he caught the significance of the manner in which 
 they were uttered. One of the red maidens showed her 
 teeth, and then pointed to the face of Eulalie, after which 
 all the red maidens laughed loudly. Eulalie grew gray 
 with shame and fled from sight. The trooper understood
 
 240 A Soldier and a Man. 
 
 all these things, and he was very thoughtful as he paced 
 up and down. 
 
 In truth, he had lived his life. He was only a soldier 
 now. He feared nothing, not even himself. He did not 
 fear Fate. Why should he since Fate had done its very 
 worst by him? . . . Still he could pity! And that 
 evening down at the stables poor Eulalie forgot all her 
 woes, because the soldier smiled often ; and while he was 
 near her the hunger went out from her heart. A great 
 and good thing is pity. Manrique, the ox-driver, knew 
 it not as he watched the man and the maiden from a 
 shadow. 
 
 One morning a few minutes after reveille, the troopers 
 lounging in front of the cavalry quarters stood erect and 
 yelled. The pay-master with a volunteer guard was ap 
 proaching on the Manati trail. That night the bunks 
 were changed into gaming tables, and many bottles of 
 white rum were sold at the cafe, and much money changed 
 hands. 
 
 Trooper Arden could not lose that night, but the sol 
 diers who sat with him could; and if it ever occurred 
 to them that Arden was "working a system," they did 
 not say so, for Arden was a respected man in the troop. 
 It seemed that night as if Fate were trying to palliate 
 the harshness of her former dealings with this man. His 
 pile grew big, but by his aspect you would have imagined 
 that he was losing steadily. He was the same mystery. 
 
 One by one the losers made resolutions for the next 
 pay-day, and dropped out of the game. And when there
 
 A Soldier and a Man. 241 
 
 was no more playing, Trooper Arden gathered up the 
 deniro Americano^ which had come his way, handed it 
 uncounted to the first sergeant to keep, and walked out 
 of the quarters. As he neared the plaza somebody crept 
 out of the shadow and followed him unsteadily but 
 
 silently. 
 
 ******** 
 
 "He's a wizard," observed one trooper, when Arden 
 was no longer present. 
 
 "He has soaked up a couple or three hundred this 
 night," said another. 
 
 "And there is suicide stamped all over his face," re 
 marked a third. 
 
 "He's the best soldier in the bunch of you," growled 
 the sergeant of the squad. 
 
 "And he can make any two av ye sleep the sleep av 
 an innacint baby-girl wid the fists av him." 
 
 This last came from Corporal Carey, and it came with 
 decision. At this moment the stable guard dashed into 
 the room. 
 
 "Some greaser has cut Arden in the back ! He says 
 it's only a scratch, but he can't stand. Come on, you fel 
 lows grab those lanterns !" 
 
 The squad-room was deserted in a second, and a half- 
 dozen troopers were double-timing it for the stables. 
 Arden was lying upon the ground with his head against 
 a bale of hay. 
 
 "It's only a little puncture," he said, quite evenly. 
 . . . "Say, corporal, reach those cigarette papers from
 
 242 A Soldier and a Man. 
 
 my left-hand pocket. I can't work this hand. Oh, I'll 
 roll it myself gracias muchas! . . . Give me a light, 
 please." 
 
 "Tell me what you know," demanded the first sergeant, 
 striding up. 
 
 "The black boy who struck me didn't do a good job 
 I know that! ... I was standing at Palto's head 
 telling him a little love story. All at once the brute sniffed 
 and struck at something over my shoulder. Just at that 
 moment I felt the scratch, and a native ducked under the 
 picket-line and dashed toward the trail. Palto took a shot 
 at the fellow passing, but he didn't land " 
 
 A streak of pallor from the lantern rested upon the 
 fallen trooper's face. The first sergeant had two other 
 questions to ask. He wanted to know if Arden was sure 
 it was a native who knifed him. He would not have 
 thought such a thing if it had not been for the pay-day 
 and the winnings. He desired to know also if Trooper 
 Arden had seen the face of the man with the knife. But 
 the whiteness of the soldier's features caused the first 
 sergeant to remain silent, and his thoughts made htm 
 look very stern. He detailed an extra guard for the 
 stables, and ordered four privates to carry the wounded 
 man up to the quarters. Then he walked up and down 
 in the darkness. 
 
 That night when the troop surgeon returned to the offi 
 cers' quarters after attending the wound of Private Ar 
 den, he remarked to the troop commander: 
 
 "That fellow Arden is positively without feeling. He
 
 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." 
 
 "It 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;
 
 244 A Soldier and a Man. 
 
 she did not hear them. The other red maidens scoffed 
 at her; Eulalie heeded them not. A native fruit vender 
 standing all day at the corner of the plaza saw that she 
 ate nothing. He tossed a couple of bananas in her direc 
 tion. She carried the fruit for hours in her hand, not 
 knowing that it was there. She lived for nothing save 
 for the smile of her soldier. She remembered nothing 
 save that he had kissed her! 
 
 And all the while Trooper Arden suffered (though 
 you would have to see his wound to know it), and he 
 watched the little red maiden and rolled cigarettes with 
 his good hand and wondered. In truth, life held no joy 
 for him. Sometimes he felt sorry that Palto, the white- 
 faced, had spoiled the work of the knife. He could not 
 help it, if it were his nature to despair silently, smilingly, 
 because he was not the light of one white woman's eyes. 
 No, he could not help that, but he could see every minute 
 in the day a woman's soul through the eyes that watched 
 him from the door-way of the garrison. Trooper Arden 
 could see a woman's soul with all its ardor, hope, desire 
 and despair. He could not love no, because to him the 
 past was eternal, since it held a deathless memory. . . . 
 Still, he could pity! 
 
 And so days grew and became a part of that which is 
 gone ; and in none of them was Manrique, the ox-driver, 
 seen in the Ciales cafe or in the town ; but many times 
 the Manati torrent laved the blood from the flanks of his 
 steers as they breasted the fords. And all the while Eu 
 lalie watched her soldier from the door-way.
 
 A Soldier and a Man. 245 
 
 At last the night came when Trooper Arden muttered 
 many strange things and forgot to smoke. The troop 
 surgeon looked at the soldier's wound, and in the same 
 breath he cursed the tropics. He wondered what the 
 patient meant in mumbling continually about a dog whose 
 name was "Palto," but the soldiers who stood near 
 thought that their fellow was dreaming of his white-faced 
 troop horse. 
 
 ******** 
 
 If you ever get a bad cut while you are in the tropics, 
 set your face toward the north at once. If you are a sol 
 dier, and your troop commander does not advise you to 
 take a furlough, he is either heartless or inexperienced. 
 Flesh wounds do not heal on white men or horses in the 
 tropics. All troop commanders and surgeons know this 
 now, but they didn't know it in Arden's outfit until the 
 night that the patient mumbled incoherently and ceased 
 smoking cigarettes. And when the bit of knowledge was 
 forcibly thrust upon the troop surgeon, he cursed the 
 tropics, instead of himself. At the same time, he did 
 not think that the patient was in a fit condition to be 
 moved now. 
 
 The next morning Trooper Arden opened his eyes, and 
 wondered how he had happened to sleep so long. He 
 would have moved his head, but there was something 
 wrong with the muscles of his neck. He rolled a cigar 
 ette with his right hand, and the room orderly struck a 
 match for him. The troop surgeon entered at this mo 
 ment.
 
 246 A Soldier and a Man. 
 
 "Do you want to go up north ?" the doctor asked. 
 
 Arden spoke no word for several seconds. Then he 
 turned his eyes toward the door-way. He saw Eulalie, 
 the little red maiden. He saw, too, the agony and the 
 prayer which was in her great, dark, Spanish eyes. Then 
 he said to the troop surgeon : 
 
 "I don't know of any one who is pining for me back 
 in the States. . . . No, I don't want to go up 
 north!" 
 
 An hour later the first sergeant entered the squad-room. 
 Arden eyed him thoughtfully for a moment and then said : 
 
 "I would be very glad, sergeant, if you would give 
 me that bunch of money that I left with you the other 
 night." 
 
 The non-commissioned officer brought him the win 
 nings. 
 
 "Thank you, sergeant," Arden resumed. "Could I see 
 the chaplain this morning?" 
 
 Eulalie was at the door-way, and a few minutes after 
 ward the godly man of the regiment was brought to the 
 wounded trooper's bedside. For a time he listened to 
 low-spoken words from the man in the bunk, after which 
 Eulalie was also brought to the trooper's bedside. And 
 gradually there came to her the mighty realization that 
 she was no longer nameless, for did not the interpreter 
 tell her so in her own tongue? And she was allowed to 
 kiss the white soldier, but why why was this money 
 this fortune placed in her hands by the chaplain? 
 She would die for the smiles of the white soldier but
 
 A Soldier and a Man. 247 
 
 his money his name . . . The great, dark eyes of 
 the red maiden were stretched wide apart, and the prayer 
 was still in them ! 
 
 Trooper Arden seemed very weary. He was not to 
 blame because his nature could do nothing but pity now. 
 He had not meant to trifle with Eulalie. He knew the 
 human harshness of that ah, so well he knew it! But 
 he had kissed the little red maiden. It was only one of 
 the mistakes of which his life was made. He sighed, 
 for he was very weary. He asked a trooper near him 
 for a cigarette, because Eulalie was holding fast to the 
 one hand which he could use. He was glad that he could 
 even pity! 
 
 And this was the man whom a woman of the Northland 
 had called Palto, and sent away to be a soldier. 
 
 On a night not long afterward Eulalie, the little red 
 maiden, was seen passing by the cavalry quarters at 
 Ciales. Mad Marie was wailing mournfully in the street, 
 and her child was silent in her arms. In one of the squad- 
 rooms Corporal Carey was telling the other troopers 
 what a great fellow Trooper Arden had been. Eulalie 
 passed by a group of senoritas in the plaza. They no 
 longer called her nameless. 
 
 Down at the stables Palto, the unkillable, whinnied a 
 greeting to the little red maiden as she approached, and 
 he held his head very still when Eulalie buried her face 
 in his mane. Taps sounded up in the quarters, and still 
 the form stood close to the white face of the troop horse. 
 After the stable guard was relieved at midnight, Eulalie
 
 248 A Soldier and a Man. 
 
 walked stealthily down the Manati trail toward the shack 
 of Manrique, the ox-driver. 
 
 Moment after moment passed as she listened in the 
 darkness by the door-way. And at last she crept in as 
 silently as her shadow on the threshold as silently as 
 fell the starbeams, which were everywhere ! 
 
 And the next day, and in the days which followed, the 
 steers of Manrique, the driver, browsed unyoked on the 
 Porto Rican hills and fattened. 
 
 THE END.
 
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