The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1901-07-18

And so, from the dear old garden not a
flower 1 take away,
But leave them all to be gathered by the
hands that are dust today.
-Ebcn r. Rexford. In the National.
-s-e->
PALS"
Story Of the Ranks-By c. f. weigal.
By their fruits shall We know them
Still to ourselves in every place consigned,
Our own felicity we may make or find.
He lay on his bed-cot and looked at
the stars through a chink in the roof
between windows and canvas.
1t was a very hot night, of that
GREATNESS, lurid deadness that makes
a Malta summer WEAKNESS Of the
flesh. Inside his tent thirteen sturdy
souls were snoring, under their brown
blankets, the sleep of the just but the
fourteenth, Gunner Amherst, had been
awake since Lights OUT and sleep
would prbably not visit his eyes at all
until the little bugler sounded reveiile
from the Guardroom steps at Tigne
fort
He was thinking, and perhaps there
was some excuse for the deep concen-
tration necessary for such purpose,
for Amherst did not often indulge in an
art so purely imaginative.
The tramp of the sentry up and down
across the square on his eternal round,
the sob of the tide under the sheer cliff,
the call of a distant siren from ship
in the grand harbor, were the only
sounds that broke the stiffness Of the
night
In the daytime Gunner Amherst had
no time for thought. Drills and IA
tigues, drinks in the canteen, cricket or
football, as the season might allow;
bathing, a further pint in the canteen
with a chum, and then Last post"
did not leave much time in which a
man might develop original traits or
even a habit of thought, for in his set
the readingroom was not the fashion.
His face was puckered into frown
that marred the usual good temper of
it's daredevil expression. He had
something on his mind, and that some
thing led him at last to rise from his
bed-cot, and don the few clothes nee
essary to decency, quietly tip toeing
at last out of the terri.
Keeping in the shadow Of the build
ings, away from earshot Of the sentry,
he skirted the camp till he came out
beyond the gray walls Of the fort above
the sea. There he sat him down among
the short sunburnt stubble and sand,
and barred his great chest to the cool
night wind of heaven that blew from
the dread sirocco quarter.
''Lord!" he said, I'm battlin' it out,
but don't come anigh the end of 1T.
II Jem takes the stripe, it's splits be-
tween him and me; there's too many
alf-quarterns-or the end on EN-
down agen me, to see me bloomin
Bombardier. Now Jemll go mashir'
about with N. c. O.'s, and mayn't look
at an old pal, and as to speakin' to me
friendly like, why, it's all dWn in the
regulations, as there's great gulf be-
tween them and the likes of US, me in
| particular, as one as as as many
things down on my defaulter's sheet
as shouldn't be there. We've been
friends since the first day e joined
m AN me together-rookies as didn't
know a gun from pea-stick. It was
always the same afore we Joined, at
'on1e in the old place. If there was a
! Through to be plowed, Jem always
took first prize, though I might run
the show pretty nigh; or a piece to be
sung at the harvest-home, or a holi-
day making, when there was choice
Of any one to go, Jem was always
! chosen. But l was never one to feel
i jealous like. Same as when e went off
4 with my gal, Molly Maloney-'oo could
feel jealous of Jem ~
Amherst paused moment and gazed
at the sky, crisped into points of vel
| low stars. The wash of the sea had
made him melancholy, perhaps as he
was out of sorts. That one last glass
of beer the night before in the cam
teen had been too much for "Old Dew
il-may-care as his companions called
/ him. He leaned up against a gray
roc: bowlder, and tore up tussock Of
grass.
"A. N. C. o. mayn't speak to a or
binary gunner when e pals with the
other lot O. Sarjints and their belong
4 ings. Don't know as pants to do ,iiist,
/ though! If it was me, / don't think
as 'ow I'd ever chuck a pal and yet
there's a deal O. pleasure in being
looked up to; not as any one'll ever
/ look up to me-I'm bit of a waster.'
4 y There was a suspicious moisture in
the eyes of this .'bit of a waster." He
was not in the least a romantic figure.
4 His good-looking face had not the alert
1 expression of influencing power that
belongs to the born non-commissioned
officer Of the British army. His cloth
4 Ing, too, was unromantic, consisting OF
vest, hung on anyhow, his feet thrust
into broken canvas bathing shoes.
He was reused by quick step on the
i grass behind him, and started at once
into defiant life again. Tears would
be a lasting disgrace il discovered, and
he became merely motionless gun
ner, looking out with stiff intentness al
Il Tie 1aT5 IdlIlt line OI the SlCllan coast
4 .Davy! Whatever are you doing
here?'.
4 It was the old name. Familiarity spo-
4 ken. No one ever called him Dayy
4 now. To his superiors he was simply 8
bad lot, though a good all-round atl1-
i 1ete;; and to his companions, fellow
who could crack a good tale, and pu,
away more beer than any othera fell
low, too. whose one stupendous folly
4 was being too chummy with mar
i who was on the roll for promotion, !
man who loved the reading room, an6
! who was In the choir at the little sar.
rison chapel, and IN high favor witt
the powers that be.
Yes, Jem, he said glibly, Il wa.
h just 'avin, bit of a toddle the ten
seemed chokey like. ] should think a,
Il the thermometer must be about
hundred in there 81
Aye, said Jen, laconically, II sees
you pass. was standfn, at the door o
No. Is hut. and I thought as 'ow III
come and see what you was up to. :. ssI
You might get into a row, y returned