The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1901-07-03

The promise was from his heart He
would have endured any indignity, any
outrage rather than have drawn into
ruin, through him. the fiery, fearless,
untutored lives Of the men who
marched. and slept, and rode, and
fought and lay in the light of the
picket fires, and swept down through
the hot sandstornas on to the desert
foe by bis side. Cigarette stretched
out her hand to him stretched it out
with a frank, winning, chiId1ike. sol
dierlike grace.
That's right! You are true sol
der
He bent over the hand she held out
to his in the courtesy natural with him
to all her sex and touched it lightly
| with his lips.
THANK you, my little comrade,' he
said simply. with the graver thought
still ont him that her relation and her
entreaty had evoked. You have given
me lesson thatI shall not be quick to
I forget
graceful distant salute, SO cold and so
courteous, which was offered her in
lieu Of the rude and boisteroIs famil-
iarities to which she was accustomed
and drew her hand away with what
was to the shame of her so1dierly hard
ihood and her barrack tutelage We. =
nearly akin to an impulse of shyness,
\ ,Y, ar
a court ladyv she cried hastily, almost
petulantly, to cover the unWonted and
unwelcome weakness. while, to make
good the declaration and Sevindicate
her military renoWn, she balanced her.
self lightly on the stone ledge and
sprang with a young wildcats easy,
yaulting leap over his head and over
the heads of the people beneath on to
the ledge Of the house opposite. a low
built wineshop, whose upper story near
~ touched the leaning walls of the old.
Moorish buildings in which she had
been perched. The crowd in the street
below looked up amazed and aghast at
as she few over their heads like a blue
and scarlet winged bird of Oran. but
they laughed as they saw who it was.
1T is Cigarette" groWled a Turco
Indigene. '.Ah, ha, the devil for GER
tainty must have been her fatherY
Cecil looked after her with a certain
touch of pity for her in him.
''What a gallant boy is spoiled in that
little amazonp' he thought. The quick
flush of her face, the quick withdrawal
of her hand, he had not noticed. She
had not much interest for him scarce
~ any, indeed-saye that he saw she
was. pretty, with a miscellaneous face
that all the sun tan of Africa and all
the wild life of the Caserne could not
harden or debase. But he was sorry a
child so bright ard SO brave should be
turned into three parts a trooper, as she
was, should have been tossed up on the
scum and filth of the lowest baEack
life and should be doomed in a few
years. time to become the yellow, bat.
tered, foul mouthed, vulture eyed camp
follower that premature old age would
surely render the darling of the tricol-
or, the pythoness of the AS du Pique.
''Hah!" said Cigarette between her
little teeth
She stood in the glittering Algerine
night, brilliant with a million stars and
balmy with a million flowers, before
the bronze trellised gate of the villa on
the Sahel, where Chateauroy, when he
was not on active service, Unidentified
I, f1,5 VIC,
private fortune enabled him to enjoy,
for the unsparing eXertions and the
rugged priyations that he always shar-
ed willingly with the lowest of his sol
diers. Tonight the windows of the
pretty, low. snow white, far stretching
building were lighted and open, and
through the wilderness of cactus, myr-
tie, orange, citron, fuchsia and thou
sand flowers that almost buried it I'M
der their weight of leaf and blossom a
myriad of lamps were cleaning like SO
many gloWworms beneath the foliage,
while from cedar grove the melodies
and overtIres of the best military
bands in Algiers came melloWed by the
distance and the fall Of the bubbling
fountains. Cigarette locked and lis
tened. and her gay, brown face grew
duskily warm with wrath.
"Ah, bah!" she muttered, as she
pressed her pretty lips to the lattice
work. THE men die like murrained
sheep in the hospital, and get sour
bread tossed to them as If they were
pigs, and are thrashed il they pawn
their muskets for stoup Of drink
when their threats are as dry as the
desert and you live in clover. The
colonel gives his fetes with stars and
ribbons on his breast, while those who
| won the battle lie rotting in the sandy'
Continued next week.
ASSAULT IN THE SECOND.
There was a dance in the -four
1storage room, erected by A. G. Bur