The Central Nevadan. [volume] (Battle Mountain, Nev.) 1885-1907, 1903-04-30

aHu Sf1OkIHk, tCuoih6 nte swings
her satires with enthusiastic voices
md stamps Of their spurred boot hees.
As he glanced upward she looked liter
Ally In q blaze of luminance, and the
Wild. mellow tones of her voice ringing
cut sounded like a mockery Of that dy-
ing bed beside which they had boil SO
late stood together.
"She has the ~playfulness OF the
young leopard, and the cruelty" he
thought, with a sense OF disgust, FOR
getting that she did not know what
he knew and that II Cigarette had
waited to laugh until death had passed
by she would have never laughed all
her life through In the battalion OF
Africa.
She saw him as he went beneath
her balcony, and she sang all the
louder, she flung her sweetmeat mis-
siles with the reckless force Of a
Roman carnivalist, she launched boltS
of tenfold more audaclous railley ut
the delighted mob below. Cigarette
was a good soldier when she was
wounded; she wound her scarf -ound
the nerve that ached and only laughed
the gayer.
And he did her that injustice which
the best among us are apt to do to
those whom we do not feel interest
enough In to study with that closeness
which can alone give comprehension
of the intricate and complex rebus. SO
family ~sketched, SO marvelossly In
volyed. of human nature.
He thought her q little leopard In
her %viTacious play and her Unborn
bloodthirstiness. Well. the little leop-
ard of France played ~recklessly
enough that evening. Agiers was en-
fete, and Cigarette was sparkling over
the whole of the town Ike a humming
bird or a firefy-here. here and every
where. She played Though more than
half the night the agile. bounding.
graceful play of the roung leopard to
which he had likenec her and with a
quick punishment rom her velvet
sheathed talons If any burst offend
her. Then when the dawn was nigh.
leopardlike, the little one sought her
den.
THE chateau Of Cigarette" was q
standing jest Of the army. for none
was ever allowed to follow her thither
or to behold the interior Of her fortress,
and one o~verventurous spahis, scaling
the ramparts. had been rewarded with
so hot a deluge OF leDtil soup from q
boiling casserole poured on his head
from above that he had beaten a hasty
and ignominious retreat. "The chateau
of Cigarette was neither more nor less
than a couple of garrets high Id the
mir in an old Moorish house in an old
Moorish court. ~decayed. silent. poverty
struck. Up a long and winding rick
ETY. stair Cigarette approached her cas-
tie and opened her door. There was a
dim oil wick burning. The garrett was
large ard as clean as a palace could
be. Its oecupants were various and
all sound asleep except one. who.
rough and hard and small and three
legged. limped up to her and rubbed n
little bullet head against her lovingly.
"Bouffarick. little BouEarick." re-
turned Cigarette caressingly In a whis-
per. and Bouffarick. content. hmped
back to a nest Of hay. being a li;t.r
wiry dog that had lost a leg In oae Of
the famous battles Of Oran and lain II
its dead masters breast through three
days and nights on the field. Cigarette.
shading the lamp with one hand. glanr-
ed round on hef family. They had ill
Observation-Disclosures In the French army.
which was the only history she consld-
cred of any Import to the universe.
There was a raven perched high. by
name yole-qui-yeut. He was a noted
character among the ouaves and had
made many a campaign riding on bis
owners bayonet. He loved q combat
and was specially famed for screaming
'Tue, tue, tue!" all over a battlefield.