The Central Nevadan. [volume] (Battle Mountain, Nev.) 1885-1907, 1903-02-12
Cigarette blew a contemptuous pun

&iEdlCtlC DiC0 a &0htCAAHhNCoo RN
of smoke.
"There was never one yet that did
not growll II they don't use their
tusks. they sit and sulk. An English
man is always boxing or grumbling.
The two make up his life"
Which view she had derived from q
profound study of various vaudevilles.
aud, having delivered 1t. she sprang
down from her wall, strapped on her
little barrel, nodded to her big babies,
where they lounged full length in the
shadow of the stone wall. and left
them to resume their game at Doc
while she started on her way singing.
Hers was a flashing, dauntless. viva
cious life. just in its youth, loving plum
der and mischief and mirth, caring
for nothing and always ready with a
laugh, a song. a slang repartee or q
shot from the dainty pistols thrust in
her sash that a general of division had
given her, whichever best suited the
moment.
Her mother n camp follower. her IA
Their nobody knew who, a spoiled child
of the army from her birth, with q
heart as bronzed as her cheek, yet with
odd, stray. nature sown instincts here
and there of n devil may care nobility
and Of a wild grace that nothing could
kill, Cigarette was the pet Of the army
OF Africa and vas as lawless as most
OF her patrons.
She would eat a succulent duck,
thinking it all the spicier because IL
had been a soldiers loot, she would
wear the gold plumber off a dead Arabs
dress and never have n pang of CON
science with 1t; she would dance all
night long, when she had a chance. like
a little Bacchante; she would shoot n
man, II need be, with all the noncha-
lance In the world. She had had a
thousand lovers. from handsome mar
quises of the guides to tawny, black
browed scoundrels In the Zouaves, and
she had never loved anything except
the roll of the drum and the sight of
her own arch. defiant face, with its
scarlet lips and its short, jetty hair.
when she saw 1t by chance In some
FURNISHED cuirass that served her for a
mirror.
Away she went, now singing down
the crooked windings and over the
ruined gardens of the old Moorish quar-
ter of the Cashbah, the hits of the tiny
pistols CHANGING in the sun and the
fierce fire of the burning sunlight pour
ing down UNDECIDED on the brave. bright
hawk eyes that had never since they
first opened to the world dropped or
dimmed for the rays of the sun or the
gaze of a lover, for the menac of death
or the presence of wal.
OF course she was a little amazon:
of course she was a little guerrilla; OF
course she did not know what a blush
meant: of ours her thoughts We're as
riotous as her mutinous mischief was
In its act: but she was "a good sol
dier," as she was given to say. with a
toss of her curly head, and she had
some of the virtues of soldiers. Sol
she first remembered having a wooden
casserole for a cradle and sucking
down red wine through a pipestei1.
Soldiers had beer her books. her teach
ers. her models. her guardians aud.
later on. her lovers. all the days of
her life. She had no guiding star ex-
cept the eagles on the standards: she
had no cradle song except the rata
plan and the reveille; she had no sense
of duty taught her except to face iira
boldly. never to betray a comrade and
to worship two deities. GLORY" and
France"
Yet there were tales told In the bar.
rack yards and under canvas Of the
little Friend of the flag that had n
gentler side: OF how softly she would
touch the wounded: of how deity she
would ure them: of how carelessly
she would dash through under a raking
fire to take Il draft of water to a
dying man: OF how she had sat by an
old grenadier's death couch TO sing to
him. refusing to stir although 1t was Il
fete at Chalons and she loves fetes ng
only u French girl can: Of how she
had sent every sou Of her money to
her mother. so long as that mother
lived. a brutal. drunken. vile tongued
old woman who had beaten her often
times as the sole maternal attention.
when she WAS but an infant. Her
own SCI would have seen no good In
her. but her comrades at arms could
and did. OF a surety. she missed vir-
tues that women prize: but not less
OF a surety had she caught some that
they miss.
Singing her refrain. on she dashed
now, and. like n channels, she leaped
down over the great masses of Turkish
ruins. cleared the channel of n dry
water course and alighted just In front
of a Chasseur d'Afrique who was sit
ting alone or a broken fragment Of
white marble. relic of some Moorish
mosque. He was bronzed, but scarcely
looked SO after the red, brown and
black of the ouave and the turco,
for his skin was naturally very fair.
the features delicate. the eyes very
s~oft-for which NJ. Tata had growled
contemptuously "a woman's face"-a
long. silken chestnut beard swept oyer
his chest. and his figure. as he leaned
there In the blue and scarlet and gold
Of the chasseurs' uniform. was. as Ciga.
cites critical eye told her, the figure CT