Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1915-08-04
CHAPTER XII.
A Sacred Trust.


his sense of beauty was never satisfied
with looking at the desert picture and
drinking in the glory and the lowell
ness of the melancholy waste. Stand
ing in the door of his tent in fatigue
uniform, he said to Pitchoune:
Il could be perfectly happy here if
/ were not alone"
Pitchoune barked. He had not
grown accustomed to the desert. He
hated it. 1t slipped away from under
his little feet; he could not run on it
with any comfort. He spent his days
idly in his masters tent or royalty
perched on a camel, crouching close
to Sabron's man servant when they
went on caravan explorations.
Yes" said Sabron, "if I were not
alone. don't mean you, mon vieux.
You are a great deal, but you really
don't count, you know"
Before his eyes the sands we're as
pink as countless rose leaves. To
Sabron they were as fragrant as flow
ers. The peculiar incenselike odor
that hovers above the desert when the
sun declines was to him the most de-
hcioUs thing he had ever inhaled. All
the west was as red as fire. The day
had been hot and there came up the
cool breeze that would give them de-
licious night. Overhead, one by one,
he watched the poisoning out of the
great stars; each one hung above his
lonely tent like a bridal flower in a
veil of blue On all sides, like white
petals on the desert face, were the
tents of his men and his officers, and
from the encampment came the hum
OF military life, yet the silence to him
was profound. He had only to order
his stallion saddled and to ride away
for little distance in order to be
alone with the absolute stiffness.
This he often did and took his
thoughts with him and came back to
his tent more conscious of his solitude
every night of his life.
There had been much footing of car
aVans in the region by brigands, and
his business was that of sentinel for
the commerce of the plains. Thieving
and rapacious tribes we're under his
eye and his care. Tonight, as he stood
looking toward the west into the glow,
shading his eyes with his hand, he saw
coming toward them what he knew to
be caravan from Algiers. His ordon-
nance was a native soldier, one of the
desert tribes, black as ink, and scarce
II more childlike than Brunei and pre-
sumably as devoted.
"Mustapha," Sabron ordered, fetch
me out lounge chair" He spoke in
French and pointed, for the man I'M
derstood imperfectly and Sabron did
not yet speak Arabic.
He threw himself down, lighted
fresh cigarette, dragged Pitchoune by
the nape of his neck up to his lap and
the two sat watching the caravan
slowly grow into individuals of camels
and riders and finally mass itself in
shadow within some four or five hun
rdred yards of the encampment.
The sentinels and the soldiers began
to gather and Sabron saw a single
footman making his way toward the
camp.
60" he said to Mustapha, land see
what message the fellow brings to the
regiment"
Mustapha went, and after little re-
turned, followed by the man himself,
Iblack-bearded, half-naked Bedouin,
swathed in dust-colored burnoose and
carrying bag.
He bowed to Captain de Sabron and
extended the leather bag. On the out
side of the leather there was ticket
pasted, which read:
'The Post for the - Squadron of
Cavalry"
Sabron added mentally:
wherever it may happen to bel"
He ordered bakshish given to the
man and sent him off. Then he opened
the French mail, He was not more
than three hundred miles from Algiers.
1T had taken him a long time to work
down to Dirbal. however, and they had
had some hardships. He felt a million
miles away. The look of the primitive
mail bag and the knowledge Of how
far it had travelled to find the people
to whom these letters were addressed
made his hands reverent as he I'M
fastened the sealed labels. He looked
the letters through, returned the bag
to Mustapha and sent him off to dis
tribute the post.
Then, for the light was bad, bril-
liant though the night might be, he
went into his tent with his own mail.
On his dressing table was small IL
Illumination consisting of fat candle
set IN d glass case. The MOSQUITOES