Home > Authors Index > H. Irving Hancock > Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants > This page
Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants, a novel by H. Irving Hancock |
||
Chapter 24. Conclusion |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
|
|
________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER XXIV. CONCLUSION AFTER that, through the days to come, the luck seemed to boom. At the end of four days young Sergeant Terry and his guard returned, having turned over all the prisoners to the sheriff of Blank County. Noll had also wired the post at Fort Clowdry, and had received the post adjutant's answer that a guard would be sent to bring Private Hinkey back for trial on the charge of desertion. "The sheriff knew all the prisoners at once, all except Hinkey," Sergeant Noll reported back to his chum and to Lieutenant Prescott. "The leader of the gang is a half-popular fellow with some classes here in the mountains. Despite the fact that he's a desperado, he is often surprisingly good-natured, and always game when he loses. His name is Griller--Butch Griller, he's called. His crew are called the Moccasin Gang, because Griller has always preferred that his men wear moccasins instead of shoes. Shoes may give out in the wilds, but moccasins can always be made whenever an antelope is killed." "The Moccasin Gang?" repeated Lieutenant Prescott. "Why, I've heard stories about that desperate crowd. But what were they doing around our camp?" "Griller told me about that before we reached town," Sergeant Noll continued. "Griller and his men, it seems, were being pursued by the sheriff of the next county. He trailed them to a cabin where they had stopped and made such a complete surprise that Griller and his gang got away only by jumping through the windows without their arms. Then they traveled fast. When they found that there were soldiers here, the Moccasins hoped that they could get some of our arms and ammunition. Thus provided, they hadn't much doubt of being able to provide themselves with more fighting hardware. And they'd have gotten away, too, if it hadn't been that Butch Griller had promised Hinkey a chance for revenge on Sergeant Overton." "But how did Hinkey come to be with them?" broke in Lieutenant Prescott. "Griller told me about that, sir," Noll replied. "Griller said he was standing on the stoop of a house in Denver, near the ball grounds, at the time when Hinkey deserted and made his break to get away. Griller was in Denver, on the quiet, to get more men together. When he saw Hinkey running, he sized him up as a man just deserted, and felt that Hinkey would be useful to him. So he called to Hinkey, shoved him inside the house, and then, when----" "Say, but I remember that! And now I recall where I saw Griller before. He told me that Hinkey had rushed on and turned the next street corner below. That threw me off the track," muttered Sergeant Hal. "Well, his new man Hinkey brought him no luck," laughed Lieutenant Prescott. "And the Moccasins won't do much more harm, unless they manage to break jail." "I don't believe they'll get away from that sheriff, anyway, sir," remarked Sergeant Noll grimly. Noll Terry and the members of his guard were in time to do some more hunting before the happy soldiers' holiday came to an end. When the expedition set out on its return both of the big transport wagons carried all the wild game meat that could be packed into them, and officers' and enlisted men's messes at Fort Clowdry celebrated in joyous fashion. Ex-Private Hinkey, the deserter, was soon tried by general court-martial, and sentenced to be dismissed from the service, to forfeit all pay and allowances and to serve two years at a military prison. It was Lieutenant Prescott who gave one of the crowning sensations just toward the close of Hinkey's trial. Just before the battalion had left Fort Clowdry to go to the military tournament at Denver, First Sergeant Gray had asked every soldier in B Company to turn in a slip on which was written the name and address of his nearest relative or friend. As such data was already on file, the men had wondered not a little at the request, but they had complied. And now Lieutenant Prescott informed the members of the court that it had been a ruse of his. These slips, together with the clumsily printed note that had accompanied the return of Private William Green's money, and also the envelope addressed to Green, which latter Hal had admitted as his writing--all, just before the start of the hunting trip, had been forwarded by Lieutenant Prescott to a famous writing expert in the east. Word had finally come from the expert to the effect that the envelope had really been addressed by Sergeant Hal, as that young soldier admitted. The printed note to Green, however, had been fashioned, the expert stated positively, by the same man who had turned in the written name and address of the "nearest friend" of ex-Private Hinkey. With this report the expert had sent a curiously drawn chart showing resemblances between Hinkey's admitted handwriting and the printed note to Green. There were also photographs, made with the aid of the microscope, showing pronounced similarities of little strokes and flourishes that were alike, both in Hinkey's admitted handwriting and in the turns given to some of the letters of the printed note. Summing up all the evidence, the expert's report stated positively that Hinkey was the one who had fashioned the note to Green. Finding that he could no longer deny his guilt, Hinkey was finally driven to confession before the court. He had hated Sergeant (then Corporal) Overton with such an intensity, Hinkey confessed, that he had found himself willing to stop at nothing that would damage the young soldier in any way. The envelope that Hal had addressed in his own handwriting, it now turned out, was one that he had so addressed at the request of Sergeant Gray to enclose an official communication that Gray had delivered to Private Green some weeks before. On finding this envelope, and realizing how it would implicate Hal Overton, Hinkey had even gone to the extreme of returning Green's money, when he might safely have kept and spent it. The reason why the money had not been found during the search that had immediately followed the discovery of the robbery in the squad room was equally simple. Hinkey, the afternoon before the robbery, had made the discovery of a secret hiding place under the floor beside his cot. That hiding place had been made, at great trouble, by some soldier formerly living in the squad room, and Hinkey's discovery of it had been accidental. Now that he was in the mood for confessing, Hinkey also described how he had slipped the revolver lightly under Sergeant Hal's blanket in passing Overton's cot. So the mystery was wholly cleared up at last, and when ex-Private Hinkey departed to begin his term of imprisonment the Army was well rid of one who was in no sense fit to be the comrade of any honest man wearing Uncle Sam's soldier uniform. Late in the fall the Colorado courts sent Griller and his crew to the penitentiary for long terms. Immediately after Hinkey's trial, Lieutenant Prescott, who had gone to all the trouble to secure the evidence, drew up a brief statement, setting forth Sergeant Hal Overton's complete innocence of the squad-room robbery and declaring who the scoundrel was. This statement was published, by direction of Colonel North, in the orders of the day. Then, of course--human nature always works this way--even those of the soldiers who had most honestly believed in young Overton's guilt, now swarmed around him to assure him that they had never for an instant believed it possible that he could be otherwise than a most honest and wonderful soldier. Not they! Oh, no! Now that they knew who the real culprit was, these victims of human nature were ready to cross their hearts that they had known all along that Overton was absolutely guiltless; and they had even suspected, all along, who would turn out by and by to be the villain. As has been said, this is human nature, and therefore not to be sneered at. In fact, nearly all of the men who protested so loudly to Hal Overton had the actual grace to believe themselves--as is always the case. Private William Green, however, had been cured, ever since the return of most of his money, of the bad habit of carrying so much around with him. Seldom after that was he to be caught with more than a hundred dollars. To Sergeant Hal it seemed impossible to thank Lieutenant Prescott sufficiently. For, though the young soldier, even if he had not been vindicated so handsomely, would have lived down most of the suspicion in time, yet all of the stain would never have vanished had it not been for Lieutenant Prescott. Soldiers, from the very fact of living in isolated little communities of their own, are somewhat prone to gossip over purely garrison and regimental affairs. So some of the story would always have clung about Sergeant Overton's reputation among his own kind. "But you've stopped all of that forever, Lieutenant," protested Hal gratefully when calling, by permission, at Mr. Prescott's quarters. "I am glad I have then, my lad," smiled back the young lieutenant. "I'm glad for your sake, Sergeant, and, if you wish, you may consider that I took much of the trouble on your account personally. But I had also a still greater motive in doing what I did." "What was that, sir, if I may ask?" "My own love of the service," replied Lieutenant Dick Prescott impressively. "What would the service ever amount to, Sergeant, if we allowed our best, brightest and most loyal men to be downed by suspicions against them that clearly had no base? What honest man would care to enter or to stay in the ranks of the Army if he did not feel sure that his officers would work to see him righted and enjoying his proper place in the esteem of his comrades. So, Sergeant, don't try too hard to thank me. Whatever I did for you personally, I did it ten times more for the good of the tried, old, true-blue United States Army." Then, after a pause, Mr. Prescott went on: "I've had my attention attracted to you more than ever, both yourself and Sergeant Terry. I see even new possibilities in you as soldiers. Do you know why?" "No, sir." Lieutenant Prescott laughed lightly, though there was a slight mist in his eyes as he answered: "It may be news to you, Sergeant, but my good old schoolboy friend, now Mr. Darrin, of the Navy, has taken almost as much of a liking to you two youngsters as though you were pet younger brothers of his. Darrin watched you both often while he was here, after we returned from the hunting trip. He spoke of you frequently, and seemed to have noticed so many excellencies in both yourself and Sergeant Terry that I grew ashamed of my own slight powers of observation. Of course, you don't know anything of the old days when Mr. Darrin, Mr. Dalzell, Mr. Holmes and myself were all devoted chums." "I think I do, sir," Sergeant Hal rejoined. "You do? How?" "Mr. Darrin told me a lot that day he and I spent some hours hunting together. He told me a lot about your old schoolboy days." "That's only another proof of how much Darrin likes you, then," pursued the young lieutenant warmly. "Darrin isn't usually very talkative with new acquaintances. But what I was going to say was that, back in our schooldays, I often made a great reputation for wisdom just because I accepted Darrin's wise estimates of human nature and people. So now Darrin's praises of you two young sergeants have made me feel that I have missed a lot of what I should have observed about you both." "Both Terry and myself will feel highly honored over such good opinions of us, sir," Hal replied. "I wouldn't talk quite so freely if I didn't know that you're both so level-headed that a little praise will make better, instead of worse soldiers of you, Sergeant Overton. Of course, as one of your officers, I understand that both of you young sergeants are working onward and forward with the hope of one day winning commissions in the line of the Army. I wish you every kind of good luck, Overton. Here's my hand on it. And some day I hope to be able to offer you my hand again--when, wearing the shoulder straps, you come into an officers' mess, somewhere, as a fellow-member of that mess." "Mr. Darrin made both Terry and myself promise, sir, that if we ever win commissions, we'll visit him on his ship as soon after as possible." "Mr. Darrin and Mr. Dalzell are on their way to China by this time," continued Lieutenant Prescott. "From the China station their next detail will undoubtedly be the Philippine station. And that's where, after a while, this regiment will be due to go." And that is just where the Thirty-fourth Regiment did go, as will be discovered in the next volume in this series, which is published under the title: "UNCLE SAM'S BOYS IN THE PHILIPPINES; Or, Following the Flag Against the Moros." Not only did our two young sergeant friends taste all the joys of life and residence in these romantic tropical possessions of the United States, but they were destined also to see and take part in a lot of spirited fighting against brown enemies of the United States. But these adventures must be reserved for the next volume. [THE END] _ |
||