“At least there’s nothing to warrant the posting of that sentry at Mr. Gray’s tent, Colonel Canker,” said the brigadier, with some asperity. “Order him off at once. That’s all for to-day, sir,” and the man with the starred shoulders “held over” him with the silver leaves. The latter could only obey—and objurgate.
But Canker’s knuckles came in for another rasping within the hour. The brigadier being done with him, the division commander’s compliments came over per orderly, and would the colonel please step to the General’s tent. Canker was fuming to get to town. He was possessed with insane desire to follow up that boarding house clue. He believed the landlady could be bullied into telling where her boarder was taken, and what manner of man (or woman) he was. But down he had to go, three blocks of camp, to where the tents of division headquarters were pitched, and there sat the veteran commander, suave and placid as ever.
“Ah, colonel, touching that matter of the robbery of your commissary stores. Suspicion points very strongly to your Sergeant Foley. Do you think it wise to have no sentry over him?”
“Why—General,” said Canker, “I’ve known that man fifteen years—in fact, I got him ordered to duty here,” and the colonel bristled.
“Well—pardon me, colonel, but you heard the evidence against him last night, or at least heard of it. Don’t you consider that conclusive?”
Canker cleared his throat and considered as suggested.
“I heard the allegation sir, but—he made so clear an explanation to me, at least—and besides, General”—a bright idea occurring to him—“you know that as commissary sergeant he is not under my command——”
“Tut, tut, colonel,” interrupted the General, waxing impatient. “The storehouse adjoins your camp. Your sentries guard it. Captain Hanford, the commissary, says he called on you last night to notify you that he had placed the sergeant under arrest, but considered the case so grave that he asked that a sentry be placed over him, and it wasn’t done.”
“I dislike very much to inflict such indignity on deserving soldiers, General,” said Canker, stumbling into a self-made trap. “Until their guilt is established they are innocent under the law.”
“Apparently you apply a different rule in case of officers,” calmly responded the General, “vide Mr. Gray. No further words are necessary. Oblige me by having that sentry posted at once. Good-morning, sir.”