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.