Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants; or, Handling Their First Real Commands

by H. Irving Hancock

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.