"Yes, sir!" Noll answered. "And I shan't cease doing so until the whole mystery is cleaned up."
"Good! May I depend upon you, Corporal, to come to me, at any time, with any information that you think will help?"
"Yes, sir; and I thank you for the invitation to do so."
"If I believed Corporal Overton the guilty man, and could find evidence that would prove his guilt and have him bounced out of the service, then I'd do my whole duty," went on Lieutenant Prescott. "But I simply can't believe him guilty, and so I'm prepared to help him at any time when there's the slightest chance."
"May I tell Corporal Overton that, sir?" asked Noll eagerly.
"Yes; but caution him not to mention to others what I have said to you. You are also at liberty to tell Overton that Captain Cortland is wholly convinced of his innocence, and so, I know, is Lieutenant Hampton. But some of the men in the company, and more especially in the squad room, are holding aloof from Corporal Overton, are they not?"
"I wouldn't exactly say that they are doing it in a mean way, sir; but of course soldiers hate thieves, and so the merest taint of a suspicion serves to make some of the men feel rather shy about having anything unnecessary to do with Corporal Overton."
"Too bad!" murmured Lieutenant Prescott. Then, in his usual official tone:
"That is all, Corporal Terry."
Noll saluted and left the inner office. Almost immediately afterward Lieutenant Prescott sauntered out.