“I don’t know, but I am as suspicious as a coyote.”
“Well, as you say, I will be along and will keep my eyes open, and I will go prepared for work. I am glad that you gave me a hint, for I was not at all suspicious in that quarter, I admit, and now I will be upon my guard.”
As the scout turned away to go to his quarters Frank Powell looked after him a moment and muttered:
“Yes, Bill, you have set me to thinking.”
The coming of the three detectives, with an intimation that a mistake had been made, and with a requisition for the prisoner from the Governor of Illinois spread quickly around the fort.
It ran like wildfire through the officers’ quarters, the barracks, and the settlement. Rumors of all kinds were flying about, that Colonel Dunwoody had overstepped his authority in trying the outlaw chief and his men by military court, and that he would meet with a strong reprimand if not something more severe.
The prisoner, rumor had it, was a convict, escaped from the State’s Prison of Illinois, and if he had been executed much valuable information which he possessed would have been forever lost.
It was said that he was to be saved by turning State’s evidence, and the Governor of Illinois had raised such a rumpus about the trial of the prisoner by the military, no matter what his crimes on the border might have been, that the secretary of war had hastily taken action in the matter and demanded that the outlaw be given up.
These and innumerable other rumors were flying about, and it was not long before the prisoner heard the news.
Colonel Dunwoody, knowing the facts of the case, was serene as to the result, and was more than glad to give the prisoner up.