eant Hal's blanket in passing
Overton's cot.

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.

"But you've stopped all of that forever, Lieutenant," protested Hal
gratefully when calling, by permission, at Mr. Prescott's quarter