Hinkey stopped pantingly, giving the man a swift look. That glance was enough to show the deserting soldier that he had met a kindred spirit.

"Thanks. I'll accept," muttered Hinkey, darting into the doorway.

The man who had hailed him pulled the door shut just before Sergeant Hal and four soldiers ran around the corner above.

"What's that soldier been doing that ran by here so fast?" called the citizen in shirt sleeves.

"Which way did he go?" asked Hal swiftly, halting just an instant.

"See the next corner?"

"Yes."

"Your man turned there--to the left. You fellows will have to double your speed if you're ever going to catch that soldier."

"Put on all the steam you can, men," Hal called back over his shoulder as he once more started in what he believed to be pursuit.

Chuckling softly, the citizen opened the door, closed it again and went inside to tell Hinkey why he had saved him.

It was a full hour before Sergeant Hal Overton again reported back at camp on the grounds.

He had come back at last, forced to admit himself baffled.

"You did all you could, Sergeant," replied Captain Cortland, who had just returned to the company street. "Hinkey will be caught, sooner or later."

Then, turning to First Sergeant Gray, who had just come up, Captain Cortland smiled as he added:

"Sergeant Gray, I wonder if Hinkey is still running. If he runs long enough he'll probably fall in with some muck-raking magazine writer, who'll get out of Hinkey a startling story of why some soldiers insist on deserting the Army."

"Captain," replied Sergeant Gray, "I could tell those magazine writers a good deal about why men desert from the Army, sir. But the magazine writers wouldn't want my story of why men desert."

"What would your story be, Sergeant?"

"Why, sir, I'd tell those writers--and prove it by the records--that the men who desert from the Army are the same worthless, skulking vagabonds who are always getting bounced out of jobs in civil life because they're no good anywhere."

"That's the whole story, Sergeant Gray," nodded Captain Cortland.

"I know it, sir; I haven't been in the Army all these years not to have found out that much."

Just then Noll Terry appeared on the scene, wearing his newly won sergeant's chevrons.

Captain Cortland's inquiry into the cause of the accident to Sergeant Overton was concluded by taking the sworn testimony of Private Slosson.

The papers were then filed away to be used in case the deserter Hinkey should be apprehended.

CHAPTER XIV

ALGY COMES TO A CONCLUSION

HINKEY, secure in his new retreat, with a new-found "friend" who wanted the services of a man of Hinkey's stripe, was not found.

The evening programme of the military tournament was carried out before all the spectators who could wedge themselves into the grounds, and once more the big circus played to a small crowd.

In the morning the Thirty-fourth entrained and returned to Fort Clowdry.

While in Denver, Lieutenant Ferrers, though he had accompanied the battalion, had been employed in duties that kept him out of the public eye.

Once back at the post, however, Ferrers was warned by both battalion and regimental commanders that he must buckle down at once to learn his duties as an officer.

"I had an idea that being an officer was a good deal more of a gentleman's job," Algy sighed to Lieutenant Prescott.

"An officer's position in the Army is a hard-working job," Prescott rejoined. "However, there's nothing in that fact to make it difficult for an officer to be a gentleman, too. In fact, he must be an all-around gentleman, or get out of the service."

"But gentlemen shouldn't be expected to work--at least, not hard,"

argued Algy Ferrers.

"Now, where on earth did you get that idea?" laughed Lieutenant Prescott.

"All the fellows I used to know were gentlemen," protested Algy, "and none of them ever worked."

"Then what were they good for?" demanded Lieutenant Prescott crisply.

"Eh?" breathed Ferrers, looking puzzled.

"If they didn't work, if they didn't do anything real in the world, what were they good for? What was their excuse for wanting to live?" insisted Prescott.

"Prexy, old chap, I'm afraid you're an anarchist," gasped Algy, looking almost humanly distressed.

"No; you're the anarchist," laughed the other lieutenant, "for no anarchist ever wants to work. Come, now, Ferrers, buck up! Go over the drill manual with me."

For two days Algy did seem inclined to buckle down to the hard work of learning how to command other men efficiently. Then one night he fell.

That is to say, he went off the reservation without notifying any of his superior officers.

At the sounding of drill a.s.sembly the next morning, every officer on post was present with the one exception of young Mr. Ferrers.

"Where's that hopeless idiot now?" muttered Colonel North peevishly, for he had come down to see the battalion drill.

"I haven't the least idea, sir," replied Major Silsbee.

"Send an orderly up to his quarters, Major."

"Very good, sir."

But, as both major and colonel had suspected, Ferrers wasn't in his quarters. Nor was he anywhere else on post apparently.