Grumby's Gang

Grumby's Independents, as they are called, are "about fifty or sixty" men who appeared in Yoknapatawpha after the withdrawal of Union troops (150). They claim to be not unlike the irregular Confederate fighters that Colonel Sartoris leads, but they actually serve only themselves and wage a campaign of terror across the north Mississippi countryside. Their number seems to get smaller and it is not clear how many others there are. When Ringo spies them in a dark house, he sees "three or thirteen men" (165); when Bayard, Ringo and Buck McCaslin later count the hoof prints of the horses the gang are riding, there are "five" (171).