The early game at Craney's had languished that evening. It was too near
pay-day--the wrong way--for money to be burning in soldier's pockets,
and when the soldier has none the garrison hanger-on has no one to look
to. The couriers from the field column, being comfortably filled and
fairly well tired, meandered off with their martial chums at tattoo.
The few ranchers and packers hovered about the monte table awhile,
hopeful, perhaps, of a clash between Dago and Munoz, but even this hope
was crushed when, just about taps, two belated Mexicans, innocent or
reckless of the proximity of signalling Indians across the stream, came
mule-bestriding into the glare of the common room sconces and "ola'd,"
for Sanchez, who hurried out to meet them, heard their excited tale,
cashed in his few chips, and took himself and fellows off. "Barkeep"
stuck his head through the port-hole to the adjoining sanctum where sat
Craney, Watts, and that semi-military official known as the "contract
doctor," expectant, possibly, of others coming, and told them of the
"greasers'" doings, whereat Case, nervously, irritably pacing the
floor, looked up in sudden interest and speedily plunged out into the
darkness. Then Bentley had come, just at the time when the few packers
and ranch folk were making a noise, and Case had reappeared, looking
wilder, if anything, and declaring the greasers must have gone down to
the old Sanchez place, Indian or no Indian. Then Bentley had felt his
pulse and asked a lot of questions, and led him off into a corner for a
little talk, and finally had prevailed on him to try to sleep in the
vacant room at the "Shack," as Craney's own log-built cabin was called,
and had led him away thither. He had never fairly gotten over the
recent spree, said Craney. He would never explain what had induced him
that Sunday afternoon to quit his old resort in the willows and go up
to the officers' quarters, but go he had, for "Sudstown" had seen him,
and had seen him later slinking back the longest way round to the
store, keeping far from everybody, and looking badly shaken up. It was
known, somehow, that he had been to the doctor's quarters, and, being
half drunk, had got into Lieutenant Harris's room and there had made
some noise and been ordered out. Rumor had it that there had been a
scene between him and Lieutenant Willett, of which neither would speak,
and the doctor had laid his commands on the attendant to know
absolutely nothing about it--indeed, there was little he did know, save
that there had been a disturbance. It was supposed at the store, and
generally in the garrison, that Case had been drinking just enough to
make him irresponsible, and in this condition he had ventured up to the
post and made an ass of himself just when he was being trumpeted as a
lion. Then, instead of having his spree out he had tried to taper,
hence the highly nervous condition that had followed, which, instead of
getting better, seemed getting worse.
"I've fixed him," said Bentley, "provided he keeps his word," and then,
bidding Craney good-night, had gone to garrison, and found the general
perturbed over Turner's report and the story about Munoz. Together they
had gone to the store again, the general and his medicine-man, to have
some half-breed interpret the message of the feather, but by this time
none was left. Together they had looked in on Case and found him drowsy
and indifferent, but both the commander and his faithful ally
distinctly heard his half-mumbled words as to 'Tonio's one object in
life ere they came away, satisfied that Case would be of no further use
for another night and day. Then Bentley had hurried to his other
patient with the result we have already noted, and a little later the
general went with him for still another visit, to soothe and reassure
Harris, for the invalid officer was mad to be up and doing. There was
something in the air.
Later still a stupid three-handed cribbage game was going on when,
after eleven o'clock, Willett came briskly in. Strong had about given
him up and was going home in spite of an unsettled account in his
favor, which Willett had proposed to play off. They were all tired and
ready for bed, and were only up because Willett was to leave and
_should_ "square things" before leaving the post. The cribbage game
stopped at sight of him. Craney went with him to the private desk in
the inner office, whence in five minutes out he came, buoyant as
before, declined to sit in again, laughingly said he'd take his revenge
on the back trip later, called for a night-cap all round, bade
everybody in the room a cordial good-night and good-by, and left with
Strong at his heels.
"By gad!" said Craney, "he may not play like a sport, but he pays like
one, and a game one," and he locked a roll of treasury notes in his
safe. Then he and Watts and the disappointed deputy doctor went off to
bed, leaving "barkeep" to close up when the few loungers quit paying
for drinks, and only in the common room was there further stir about
the store. Arrived at the shack, as Craney declared in the morning, he
had taken a candle and gone softly to the back room where he found Case
in bed and either dozing or drowsy or drugged--at all events he cared
not to speak. His hat, coat and trousers hung on a chair; his shoes
were at the foot of the bed, his watch on the table by his side, his
money was locked in the trader's safe. Some medicine and a spoon stood
by the watch. There was no light in the room save that which Craney
carried; the one window was blanketed; sufficient air came through the
loopholes, and the window sash was down against the hound pups that
would otherwise have had free entrance. Then Craney went to bed and
almost immediately to sleep, and heard nothing until after one o'clock,
when, with shocking news, men came banging at his double-locked and
bolted door.
Strong was one of the first to stir him, and Strong's face was white,
as well it might be. As the sentries began calling midnight he had left
Willett at the office, saying he must turn in for a few hours' rest.
Willett, seemingly in excellent spirits, had been writing a few pages
and addressing envelopes.
"I'll follow in twenty minutes or so," said he, "for I, too, need a
snooze. I'll be up as soon as I've finished a little business." Strong
had gone almost immediately to his pillow and to sleep, and was roused
by the corporal of the guard who had run in to call him with the news
that Lieutenant Willett had been shot dead.
At the moment of the shooting, so later said the guard, the waning
moon, only a dull crescent, was up far enough above the eastward
heights to throw a faint gleam over the valley. One of Turner's own men
was on post at the south-east corner, and his yell for the corporal,
instantly following the distant shot, was so excited and vehement that
the infantry non-commissioned officer, who went at a run, was minded to
rebuke him for raising such a row over a mere shooting scrape among the
Mexican packers. "Packers, your granny!" said Number Six. "It's
Lieutenant Willett that's shot, and I know it! He came down out of the
office not twenty minutes ago and went straight out south for Craney's
shack, and I'm betting he's done for."
And so indeed it looked when they found him but few minutes later--the
whole guard, save the relief on post, coming swift at the run to the
corporal's cry, and the garrison turning out, thinking sure it was
fire. Three hundred yards or so south and east of the shack they found
him lying flat on his face, which seemed forced into the soil,
senseless, and for the moment apparently dead. Even when they turned
him over and dashed water into his face, and brushed away the sand,
there was no sign of life, nor sign of shot wound. Not until the doctor
came on the run, urged by breathless messenger, was the tiny
bullet-hole found under the left armpit, and such blood as had escaped
seemed absorbed by the underwear. Internal hemorrhage was feared as
they unfastened his uniform and sought for further wound and found
none. Craney bade them carry him to his own room, where there would be
better light, and while some of them laid him on Craney's bed and
others carefully scouted the surrounding willows for trace of the
assassin, and others still went in and stirred up Case, sleeping
heavily, stupidly, "like a hog," said an indignant few until told of
the doctor's "dope." Then Bentley came and drove all but an attendant
or two, and Strong and Craney, from the room, until the general
arrived, his own face ashen, to ask what hope was left, got but a
dubious headshake in reply, and then sat him down, buried his sorrowing
white head in his hands, and began to upbraid himself:
"It's all my fault--my doing," said he. "I see it all. I said the words
that sent him!"
And then to Bentley and Craney the veteran soldier told his story. He
had had difficulty, as Bentley knew, in persuading Harris not to get
up--not to attempt to find 'Tonio that night; to wait until day, when
the Indian more easily might be reached. It was late when he left
Harris, and was surprised to see lights at the office. There, all
alone, was Willett, writing, and to Willett Archer told the message of
the feather, and of Harris's eagerness to find 'Tonio at once.
"Harris still holds that 'Tonio is utterly wronged, or at least utterly
misunderstood," said he, "and that, Indian as he is, 'Tonio would not
revenge himself on you as we supposed. 'Tonio knows he is suspected of
the attempt to kill you, and yet wishes to come in and be tried. All he
asks is fair play and trial before Crook himself. Then," continued
Archer, "I asked Willett in so many words if it were true that he had
struck 'Tonio with a gauntlet that night at Bennett's, and he said,
reluctantly, it was--that 'Tonio had been insolent, insubordinate, that
that was the way he had always dealt with such cases. Perhaps with men
like 'Tonio it was all wrong, but he had never met Indians like 'Tonio
before. I told him gravely that he had made a serious error, and that
he should lose no time in getting word to 'Tonio that he realized this
and desired to make amend. Willett said he would do it the very first
time they met--that he knew how to bring 'Tonio in and would talk to
him, man to man. I told him that it would be well to do this before
quitting the valley, on his way out in the morning, perhaps. But, my
God!" continued poor Archer, as he glanced at the senseless form over
which physician and attendants were still working, "I never dreamed of
his going out to-night. He said he should signal for a talk at the
moment of starting with his escort, and so, probably, meet 'Tonio near
the Peak."
A solemn little gathering was this at the shack, while up at the
quarters two sorrow-stricken women, Mrs. Archer and Mrs. Stannard, were
striving to soothe and still poor Lilian, to whom the truth had had to
be told. All the officers were up and astir, some of them conferring
with their gray-faced commandant at the doorway, others heading the
search over among the willows and down the stream. A strange fact had
developed. Only one shot had been heard, only one shot hole had been
discovered (and the probe indicated that the bullet, having struck a
rib, had been deflected downward, where it was not yet located), but
while this had produced shock and, possibly, temporary unconsciousness,
it was another blow, one with a blunt instrument, probably more than
one, upon the back of the head, that resulted in this prolonged stupor.
Not once had Willett regained consciousness, nor, said Bentley, was it
likely that he would. Bentley feared concussion of the brain.
Turner, a capital trailer, with some of the best of his men, was
working down stream, and all who knew Turner felt that no trace would
be bunglingly trampled out. The few pathways along the west bank,
through the willows, showed recent tracks on only one, where the
Mexicans and half-breeds had scurried away toward the old Sanchez
place. Already a strong party had been sent thither in search, but
meantime Turner was looking, as he frankly said, "for 'Tonio's tracks
about the ford," for within forty paces of the lower ford poor Willett
was found, and in the minds of every man and woman who could hold a
listener that night no other explanation was either sought or expected.
The fact that both shores of the stream were stony above and below the
spot--that it would be easy for an Indian to conceal them, would
account for it if their footprints were lacking, but lacking they were
not. In a dozen places about the ford and down the east bank, in a
dozen places around the spot where lay the stricken officer, the
earliest comers had seen and marked and protected against obliteration
print after print of the moccasins of the Apache-Mohaves--'Tonio's own
band. This in itself was wellnigh proof positive, but more was to come.
Willett's trail was easily found and followed. Straight and swift he
had gone across the flats from the post of Number Six, until within a
hundred yards of the store, when, attracted possibly by the bleary
lights still remaining in the barroom, he had veered that way until his
footprints were merged with dozens of others in the path. Presently
they were found again, passing between the store and the shack, around
in rear of the low log building, where at that time, presumably,
Craney, Watts and Case were asleep in their respective rooms. It seemed
as though he had paused and moved about a little in rear of the shack
as though in search of some one, and then had gone straight out beyond,
heading for the nearest clump of willows south of the ford, and there
it was found that the moccasin print overlaid that of the San Francisco
boot and followed it up stream to where the torn and trampled sands,
close to the brink, told of furious struggle. Moreover, this one
moccasin print was wet and came over the stones and up the bank just
about where Willett had reached it, and paused a moment or two before
turning away. At this point the stream babbled over rocky shallows, and
it was possible to cross by springing from rock to rock without wetting
a sole, but whoever had crossed here had been hurried and incautious.
One foot had missed, slipped or trailed, and its covering was soaking
wet as it followed on up the bank. It was still wet enough to leave, as
the lantern determined, a perceptible trace on the broad
stepping-stones just below the placid pool at the ford, where the
shores were low and sandy again--so wet, in fact, that the stain toward
the opposite bank and on the farthermost stone became a splash so dark
that the foremost sergeant, swinging his lantern aloft, sung out to his
follower, "Watch out! It's blood!" and blood it proved to be--there and
thereafter, down the opposite bank.
Yet not a drop was seen on the sands where Willett fell. Then his
assailants had not escaped unscathed. Unarmed as he was, the officer
had made a desperate fight for life.
"Now's the time to nab him!" said Turner, as he carried the report to
Archer. "'Tonio has managed to elude Malloy's party, probably by
leading them off on a false scent, but now we have blood to follow. Let
me send out a platoon, mounted, and we may nail the gang before
sunrise."
It was then short of two o'clock, and while busy trailers followed on
with their lanterns down the eastward bank, and were presently seen
flitting like fireflies far south among the willows, Turner himself,
with a score of his men, hastened back to quarters. There was saddling
in hot haste, yet with the precision of long practice. By half past two
all sight or sound of the trailers and the pursuing horsemen was lost
in the distance, and a corporal, trotting back from the Sanchez place,
reported that Munoz and some of his fellows had joined in the search,
and already with important result. Captain Turner sent him back with
his compliments to the commanding officer.
In the presence of Bonner, Bucketts and Strong, the general took the
package, something heavy, bundled in the red silk handkerchief Turner
had torn from his own brawny throat. A scrap of paper went fluttering
to the ground, which the adjutant quickly recovered and handed to his
chief, who read aloud in the dim candle light the words: "It might be
well to keep this from Harris, at least to-night."
Looking a trifle dazed, Archer unrolled the silken folds, and laid on
the office table the handsome, silver-mounted Colt revolver of the old
calibre 44 model Willett had lost that Sunday night of his perilous
adventure up the valley. There it was, inscription and all, every
visible chamber still loaded, its murderous leaden bullet showing in
the candle light. Archer slowly drew back the hammer. The cylinder
slowly revolved. The barrel-chamber swung as slowly into view, black,
powder-stained, and--empty. One shot, then, had been fired and very
recently. Who could have had it all this time but 'Tonio? Who else
could have fired it?