In three cases the victim took the whole of the advice, appointed the gang member his administrator, and called upon the criminal doctor when ill. The doctor promptly killed him with poison, the administrator took possession of his body, collected the money from the company, and divided it among the three conspirators.
They had collected $20,000 each, for two victims, when the insurance company sent a detective to investigate. He fixed the murder on the doctor and discovered the other criminals. They were arrested by the Mexican authorities, fairly tried—W. W. being present at the trial—and sentenced to be shot.
A great clamor was raised in the American newspapers about the cruel and barbarous conviction of innocent men by Mexican law. A member of Congress, the lawyer employed by the men, and the relatives of each of the condemned came to my brother with tears and pleadings, demanding that he intercede with the State Department for their relief. W. W. also received instructions from the State Department to make a thorough examination and report. He was unable to find any palliating circumstances, and reported through Ambassador Clayton his belief that the Mexican judgment was just. The Secretary of State sustained my brother, but the member of Congress, the lawyer, friends and relatives of the condemned, besieged the great President Diaz with pathetic appeals and tears, and, in the goodness of his heart, Diaz commuted the sentence to imprisonment for life.
When General Villa captured Chihuahua, the convicts were released from the penitentiary. The murderers were among the number, and Villa appointed the doctor as a commissioned medical officer on his staff.
W. W. filled his position honorably and well for ten years, when ill health compelled him to retire. In accepting his resignation, the State Department gave him a very complimentary letter. He returned to Austin, where his wife still lives, and, after a lingering illness, died there on February 10, 1913.
W. W. lived in El Paso two score of years, and in 1901 published a book entitled "Forty Years in El Paso."
AFTERTHOUGHT:—Last page in W. W.'s book.
"ENEMIES AND PHILOSOPHY
"In the summer of 1900 my brother, General Mills, and a sister paid Mrs. Mills and myself a visit at the United States Consulate at Chihuahua. One evening he, being in a reflective mood, said, 'Will, you and I have had many difficulties, and quarrels and fights with our personal enemies, and it is very gratifying to know, as I am growing old, that these are all over with me. My enemies are all reconciled to me, and I wish you could say as much.'
"I replied: 'I do not know that my enemies are all reconciled to me, but they are all dead, and that is better, or at least safer.' And it is the literal truth. All my bitterest foes have been taken hence, most of them by violence, and I neither rejoice at nor regret their taking off. I do not claim that I was always right and they always wrong, for I tried to return blow for blow, but it is certain that they often resorted to means which I would, under no circumstances, employ. Alas, most of my friends are gone also. Why I have been spared through it all is a mystery which I do not attempt to explain.
ADIOS."