"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.