It wasn't so much that, said poor Bentley, as that they might overdo it—wear themselves out, and the patient, too. Willett was babbling in feverish delirium when his litter was borne into the general's dark hallway, and the patient thence to the white cot prepared for him, where Mrs. Archer and Mrs. Stannard at first were installed as nurses. Bentley shook his head over the arrangement, and later he spoke of it to Harris who sat thoughtful, troubled and ill at ease.
Bentley had told him of the discovery of the revolver and the universal connection of 'Tonio with the attempted murder, and Harris bowed his head wearily upon his hands: "I will not believe it," was all he said.
A sergeant and six men had gone with despatches and orders to find the field column along the Black Mesa. A runner had been sent to McDowell with the news, and another to Camp Sandy, where was Colonel Pelham, the district commander, giving details of the attempted assassination of the young staff officer, and warning all to arrest 'Tonio on sight. The affair was the one topic of talk in every barrack room, mess, and gathering at the post, and the subject of incessant comment and speculation at the store. That 'Tonio was the culprit no man was heard to express the faintest doubt. There were some who went so far as to say that any man, officer, soldier or civilian, who dared to strike an Indian of 'Tonio's lineage had nothing less to expect. The one question was, how had 'Tonio succeeded in luring his victim, unarmed, to the spot, and why had he left his vengeance unfinished? The one man along officers' row to express dissent from public opinion was Lieutenant Harris; the one man at the store to sit in unresponsive silence was Mr. Case—the bookkeeper.
Busy with his books, making up for the lost time, he said, sitting long hours at his desk, within earshot of almost everything, and hearing every theory expressed, he never so much as opened his lips upon the subject further than to say that, from all accounts, the lieutenant brought it on himself, and should never have ventured out alone, much less unarmed.
"You didn't like him any too well yourself," bluntly hazarded Bonner, two days after the tragedy, and, somehow, a rumor of a row between them at the doctor's quarters was again in circulation.
"I didn't," said Case, imperturbably. "But that score is settled."
In the course of the prompt investigation made by Archer during the daylight hours that followed the affray, Bentley had deemed it a duty to tell the commander of the disturbance between Willett and Case, ascribing it to Case's vinous excitement after some transaction at cards, and though Archer believed the bookkeeper totally innocent of any part in the distressing affair that followed, both he and Bentley believed it due to everybody that Case's possible connection with it be looked into. With Craney they visited Case's own sanctum in the store building not two hours after the sound of the shot. There in its accustomed place was Case's revolver, every chamber loaded and a thin coating of dust on the grip. Case's pistol then had not been used. Bentley went in and examined the medicine glass—this was toward four o'clock—and apparently Case must have taken, said Bentley, at least four doses. That much at any rate was gone, and Case was sleeping so heavily he could hardly be roused—could hardly be kept awake, begged thickly, sluggishly, to be allowed to "sleep it off," as though he thought he must have been drinking again. Bentley brought out one of Case's boots, and the track it fitted could be found all over the flats, about the store, shack and stream, and proved nothing at all, for everybody knew he had been wandering aimlessly about for days and nights past. The window shade or blanket had been disarranged and the window had been raised a few inches, probably for air. Everything else was as Craney remembered seeing it before he turned in, and the inference was clear to every mind that Case had never left the room and probably, after the second dose, never left his bed.
And now, from Turner down, all troopers lately afield in search of 'Tonio were again at Almy, discomfited, disheartened. "Hunting for a needle in a haystack without a magnet," said Turner, "is no more fruitless than scouting for Apaches in these mountains without Apache scouts. There is only one way," said he, "to capture 'Tonio. 'Set a thief to catch a thief; set an Indian to catch an Indian.'" But the few Indian scouts assigned to Almy had all been drafted away with Stannard and the field columns in the Mogollon. "Even had they been available," said Archer, who listened with gloomy brow, "Harris says no Apache-Mohave would betray 'Tonio, and no Apache-Yuma dare do it," and now, as never before, Archer had taken to long talks with Harris—who would gladly have had him keep away.
"Youngster," said Bentley, looking his patient keenly over the second day after what had come to be called "the shooting," "I'm blessed if I'm not getting discouraged on your account. Here I have had you within reaching distance of 'fit for duty' twice, and both times you've gone back on me. It's my belief you'd be better anywhere else than here. Almy's too high strung for your temperament."
"Get me once in saddle and I won't come back—or go back on you," said Harris. "How's Willett?"