Their departure was regarded as a signal for all to retire. Page had spread his blankets and lain down some time before, “not,” as he afterwards said, “to sleep, but to await the course of events.” Allen crept in by his side. The Chalmers brothers had made their bed twenty yards distant from the camp-fire; and Romaine, armed to perform the part assigned to him, stretched himself beside Phillips, his unsuspecting victim. Howard, the arch and bloody instigator of the brutal tragedy, demon-like, roamed at large, ready for any service, when the hour came, necessary to finish the deed.
The evening wore on. The sleep of toil-worn men comes when it is sought; and soon the only wakeful eyes in the camp were those of the watchers at the herd, Howard, Romaine, and the wretched Page.
The friendly conversation between Magruder and Lowry, as they sat side by side at the fire, was not interrupted, until the former looked at his watch.
“It is nearly ten,” said he, filling his meerschaum, while unconsciously announcing the hour of his doom.
“I will put some wood on the fire,” said Lowry, picking up the axe, and rising.
Magruder bent forward towards the fire to light his meerschaum, when the axe wielded by Lowry descended with a fearful crash into his brain. Howard, who had been concealed near, sprung forward, and snatching the axe from Lowry, who seemed for the moment paralyzed at the deed he had committed, struck several additional blows upon the already lifeless body of the unfortunate man. The villains then hurried to the spot where the Chalmers brothers were lying, and while they were despatching them with the axe, Romaine plunged a bowie-knife into the abdomen of Phillips, exclaiming at the moment, with an oath,
“You old fool, I have to kill you. I told you at Virginia City not to come.”
Allen, wakened by the death groan of young Chalmers, had risen to a sitting posture, and was rubbing his eyes, when Howard stole behind him, and blew out his brains, by a simultaneous discharge of buckshot from both barrels of his gun into the back part of Allen’s head.
The work of assassination was complete. The murderers, unharmed, were in possession of the gold which had caused the dreadful deed.
Page, who had not left his bed, was now summoned by Howard to assist in the concealment of the bodies. Knowing that his life would pay the forfeit of disobedience, he hurried to the camp-fire, where Lowry greeted him with the soul-sickening words,