"You may as well tell him, Wickham," said he, and, with Bright at his side, strode back to head-quarters hill, leaving Strong and his senior aide to settle the matter. "You damned fool!" said Blackbeard contemptuously. "It wasn't 'Tonio; it was your own people gave you up. It wasn't 'Tonio; it was your own brother shot Teniente Willett. His own revolver was found at the spot. Your own people say he did it!" "Lie! Lie!" shrieked Sanchez, livid from fright and amaze. "Jose no have pistol that night. Jose lose him to Case--monte--two days before! _Case_ shoot him! _Case_ shoot him! Munoz see him. 'Patchie-Mohave see him! Look, Senor Capitan, I bring them all--all say so." "I thought we'd be getting at bottom facts before we finished with our greaser gang," said Wickham, with no symptom of either surprise or emotion. "Very good, Sanchez. We'll give you the chance to swear to it and bring your witnesses. Take him in, sergeant, and keep this to yourself. Now bring out Dooley." Half an hour later, just as the midnight call of the sentries was going the rounds, Hal Willett, after whispered words of good-night to a tall and slender shadow at Darrah's door, came swiftly up the steps of his new quarters, and was surprised to find a little group at the adjoining veranda. Two civilians were there, one of whom he knew to be the sheriff. Strong was there and Wickham was giving some instructions in low tone to the three. "You start at dawn," were the words that caught Willett's ear, "and you should have him at Prescott within the week. Sure you need no further escort?" "Sure," was the sententious answer of the tall civilian, as he sauntered to the steps. "What is it?" asked Willett, at a venture. "Just a flyer, Willett," said Blackbeard, in the most off-hand manner imaginable. "Sanchez swears it was Case who shot you, and we're having him up to explain." For an instant four men stood watching Willett's face. Pale at almost any time of late, it seemed to have turned ashen in the pallid light about them. He swayed, too, a trifle, as though from sudden shock, and it was a second or two before he found his voice. Then: "What infernal rot! Didn't they find my own pistol, that 'Tonio had stolen, where his fellows or he had dropped it in their flight?" "O, Lord, yes," was the airy answer, "five miles away. But Harris found the real one, right there at the spot. Case won it from Sanchez just two days before. So he'll be here with 'Tonio the end of the week." CHAPTER XXVI.