, two
rough-looking men, the owners of the establishment, were guarded by the
officers of the law, while within, Ray, Blake, Mr. Green, the sheriff,
and an officer of the territorial court were listening to the dying
deposition of the Saxon soldier Wolf,--the physicians had declared it
impossible for him to live another day.

Late on the night of the murder three men, returning townwards from the
"house on the hill," had come suddenly upon a gray horse dragging a man
by the stirrup. They picked the man up and carried him into the
gambling-house at the edge of town, where they laid him upon this bed.
Noting the U. S. on the shoulder of the horse and his cavalry
equipments, they sent him away in charge of one of their number, and
proceeded to search the pockets of the still insensible soldier, who was
clad in comparatively new "ranchman's" clothing, and who wore a gauntlet
on his left hand. He had revived for a moment, was told that he was
among friends and had nothing to fear. He said his horse had stumbled
into an _acequia_ in the darkness and fallen on him, and now he wanted
to get up. They assured him no horse was there; that, finding him
insensible, they had carried him to this place, where he was all right
"if he kept quiet," and Wolf soon realized that he was in a notorious
"dive" where soldiers were often drugged and robbed of their money. He
was locked in that night, and though suffering intensely from internal
injuries, he strove to make his escape. The next morning people in the
neighborhood heard appalling cries and uproar, but such things had often
happened there before in the drunken fights that took place, and not
until this day had it leaked out in some way that there was a man there
dying from injuries received partly in a runaway and partly in a fight
in the house. The police made a raid, and there discovered the very man
for whom the detectives and the military were searching high and low.
His first words were to ask for Lieutenant Ray, then for a physician and
a lawyer. And now his story was almost done. Ray was fully, utterly
exonerated.

In brief, it was about as follows: He was mad with rage at the treatment
he had received at the hands of Lieutenant Gleason, and at a deed of his
which he would not detail,--Lieutenant Ray knew, and that was enough. He
himself had only one thought,--to follow at once on the trail, to find
him alone if possible, and to compel him to fight him as gentlemen
fought, _a