eleven at night
Potts asked to go with him that he might see if this was his long-lost wife , -- so said Gleason , -- and the instant she caught sight of him she shrieked and fainted , and the two men sprang at each other like tigers . Knives were drawn in a minute . Then Burnham fled through the hall , snatched a revolver from its rack , and fired the fatal shot . The surgeon from Fort Phoenix reached them early the next morning , a messenger having been despatched from Crocker 's ranch before eleven at night , but all his skill could not save `` Burnham , '' now known to be Pierce , the ex-sutler clerk of the early Fifties . He had prospered and made money ever since the close of the war , and Zoe had been thoroughly well educated in the East before the poor child was summoned to share her mother 's exile . His mania seemed to be to avoid all possibility of contact with the troops , but the Crockers had given such glowing accounts of the land near Fort Phoenix , and they were so positively assured that there need be no intercourse whatever with that post , that he determined to risk it . But , go where he would , his sin had found him out .