noon
At ten the following morning a buckboard called at Willett 's door , and that young officer drove away in travelling rig , with a valise by way of luggage , and when people inquired , as many did , and many more would have done had they followed their inclination , what took Willett away in such a hurry and -- er -- at such a time , all that black-bearded Wickham would say was , he heard it was a wagon . As for Bright , one might as well seek information of the Sphinx . There never was a man who , knowing all about a matter , could look , as more than one fair critic had been heard to say , so exasperatingly , idiotically ignorant . At noon , however , it was known that Willett 's wagon stopped but a few moments on the plaza in the little mining town and capital , then shot away southward on the Hassayampa road . Three days later the array of `` Casually at Post '' on the morning report of Fort Whipple showed an increase of something like a score . Lieutenant Briggs with a sergeant and a dozen troopers rode in the previous evening , after turning over a quartette of dusky civilians at the calaboose , and leaving a guard at the hospital in charge of a pallid , nervous , suffering man , whom a big-hearted post surgeon received with compassionate care . The doctor had known him in better days .