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,
“It’s a grand success, Bill. We never made a false stroke.”
A heavy snowstorm now set in. The assassins occupied the remainder of the night in destroying and removing the evidences of their guilt. The bodies of their victims were wrapped in blankets, conveyed to the summit of an adjacent ridge, and cast over a precipice into a cañon eight hundred feet deep, where it was supposed they would be speedily devoured by wolves. The camp equipage, saddles, straps, blankets, guns, pistols, everything not retained for immediate convenience, were burned, and all the iron scraps carefully collected, put into a sack, and cast over the precipice. All the while these guilty deeds were in progress, the storm was increasing. When the morning dawned, not a vestige of the ghastly tragedy was visible. The camp was carpeted to the depth of two feet with snow, and the tempest still raged. The murderers congratulated each other upon their success. No remorseful sensations disturbed their relish for a hearty breakfast. No contrite emotions affected the greedy delight with which each miscreant received his share of the blood-bought treasure. No dread lest the eye of the All-seeing, who alone had witnessed their dark and damning atrocity, should betray them, mingled with the promises they made to themselves of pleasures and pursuits that this ill-gotten gain would buy in the world where they were going. One solitary fear haunted them,—that concerning their escape from the country.