two o'clock
In the absence of Priest , Flood and John Officer did the counting , and as the hour of the day made the cattle sluggish , they lined through between the counters as though they had never done anything but walk in their lives . The count showed sixteen short of twenty-eight hundred , which left us yet over three hundred out . But good men were on their trail , and leaving two men on herd , the rest of us obeyed the most welcome orders of the day when Flood intimated that we would `` eat a bite and go after the rest . '' As we had been in our saddles since one or two o'clock the morning before , it is needless to add that our appetites were equal to the spread which our cook had waiting for us . Our foreman , as though fearful of the loss of a moment 's time , sent Honeyman to rustle in the horses before we had finished our dinners . Once the _ remuda _ was corralled , under the rush of a tireless foreman , dinner was quickly over , and fresh horses became the order of the moment . The Atascosa , our nearest water , lay beyond the regular trail to the west , and leaving orders for the outfit to drift the herd into it and water , Flood and myself started in search of our absent men , not forgetting to take along two extra horses as a remount for Blades and Priest .