noon
Forty years later John Barclay took from a box in a safety vault back of his office in the city a newspaper . It was the Sycamore Ridge _ Banner _ , yellow and creased and pungent with age . `` This , '' he said to Senator Myton , spreading the wrinkled sheet out on the mahogany table , `` this is my enlistment paper . '' He smiled as he read aloud : -- `` At noon of our first day out we came across two stowaways . Hendricks , aged twelve , son of our well-known and popular Mayor , and J. Barclay , aged eleven , son of Mrs. M. Barclay , who , owing to the suddenness of the departure of our troops for the seat of war in Missouri , and certain business delays made necessary in ye editor 's return , were slipped out with our company rather than left in the rough and uncertain city of Leavenworth . They are called by the boys of ` C ' company respectively ` the little sergeant and the little corporal , Good Luck boys . ' '' A little farther down the column was this paragraph : `` Aug. 2nd we went into camp on Sugar Creek , and some sport was had by the men who went in bathing , taking the horses with them . ''