nearly noon
For many years afterward she came annually , her timidity having worn away after the generous reception accorded her at the hands of a hospitable people . `` There 's our ford , '' said Juan , -- our half-blood trailer , -- pointing to the slightest sag in a low range of hills distant twenty miles . We were Texas Rangers . It was nearly noon of a spring day , and we had halted on sighting our destination , -- Comanche Ford on the Concho River . Less than three days before , we had been lounging around camp , near Tepee City , one hundred and seventy-five miles northeast of our present destination . A courier had reached us with an emergency order , which put every man in the saddle within an hour after its receipt . An outfit with eight hundred cattle had started west up the Concho .