ten P.M.
The sergeant started forty minutes later , with his two men at his back , and just thirty-five minutes behind Sanchez , who left the station on the spur of the moment , and the interpreter with a cleft weasand . It is a mistake for one man to attempt the incarceration of an armed half-blood of the Indian race . Sanchez started in the lead , afoot , and , in spite of his fear of Tontos , kept it all the way to the Mazatzal , where , as was later learned , he abandoned the paths of rectitude and the trail to Almy , and joining a party of twenty young renegades , complacently watched the coming of that sergeant and detachment from behind the sheltering bowlders of Dead Man 's Cañon , and thus it happened that the orders Archer had been expecting three long days and nights were destined never to get to him . It was this situation he had been puzzling over when at ten P.M. the officer of the day came in to say that new signal fires in the east were now being answered by others in the west , away over in the Mazatzal , and the general went forth to the northern edge of the `` bench '' to have a good look at them , wishing very much he had Stannard or Turner or `` Capitan Chiquito '' -- little Harris -- to help him guess their meaning . But Stannard , with his sturdy troop , was still far afield , scouting the fastnesses of the Mogollon in hopes still of overtaking the marauding band that had ruined Bennett 's ranch , murdered its owner , and borne away into the wilds two helpless little settlers for whom a half-crazed , heart-broken woman at Almy was wailing night and day . Turner , following another route and clew , was exploring the Sierra Ancha south of Tonto Creek , and Lieutenant Harris , in fever and torment , was occupying an airy room in the post surgeon 's quarters , the object of Bentley 's ceaseless care , and of deep solicitude on part of the entire garrison . Borne in the arms of Stannard 's men , poor young Mrs. Bennett , raving , had been carried back to the ruins , and thence by ambulance to the post .