about eight o'clock
The hope that its mission might be friendly was dispelled even in the first report from Billings . The characteristic red and green light-fire had swept the country near by -- a horizontal beam this time -- and the town of Byron was reported destroyed , and in all likelihood with the loss of its entire population . The Boston _ Observer _ sent me to Billings almost immediately by quadruplane . I arrived there about eight o'clock on the evening of the 10th . The city was in a turmoil . Ranchers from the neighboring cattle country thronged its streets . A perfect exodus of people -- Mormons and oil men from Shoshone country , almost the entire populations of Cody , Powell , Garland , and other towns near the threatened section , the Indians from the Crow Reservation at Frannie -- all were streaming through Billings .