three o'clock
It was noon when they struck the railroad . They halted long enough to stop a freight train , send some telegrams , and ask for news . They got orders from Rooney Lee , had an empty box car set behind the engine for a special , and , loading their horses at the chute , made a helter-skelter run for Sleepy Cat . At three o'clock they struck north for the Mission Mountains . Banks 's _ posse _ , leaving Medicine Bend before daybreak , headed northwest . Their instructions were explicit : to scatter after crossing the Frenchman , watch the trails from the Goose River country and through the Mission Mountains , and intercept everybody riding north until the _ posse _ from Sleepy Cat or Whispering Smith should communicate with them from the southwest . Nine men rode in the party that crossed the Crawling Stone Sunday morning at sunrise with Ed Banks .