eleven o'clock
And a Mexican messenger had been dispatched on the spot . Noah sat at the ranch shack as dark came on and counted them as they went by down the road . As he guessed , the officer would get away first , and the rest begin to drop away from camp one or two at a time soon after dark . By eleven o'clock he had counted seventeen : and then Noah saddled his horse . When he had met Imogene , he had thought she was another Mexican , but he was not alarmed at one or even three . A little before one o'clock Noah tied his horse to a cottonwood tree a half mile below the Dillenbeck water gates . He skirted through the fields round the deserted guard camp .