about two o'clock
There were Mick and the two white boys , Yarloo , Poona , Calcoo , and Jack Johnson , all mounted on the best horses in the plant . They had only two firearms for all the party : Mick 's rifle which he carried , and his revolver , which he gave to Vaughan . Their chief weapon was `` bluff '' , for a party of seven could do nothing against nearly a hundred armed natives , except surprise them long enough to let their prisoner escape . They rode hard till about two o'clock , stopped and took a hunk of damper and meat each and a drink of water , and then put their saddles on fresh horses and pushed on . The sun was still an hour high when they came to a thick clump of timber at the entrance to a gully running , up into the mountains . Yarloo , who was the real leader of the party , advised that the horses be left here . The camp was not far off , and the approach to it was quite free from any cover for a mounted man .