noon
He had need of every precaution . He was now going on a mission that demanded the utmost secrecy , and the colonel could no more conceal a movement than a sieve could hold water . Quitting the quartermaster 's depot one summer night at twelve , the little detachment rode silently out across the southward prairie , swung round to the east when the dim lights of town were a mile behind , took the trot over the hard , bounding turf , and at dawn were heading straight for the breaks of the Laramie . Halting for rest and coffee when the sun was an hour high , they again pushed on until noon , when they unsaddled in a grove of leafy cottonwoods in a little fork of the Medicine Bow , watered the weary horses and gave them a hearty feed and themselves as hearty a dinner , and then picketing and hoppling their steeds , who were glad enough to roll and sprawl in the sand , all hands managed to get some hours of sound sleep before the sun was sinking to the edge of the Sweetwater Range . Then came the careful grooming of their mounts , then a dip in the cool waters , then smoking tins of soldier coffee and sizzling slips of bacon . Then again the saddle and the silent trail , with the moon looking down from the zenith on their warlike array . Heavily armed was every man , each , even the lieutenant , with carbine and brace of Colts , and on they rode through the still , soft night air , chatting in low tones , no man knowing but every one believing that the taciturn , blue-eyed young officer in the lead was heading them for a lair of the Birdsall gang .