noon
Major Chrome meant to advance with caution and deliberation . If the Indians saw them coming precipitately , they might be equally precipitate in their flight , and thereby defeat the general 's plans of having Tintop get in their rear , at which characteristic opinion Captain Canker , of the -- th , a man of many moods , but a fighter , turned gloomily away , and was heard soon afterwards swearing viciously . It was the old story of the army of lions with a sheep at their head . And then came a calm , cloudless , radiant June Sunday , a day as perfect and serene aloft as was that June Sunday of the year gone by on whose high noon there rose the mad clamor of the battle on the Little Horn , whose pitiless sun looked fiercely down upon the slaughtered ranks of Custer and his gallant Seventh , and just as the red went out of the western sky , and the sharp , jagged line of the Warrior Buttes melted into softer purple , there came galloping in from the distant outpost an excited trooper , who gave a paper to Major Chrome . The officers were seated about him at a tiny fire , and Cranston quickly lighted a candle lantern and the major read . It was from the officer of the picket . `` Thunder Hawk and Rides Double just in from over toward the Ska .