four o'clock
`` I do n't think there is any danger , '' said Frank ; `` but perhaps it is well to be careful at first . Be sure and call us when you come off watch , '' and he shouldered his rifle and walked leisurely into the cabin . A Discomfited Rebel . Archie stood his watch without seeing or hearing any thing of the rebels , and when he was relieved , at four o'clock , he aroused Simpson , Woods , and his cousin , and after they had tied up their hammocks , and stowed them away in the nettings , Woods went to the sergeant 's room to obtain his consent to their proposed excursion . This was easily accomplished , and while they were filling their pockets with musket-cartridges , Frank proposed that they should go out and see what it was that had occasioned the alarm during the night ; so they leaned their muskets up in one corner of the cabin , and ran out on the bank , and there , weltering in his blood , lay , not a rebel , but a white mule . He it was that , while feeding about in the woods , had occasioned the disturbance in the bushes , and Frank 's shot had done its work . The two men with muskets had existence only in the corporal 's imagination .