ten
o'clock
The soldiers went to bed , and Keyser lay wondering for a while before he took his nap between his surveillances . The little breeze still passed at times , the running water and the ice made sounds together , and he could hear the wandering bell , now distant on the hill , irregularly punctuating the flight of the dark hours . By nine next day there was the thicket sure enough , and the forty waiting for the three hundred to come out of it . Then it became ten o'clock , but that was the only difference , unless perhaps Sarah the squaw grew more restless . The troopers stood ready to be told what to do , joking together in low voices now and then ; Crook sat watching Glynn smoke ; and through these stationary people walked Sarah , looking wistfully at the thicket , and then at the faces of the adopted race she served . She hardly knew what was in her own mind . Then it became eleven , and Crook was tired of it , and made the capping move in his bluff .