eight o'clock
`` Any news from the agency ? '' Not a word , and it lay now barely a dozen miles away . Tuesday morning , too impatient to wait for coming reinforcements , and confident he could hold his own with the little force at hand , the Gray Fox pushed ahead . All were up and off at the break of the wintry day , and at eight o'clock had neared the top of the divide between the shallow , placid Niobrara and the swift Chasing Water beyond . Little Sanders , trotting far in the advance with three or four light riders , threw himself from his horse , unslung his field-glass , and peered long and anxiously into the northward valley . All seemed desolate and deserted . A smoke was drifting lazily upward from the site of the distant agency ; not from peaceful chimney , but rising from a mass of smouldering ruins .