midnight
He picked up the fragments of his red coat and looked at them ruefully . `` I did n't know that the herds were ever so large in this forest country , '' he said to Blackstaffe . `` It 's seldom so , '' said the older renegade . `` Is it their habit to rise up at midnight and gallop over men 's camps ? '' `` It is not . '' `` Then how do you account for such behavior ? '' Blackstaffe shrugged his shoulders and spoke a few words in their own tongue to the chiefs .