midnight
Both men looked wistfully at the brimming decanter on his sideboard , and one of them `` allowed '' he never felt so used up in his life ; so the kind-hearted post commander lugged forth a demijohn and poured out two stiff noggins of whiskey , refreshed by which they retold their tale . Miller `` gave them the rein '' for five minutes and then cross-questioned , as a result of which proceeding he soon dismissed them to the barracks and breakfast , and announced to Hatton and the adjutant that there would be no change in the orders , -- he did n't believe one-fourth of their story . The stage , he said , was n't due at Eagle 's Nest until four o'clock in the morning , and these men had declared it burned at three . It was utterly improbable that it came farther than Phillips 's crossing of the Chugwater , where it was due at midnight , and where long before that time all the hands at the station had been warned , both by couriers and fugitives , that the Indians were swarming up the valley . They had cut the telegraph-wire , of course , on striking the road , early in the afternoon , and it was impossible to tell just how things had been going ; but he was willing to bet that the stage was safe , despite the assertions of the ranchmen that they had seen the blaze and heard the appalling shrieks of the victims . The major 's confidence , however , could not be shared by the dozen houses full of women and children whose closest protectors were far away on the fields where duty called them . Laramie was filled with white , horror-stricken faces and anxious eyes , as the ladies flitted from door to door before the call for guard-mounting , and `` boomed '' the panic-stricken ranchmen 's story until it reached the proportions of a wholesale massacre and an immediately impending siege of the fort by Red Cloud and all his band .