the noon of night
Once he sat down beside the unconscious Thurstane , and meditated shooting him through the head as he lay , and so making an end of that obstacle . But he immediately put this idea aside as a frenzy , generated by the fever of fatigue and sleeplessness . A dozen times he was assaulted by a lazy or cowardly temptation to give up the chances of the desert , push back to the Bernalillo route , leave everything to fortune , and take disappointment meekly if it should come . When the noon of night arrived , he had decided upon nothing but to blunder ahead by sheer force of momentum , as if he had been a rolling bowlder instead of a clever , resolute Garcia Coronado . The truth is , that his circumstances were too mighty for him . He had launched them , but he could not steer them as he would , and they were carrying him he knew not whither . At one o'clock he awoke Texas Smith , who was now his sergeant of the guard ; but instead of enjoining some instant atrocity upon him , as he had more than once that night purposed , he merely passed the ordinary instructions of the watch ; then , rolling himself in his blankets , he fell asleep as quickly and calmly as an infant .