noon
`` It is twenty minutes early , '' Jerry said , as Tom consulted his watch , `` and the red-skins wo n't be here till it is just twelve o'clock . A red-skin is never five minutes before or five minutes after the time he has named for a meeting . It may have been set six months before , and at a place a thousand miles away , but just at the hour , neither before nor after , he will be there . A white man will keep the appointment ; but like enough he will be there the night before , will make his camp , sleep , and cook a meal or two , but he does not look for the red-skin till exactly the hour named , whether it is sunrise or sunset or noon . Red-skins ai n't got many virtues , -- least there ai n't many of them has , though I have known some you could trust all round as ready as any white man , -- but for keeping an appintment they licks creation . '' A few minutes before twelve o'clock three Indians were seen coming down the valley on horseback . They were riding at a leisurely pace , and it was exactly the hour when they drew rein in front of Tom and his companion .