Eight
o'clock
`` Must have been from those bluffs -- east of the Springs , sir . '' Lieutenant Lee whips out his watch and peers at the dial through the twilight . The cloud deepens on his haggard , handsome face . Eight o'clock , and they have been in saddle almost incessantly since yesterday afternoon , weighed down with the tidings of the fell disaster that has robbed them of their comrades , and straining every nerve to reach the scene . Only five days before , as he stepped from the railway car at the supply station , a wagon-train had come in from the front escorted by Mr. Lee 's own troop ; his captain with it , wounded . Just as soon as it could reload with rations and ammunition the train was to start on its eight days ' journey to the Spirit Wolf , where Colonel Stanley and the -- th were bivouacked and scouring the neighboring mountains . Already a battalion of infantry was at the station , another was on its way , and supplies were being hurried forward .