five o'clock in the afternoon
Dawn of the fifth day found them huddled in a deep ravine of the southern foothills , with Warrior Gap not thirty miles away , and now , indeed , was prudence necessary , for the faint light showed the fresh prints of innumerable pony hoofs on every side . They were close on Machpealota 's lurking braves . Which would see the other first ? It must have been somewhere toward five o'clock in the afternoon that Dean , searching with his field glass the sunlit slopes far out to the east , heard the voice of his sergeant close at hand and turned to answer . Up to this moment , beyond the pony tracks , not a sign had they seen of hostile Indians , but the buffalo that had appeared in scattered herds along their line of march were shy and scary , and old hands said that that meant they had recently been hunted hard . Moreover , this was not a section favored of the buffalo . There was much alkali and sage brush along their trail , and only here and there in scanty patches any of the rich , nutritious bunch grass which the roving animals so eagerly sought .