one o'clock
When a depot quartermaster , said he , could dictate the policy that should govern the command of a colonel of the fighting force , there was no use in remonstrance . Noon came and no news from the Cheyenne sheriff . The commanding officer at Russell wired that he , too , was stripped of his troops and had not even a cavalry courier to send after the General with the startling news that Major Burleigh had vanished with large sums , it was believed , in his possession . At one o'clock came tidings of the fugitive . He , together with two other men , had spent the late hours of the night at the lodgings of one of the party in Cheyenne , and at dawn had driven away in a `` rig '' hired at a local stable , ostensibly to follow the General to Laramie . They had kept the road northwestward on leaving town -- were seen passing along the prairie beyond Fort Russell , but deputies , sworn in at once and sent in pursuit , came back to say the rig had never gone as far as Lodge Pole . At six P. M. came further tidings .