eleven o'clock on Tuesday
Two years ' campaigning in Arizona and one in Wyoming had made these subalterns fast friends , despite the difference of ten years in their ages and nearly twenty `` files '' in rank , Blake being one of the senior and Lanier one of the junior lieutenants of the regiment . Blake was no pet of the post commander . Blake had a way of saying satirical things of seniors whom he did not fancy , and Button was one of these . Blake should have returned to his proper station the day after the dance , but , like everybody else , so far as heard from , he had been held by the storm , and therefore happened to be in the club-room at the store along toward eleven o'clock on Tuesday , watching the distant deployment over the southeastward slopes of the barren upland . Fully half the mounted force of the garrison was on search for the paymaster 's `` outfit , '' and with Blake stood half a dozen infantry officers and two or three of the -- th . To them , on his way to rejoin his searching troop , had entered big Jim Ennis , Lanier 's chum and classmate , and Ennis looked the picture of smothered wrath . Half an hour previous he had been seen trotting up from stables to the adjutant 's office , summoned thither by the orderly of the commanding officer .