ten o'clock
Blake moodily gazed into the embers of the bivouac-fire . Never had we seen him so utterly unlike himself as on this burlesque of a scout , and now that we were virtually homeward-bound , and empty-handed too , he was completely weighed down by the consciousness of our lost opportunities . If something could only have happened to Gleason before the start , so that the command might have devolved on Blake , we all felt that a very different account could have been rendered ; for with all his rattling , ranting fun around the garrison , he was a gallant and dutiful soldier in the field . It was now after ten o'clock ; most of the men , rolled in their blankets , were sleeping on the scant turf that could be found at intervals in the half-sandy soil below the corrals and stables . The herds of the two troops and the pack-mules were all cropping peacefully at the hay that had been liberally distributed among them because there was hardly grass enough for a `` burro . '' We were all ready to turn in , but there stood our temporary commander , his long legs a-straddle , his hands clasped behind him , and the flickering light of the fire betraying in his face both profound dejection and disgust . `` I would n't care so much , '' said he at last , `` but it will give Gleason a chance to say that things always go wrong when he 's away .