an hour after midnight
Vanished even were all but two or three of the colony of gamblers and alleged prospectors , who occupied , to the annoyance of the commanding officer and the scandal of the sutler , a little ranch just outside the reservation lines whither venturesome spirits from the command were oft enticed and fleeced of the money that the authorized purveyor of high-priced luxuries considered his legitimate plunder . By this time Camp Cooke waked up to the fact that it had been dozing . While its own little force of cavalry was scouting the valleys of the Verde and the Salado to the east and Blake 's troop had been rushed up the Hessayampa to the north , and there was no one apparently to do escort duty through the deserts along the Gila , Camp Cooke and the outlying prowlers believed that those costly trinkets which Nevins had begged Mr. Loring to take to his wife would not be withdrawn from the quartermaster 's safe , much less sent forth upon their perilous way . Not until after Colonel Turnbull and the engineer had ridden off southward , escorted by a sergeant with six tough-looking troopers ; not until after Loring 's announcement that the jewels themselves had been sent ahead ; not until after Mr. Gleason had been remanded to his quarters to `` sober up , '' and the adjutant dispatched to Captain Nevins with the intimation that if his too audible imprecations were not stopped he and his tent would be transferred to a corner of the corral , did Camp Cooke learn that Major Starke had sent a fly-by-night courier after Blake , recalling the troop , that it had halted on that stream ten miles above the post , resting all afternoon and evening , had ridden silently in toward camp an hour after midnight and , after receiving certain instructions from Starke and a visit from Loring , had gone on southward , silently as it came , accompanied by the presiding officer of the court , who hated day marches and the sun-scorched desert , and leaving escort for those who were still to follow . There was mild surprise in camp , but untold wrath and vituperation along the line to Sancho 's , for from far and near the choicest renegades of Arizona had been flocking to the neighborhood only to find themselves outwitted by the engineer . Not half an hour after the burst of blasphemy from Nevins ' tent informed the camp that something more had happened to agitate anew his sorely ruffled temper , and the story flew from lip to lip that it was because the precious jewels were already on their way to ` Frisco , guarded presumably by Blake and forty carbines , a swarthy half-breed courier spurred madly southward from the outlying roost on the borders of the reservation , with the warning that it would be useless risk to meddle with the Teniente Loring 's party when it came along -- there were no valuables with them ; they had been sent with the cavalry hours before the dawn . Yes , even the sealed record of the court must have been sent at that time , too , for at ten o'clock in the morning , when Colonel Turnbull and Mr. Loring mounted and gravely saluted the cap-raising group of officers as they rode away from the major 's quarters , it was observed that Loring had not even saddle-bags , and the major 's striker admitted that he had hoisted the lieutenant 's valise to the pommel of a trooper 's saddle at two o'clock in the morning .