noon
Our squad had twenty men in it under a lieutenant . We were patrolling a country known as the Tallow Cache Hills , glades and black-jack cross timbers alternating . All kinds of rumors of Indian depredations were reaching us almost daily , yet so far we had failed to locate or see an Indian . `` One day at noon we packed up and were going to move our camp farther west , when a scout , who had gone on ahead , rushed back with the news that he had sighted a band of Indians with quite a herd of horses pushing north . We led our pack mules , and keeping the shelter of the timber started to cut them off in their course . When we first sighted them , they were just crossing a glade , and the last buck had just left the timber . He had in his mouth an arrow shaft , which he was turning between his teeth to remove the sap .