midday
For the most part they kept to the open , whereas Ross and the other two agents had skulked in wooded areas on their flight through this same territory . So they approached the mountains from a different angle , and though he tried , Ross could pick out no familiar landmarks . If by some miracle he was able to free himself from his captors , he could only head due west and hope to strike the river . At midday their party made camp in a grove of trees by a spring . The weather was as unseasonably warm as it had been the day before , and flies , brought out of cold-weather hiding , attacked the stamping horses and crawled over Ross . He tried to keep them off with swings of his bound hands , for their bites drew blood . Having been tumbled from his mount , he remained fastened to a tree with a noose about his neck while the horsemen built a fire and broiled strips of deer meat .