Soon the individual encampments were silent save for the champ or cough of tethered animals, or the whining howl of coyotes, prowling in.

At the Missouri encampment, last of the train, and that heading the great cattle drove, the hardy frontier settlers, as was their wont, soon followed the sun to rest.
The night wore on, incredibly slow to the novice watch for the first time now drafted under the prairie law.

The sky was faint pink and the shadows lighter when suddenly the dark was streaked by a flash of fire and the silence broken by the crack of a border rifle.

Then again and again came the heavier bark of a dragoon revolver, of the sort just then becoming known along the Western marches.
The camp went into confusion.

Will Banion, just riding in to take his own belated turn in his blankets, almost ran over the tall form of Bill Jackson, rifle in hand.
"What was it, man ?" demanded Banion.