They could hear no sounds of fighting, before. The twilight deepened. They must move cautiously. The Indians had seen the couriers ride out, they might be laying an ambush. A file of skirmishers fringed either flank, well out; scouts examined the country, ahead. Every ear was pricked, every eye searched right and left. The silence was very mysterious. The couriers had reported that the Indians' circle was wide, to avoid the cannon. When the stars read midnight, the major thought that he surely had arrived at the scene. The word was passed that every wheel and hoof and foot should be muffled as much as possible, and the infantry were halted, to await the baggage train. They proceeded. About one o'clock their advance struck the wagon corral itself. The Indians had not discovered them; the caravan out-posts had not discovered them: either side might have surprised the other side, evidently, but neither side knew. In fact, they had not been expected before morning. No one had dreamed that Major Riley would risk a night march through the sand-hills, infested with a thousand and more Indians. Now the corral and the soldiers waited for morning. At first daylight the reveille was sounded in the army camp. This was military regulations, but gave the Indians warning. The shrill notes pealed far among the slumberous dunes. The Kiowas and Comanches, leaping to their feet, stared amazed. Down there, at the wagon corral, two hundred blue-coated American soldiers had grown over-night! Musket barrels faintly gleamed, two score fresh wagon-tops glimmered, figures hastened to and fro, there was clatter of arms. Wah! These were no traders. They were warriors--American warriors. That made a different proposition. How had they come, and from where? "We will go," the chiefs decided. "The Mexican soldiers may be coming, too, and we shall be caught between." So they all rode away. Major Riley determined that the whole party must march on. To stay here, in this little basin surrounded by the hills, was dangerous. It was no place in which to fight. He would escort the caravan at least a day's stint farther, into more open country. First, Trader Lamme's body was found, and buried. He had been arrow-shot and lanced; scalped, stripped, and his head cut off. So he was left under the desert sand, and later his bones were dug up and reburied in St. Louis. Then the long column wended for the narrow pass out. It was reconnoitered and found to be undefended. They hastened through, while occupying the high ground on both flanks, and after a short but hard march halted, to camp.