"Here we camp," said Bill Breakstone, and almost as he spoke Middleton gave the word. One line of wagons went forward, the other stopped, the two ends joined, and then they swung around in a circle, with the stream flowing down the center of the enclosure. It was all done with so much celerity and so little trouble that the Mexicans and Comanches seemed to be taken by surprise. A few of them rode nearer, and some of the Comanches fired arrows, but they fell far short, and the Americans paid no attention to them. "We’ll take a bite and a drink, Phil," said Bill Breakstone, "a bite of cold meat and a drink of cold water." "It iss good," said Arenberg. "That iss what we will do." They had no fuel with which to light fires, but there were lanterns carrying candles in the train, and these were hung on the sides of the wagons facing the inner ring, casting a pleasant light on the men as they passed. But Phil and his two comrades, food in hand, went outside. "Hope it won’t come on too dark," said Breakstone. "A thick night is what we’ve got to dread. If our friends out there mean to do anything, they’ll try it to-night, or I’m mightily fooled." In the east, where the enemy hung, the twilight had come already and now both Mexicans and Comanches were blurring with the darkness. A lance blade or two gave back a last flash of fire from the setting sun, but in a few more instants the rays ceased to reach them, and they sank into the night of the eastern plain. "Feels damp, and that’s bad," said Bill Breakstone. "Clouds mean a thick night, and a thick night means a lot of stalking and sniping by those rascals out there. Well, well, lay on, Macduff, and it won’t be we who will first cry, ’Hold, enough!’" The twilight soon deepened into dark, the wind rose a little, and, as Breakstone had feared, it brought with it shifts of rain, light showers only, but cold and very unpleasant. Only a few of the most hardened slept. All the others kept vigilant watch about the wagons. Phil, Breakstone, and Arenberg remained together, and nothing happened until nearly midnight. Then the mixed force of the enemy, creeping near, opened fire from every side, but the American sharpshooters lying down on the ground replied, firing at the flashes. This combat lasted nearly half an hour, and it was more spectacular than dangerous to the defenders. "This is drawn out rather long and produces nothing, Sir Philip of the Midnight, the Wilderness, and the Rain," said Bill Breakstone, "and with our long range rifles we have the advantage. They’re merely wasting good lead. Ah, I think I must have got that fellow! I hope it was one of those sneaking Comanches, and, if so, he deserves it for keeping me here on the ground in the rain, when I ought to be snoozing comfortably in a wagon."