Four figures passed and repassed between me and a red fire.

I knew them for the two cooks and the horse wranglers.

One of the latter was grumbling.
"Didn't git in till moon-up last night," he growled.

"Might as well trade my bed for a lantern and be done with it." Even as I stretched my arms and shivered a little, the two wranglers threw down their tin plates with a clatter, mounted horses and rode away in the direction of the thousand acres or so known as the pasture.
I pulled on my clothes hastily, buckled in my buckskin shirt, and dove for the fire.

A dozen others were before me.