midnight
With baskets of dainties for the invalid she had driven over one afternoon , when Hawtrey , whose bones were knitting well , lay talking to another man in his little sleeping-room . There was no furniture in the room except the wooden bunk in which he lay , and a deerhide lounge chair he had made . The stove-pipe from the kitchen led across part of one corner , and then up again into the room beneath the roof above . It had been one of Sproatly 's duties since the accident to rise and renew the fire soon after midnight , and when Sally arrived he was outside the house , whip-sawing birch-logs and splitting them , an occupation he profoundly disliked . Spring had come suddenly , as it usually does on the prairie , and the snow was melting fast under a brilliant sun . The bright rays that streamed in through the window struck athwart the glimmering dust motes in the little bare room , and fell , pleasantly warm , upon the man who sat in the deerhide chair . He was a year or two older than Hawtrey , though he had scarcely reached thirty .