about midnight
He had been watching anxiously since the snow began to fall . `` It 's going to be an awful night . '' He was right ; it was an awful night -- more so than any of them had anticipated . After a hot supper they retired to their bunks to sleep , only to be aroused about midnight by the roar of the wind as it tore through the woods and along the gulch with the force of a hurricane . The snow was coming down `` in chunks , '' as Randy put it , and mingled with it were tree branches , small brush , and dried tundra . In one corner of the cabin the wind had found a crack about six inches long and less than a sixteenth of an inch wide , and through this crack the snow had sifted over the entire floor . `` Jerusalem !