ten o'clock
I ask you to salute that young man as I do , and to wish him well . '' Clay lifted his high hat to the back of the young officer as it was hidden in the hanging vines , and once again , with grave respect to the grim features of the great general above him , and then smiling at his own conceit , he ran lightly down the steps and disappeared among the trees of the plaza . Clay slept for three hours . He had left a note on the floor instructing MacWilliams and young Langham not to go to the mines , but to waken him at ten o'clock , and by eleven the three men were galloping off to the city . As they left the Palms they met Hope returning from a morning ride on the Alameda , and Clay begged her , with much concern , not to ride abroad again . There was a difference in his tone toward her . There was more anxiety in it than the occasion seemed to justify , and he put his request in the form of a favor to himself , while the day previous he would simply have told her that she must not go riding alone .