midnight
The men were soberer than they had been in the afternoon . McCager had seen to that . The boy replaced his exhausted mule with a borrowed mount . At midnight , as he drew near the cabin of the Widow Miller , he gave a long , low whippoorwill call , and promptly , from the shadow of the stile , a small tired figure rose up to greet him . For hours that little figure had been sitting there , silent , wide-eyed and terrified , nursing her knees in locked fingers that pressed tightly into the flesh . She had not spoken . She had hardly moved .