four
o'clock
Here he determined to wait and intercept her before she reached the hotel . He knew that many of the guests were aware of his wife 's speculations with Van Loo , and that he was her broker . He wished to spare her running the gauntlet of their curious stares and comments as she drove up alone . As he was climbing the slope the coach from Sacramento dashed past him on the road below , but he knew that it had changed horses at Boomville at four o'clock , and that his tired wife would not have availed herself of it at that hour , particularly as she could not have yet received the fateful news . He threw himself under a large pine , and watched the stagecoach disappear as it swept round into the courtyard of the hotel . He sat there for some moments with his eyes bent upon the two forks of the red road that diverged below him , but which appeared to become whiter and more dazzling as he searched their distance . There was nothing to be seen except an occasional puff of dust which eventually revealed a horseman or a long trailing cloud out of which a solitary mule , one of a pack-train of six or eight , would momentarily emerge and be lost again .