about ten in the morning
And as Yetmore will certainly find out the nature of the black sand , and will be sending out a prospector or two himself as soon as the snow clears off , we must at least give Tom an equal chance . So , instead of waiting for you to finish cutting the ice , I 'll write him a letter at once , telling him all about it , and send it up by this morning 's coach . '' One of the advantages to us of the frosty weather was that the mail coach between San Remo and Sulphide came our way instead of taking the hill-road , so that during the winter months we received our mail daily , whereas , through the greater part of the year , while the `` forty rods '' were `` bottomless , '' we had to go ourselves to San Remo to get it . The coach , going up , passed our place about ten in the morning , and by it my father sent the promised letter . We quite expected that Tom would come flying down at once , but instead we received from him next morning a reply , stating that he could not leave his work , and asking my father to allow us boys to do a little prospecting for him -- which , I may say , we boys were ready enough to do if my father did not object . He did not object ; being , indeed , very willing that we should put in a day 's work for the benefit of our friend . For , as he said , to undertake one day 's prospecting for a friend was a very different matter from taking to prospecting as a business .