three o'clock
He looked almost as any grandparent might have looked going to join a favorite grandchild at a park bench . Yet here was a man who had torn aside the veil and permitted one glimpse at the old , inspiring West . Helen turned and looked at him again , as , in an earlier era , she would have looked at Lincoln . The stage station at White Lodge was a temporary center of public interest every afternoon at three o'clock when Charley Hicks drove the passenger bus in from Quaking-Asp Grove . After a due inspection of the passengers the crowd always shifted immediately to the post-office to await the distribution of mail . A well-dressed , refined-looking woman of middle age was among the passengers on the second day after the hearing of Fire Bear and Jim McFann . She had little or nothing to say on the trip -- perhaps for the reason that speech would have been difficult on account of the monopolizing of the conversation by the other passengers .