midnight
The rifled packages , carefully re-sealed , also went on to their several destinations , and the blame of the theft was laid elsewhere . Jack was not long in deciding upon his next move . Coming down from the boarding-house before the sheds had been closed that afternoon , he noted where the box containing the unsuspected human freight had been placed , and selecting a window at the far end of the shed , seized a favorable moment to quietly loosen its catch . It was near midnight , and Jack was once more the sole guardian of the station when he took the next step . And despite a certain nervousness , now that the exciting moment was at hand , he found considerable amusement in carrying it out . It was nothing less than making up a dummy imitation of himself asleep on a cot in a corner of the telegraph room -- as a precaution against the `` ghost '' peering within to learn the effect of his `` haunting . '' In making the dummy Jack used a brown fur cap for the head , a glimpse of which under an old hat looked remarkably like his own brown head .