nine o'clock
Snow had fallen early and frozen upon the ground ; the stockmen welcomed the `` chinook wind '' as the promise of a break in the hard weather . Shadows came out and played upon the pale slopes , as the riders rose and dropped past one long swell and another of dim country falling away like a ghostly land seeking a ghostly sea . And often Hetty looked back , fearing , yet half hoping , that the interdicted one might be on his way , among the dusky , straggling shapes behind . The company was not large , nor , up to nine o'clock , particularly merry . The women were engaged in cooking supper , or were above in the roof-room brushing out their crimps by the light of an unshaded kerosene lamp , placed on the pine wash-stand which did duty as a dressing-table . The men 's voices came jarringly through the loose boards of the floor from below . About that hour arrived the unbidden guest , and like the others he had brought his `` gun . ''