midnight
Very gloomy and doubtful of the outcome , we left the Hole-in-the-Plain . We were toiling slowly up a slope , nearly a dozen miles on this third stage of the desert route , when a horseman overtook us , who proved to be Mr. Gray . He slowed up , listened to my account of our perplexities , and after saying many hopeful and cheering things , telling us that Tyson 's Wells were now not far ahead , he galloped swiftly away in the darkness . At midnight the road ascended to a considerably higher level and became suddenly hard and smooth . The driver urged the team into a series of brief and spasmodic trots , which lasted a couple of hours , when we again descended to a lower level , where the wearily slow gait was resumed . With the slower pace our spirits fell and our thirst increased . As Private Tom Clary expressed it to the driver : `` In a place like this a gallon of Black Tanks water would be acciptible without a strainer , and no reflictions passed upon the wigglers . ''