ten o'clock
The sides of that gigantic white furrow terminated in darkness . Hemmed in from the world in all directions , it might have been their tomb . But although THEY could see nothing beyond their prison walls , they themselves were perfectly visible from the heights above them . And Jack Tenbrook , quartz miner , who was sinking a tunnel in the rocky ledge of shelf above the gorge , stepping out from his cabin at ten o'clock to take a look at the weather before turning in , could observe quite distinctly the outline of the black wagon , the floundering horses , and the crouching figures by their side , scarcely larger than pygmies on the white surface of the snow , six hundred feet below him . Jack had courage and strength , and the good humor that accompanies them , but he contented himself for a few moments with lazily observing the travelers ' discomfiture . He had taken in the situation with a glance ; he would have helped a brother miner or mountaineer , although he knew that it could only have been drink or bravado that brought HIM into the gorge in a snowstorm , but it was very evident that these were `` greenhorns , '' or eastern tourists , and it served their stupidity and arrogance right ! He remembered also how he , having once helped an Eastern visitor catch the mustang that had `` bucked '' him , had been called `` my man , '' and presented with five dollars ; he recalled how he had once spread the humble resources of his cabin before some straying members of the San Francisco party who were `` opening '' the new railroad , and heard the audible wonder of a lady that a civilized being could live so `` coarsely '' ?