one o'clock
It had been his general custom on such occasions to take the shortest way across the parade to the guard-house , make brief and perfunctory inspection there , then go on down the hill to the creek valley and successively visit the sentries around the stables . If the night were wet or cold , he went back the same way , ignoring the sentries at the coal-and store-sheds along Prairie Avenue . This was a sharply cold night , and very dark , but equally still . It was between twelve and one o'clock -- nearer one than twelve -- as he climbed the hill on his homeward way , and , instead of taking the short cut , turned northward and struck for the gloomy mass of sheds dimly discernible some forty yards from the crest . He had heard other officers speak of the fact that Mr. Hayne 's lights were burning until long after midnight , and that , dropping in there , they had found him seated at his desk with a green shade over his eyes , studying by the aid of two student-lamps ; `` boning to be a general , probably , '' was the comment of captains of Buxton 's calibre , who , having grown old in the service and in their own ignorance , were fiercely intolerant of lieutenants who strove to improve in professional reading instead of spending their time making out the company muster-rolls and clothing-accounts , as they should do . Buxton wanted to see for himself what the night-lights meant , and was plunging heavily ahead through the darkness , when suddenly brought to a stand by the sharp challenge of the sentry at the coal-shed . He whispered the mystic countersign over the levelled bayonet of the infantryman , swearing to himself at the regulation which puts an officer in such a `` stand-and-deliver '' attitude for the time being , and then , by way of getting square with the soldier for the sharply military way in which his duty as sentry had been performed , the captain proceeded to catechise him as to his orders .