midnight
The store-keeper culled the choicest fragments from every version , strung them together with a narrative of his own fertile invention , polished off the tale by a few rehearsals in his home , and then placed his product on the open market . The very first day he kept the store-room well filled from dawn until dark . And this was the creation to which Lee Haines had to listen , impatient , sifting the chaff from the grains of truth . Down upon Alder , exactly at midnight , had ridden a cavalcade headed by that notorious , half-legendary man-slayer , Dan Barry -- Whistling Dan . While his crew of two-score hardened ruffians held the doors and the windows with leveled rifles , Barry had entered with a gun and a wolf -- a wild wolf , and had butchered ten men , wantonly . To add to the mystery , there was no motive of robbery for the crime . One sweeping visitation of death , and then the night-riders had rushed away .