four o'clock in the afternoon
And the sooner we set off from here , the sooner we will meet at the appointed town . '' `` When the war 's over , '' remarked Macgreggor , `` you can earn a fortune on the stage . '' Half an hour later the four Northerners had taken a grateful farewell of the unsuspecting Mrs. Page , and were hurrying along the bank of the Tennessee . By four o'clock in the afternoon they had reached a point directly opposite Chattanooga . Here they found a ferryman , just as they had been given to expect , with his flat `` horse-boat '' moored to the shore . He was a fat , comfortable-looking fellow , as he sat in tailor-fashion on the little wharf , smoking a corncob pipe as unconcernedly as though he had nothing to do all day but enjoy tobacco . Watson approached the man .